Free The Archer's Marines: The First Marines - Medieval fiction action story about Marines, naval warfare, and knights after King Richard's crusade in Syria, ... times (The Company of Archers Book 5) by Martin Archer Page B

galleys with us.  Every prize crew, so every prize crew’s sergeant claims, is ready and anxious to fight their way on to an Algerian galley and take it off the beach.  Then, God willing, they’ll sail them on to Malta and Cyprus and we’ll all be rich. 
           It’s the job of me and my Marines to use our longbows to keep the heathen far away from our prize crews while they either take or burn all the pirate galleys nosed in along the beach.  Only when the prize crews finish will Henry give the word and we’ll rush back to our own galleys and row them away to safety.
           As you might imagine, we want our prize crews to cut their prizes out and get away quickly before the heathen bastards begin to fight back.  But it’s good luck to the Moors if they want to fight.  We’ll each be carrying a bale of longs and we know how to use them.
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           I am standing here in the bow next to Little Ralph the fisherman, the big sergeant of my galley’s sailors.  At the moment we’re rowing up to the beach and many of my Marines are still on the rowing benches.   Ralph and I are particularly looking for Tunisian galleys that are merely nosed into the beach next to the dock and still floating - so one of our prize crews can quickly push it off the beach and climb aboard to kill any Moors we find and start the slaves to rowing it out of the harbor and on to Malta. 
           If a galley doesn’t have slaves to row it to Malta, the prize crew is supposed to push it off into the water and go look for one that does.  Later, if we have time, we’ll tow out those we find without slave rowers when we leave.
           “Over there.  Put us in there,” I hear Little Ralph shout over my shoulder to his rudder man as he points to a string of galleys that are nosed into the shore.
           “Stand by to back oars” …… “back oars.”
           There is a grinding noise for a couple of seconds as the bow of our hull begins to come over the sands and pebbles of the beach.  The jolt of the hull hitting the shore almost throws me off my feet – and certainly saves the heathen who is running towards the beached galleys from the arrow I was about to launch.  His reprieve is only temporarily - Sweaty Bill puts a shaft through him just as I begin to push out my bow for a shot.  So I adjust my aim and put a long into the heathen running behind him.  Then I leap over the front deck railing and into the knee deep water. 
           “Good luck, John,” I hear Little Ralph shout as I begin sloshing my way up to the beach.
           Even before we finish coming to a stop there are great cheers and shouts and about half the men on the deck, the men of my galley’s seven prize crews, begin to leap over the rail on either side of me to wade ashore and go for the galleys.  Every prize crew sergeant is a volunteer because a promotion to be the sergeant captain of his own ship is on offer if he and his crew get their prize to Cyprus.  The men who didn’t get selected to lead prize crews are jealous of them and rightly so.  It’s a good thing to be a prize captain and I ought to know; I was one and that’s why I’m here in command of the galley I took out of Algiers last year.
           There are six men in each of our prize crews going for galleys – four sailors and two archers.  The sailors are carrying ships’ shields and either swords or pikes; the two archers long bows and quivers.  One sailor in each prize crew is carrying a bundle of twigs and a lantern to fire them if they come across a galley they cannot take because it has neither slaves to row it nor can be pushed out into the water to be towed
           “Marines follow me.” I shout as I jump in the water and repeat the call I’d practiced so many times on the bank of the River Fowey.
           My Marines pour up from the rowing benches, pause from a split second to grab up a bundle of