Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra and Maria la Bailadora and Father Anselm.

This good Father:

... grabbed a scimitar from a fallen Turk ... and started swinging ...

Workaday heroes at the Battle of Lepanto.

That:

"... furious, bloody between Pope Pius V's Holy League fleet and Admiral Ali Pasha's superior Turkish force..."

Sunday, October 7, 1571.

Snippet from Michael D. Hull's article "Lepanto -- Triumph of Faith." In the Latin Mass magazine. Spring 2011.

"When Father Anselm spotted a group of fierce Turks scrambling aboard his galley, he sprang into action.

"He grabbed a scimitar from a fallen Turk, and started swinging.

"By the time he realized what he'd done, seven Moslem soldiers lay at his feet.

"Inspired by his action, the Christians drove the rest of the Turks off the galley.

"Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra served aboard the Marquesa, which was engaged in the thick of the action.

"Although ill with fever, he gallantly wielded his sword and was the first to leap on to one of the Turkish galleys.

"He received three gunshot wounds, one of which permanently maimed his left hand.

"This was, he said, to the greater glory of the right.

"Another Spanish hero of the battle turned out to be a woman disguised as a harquebusier aboard the flagship Real.

"She was Maria la Bailadora, there because she did not want to be parted from the soldier she loved.

"When grappling irons held the two opposing flagships fast and a boarding party scrambled on to the Sultana, the young woman leapt nimbly on to the enemy deck and killed a Turk with a single sword thrust.

"She was later rewarded by being allowed to stay in her regiment ..."

Good stories! :)