“Yes, that is remarkable,” said Davies. “A good man, indeed.”
“Yes, but I must save his fate for later, for it does not end well for him, I’m afraid.”
Fallon then went on to describe the pirates’ attack off the Bahamas and Cully’s grenados that sent them scurrying back to their hole. Next, the snow squalls and the attack on the French frigate and Beauty’s brilliant—for that was the only word for it—seamanship in bringing Rascal so close to Josephine’s stern and Cully’s enthusiastic bombardment of her rudder and tiller ropes.
Davies laughed in astonishment and clapped his hands.
“You are certainly the most intrepid captain I know, Nicholas! A frigate, by God!”
And then Fallon told him of his plan to sail with Visser to the Barbary Coast.
“You have met Caleb Visser, I collect?” asked Fallon.
“Yes, and I know about his father held in Algiers, as well. We’ll talk more about that later, Nicholas. I have someone in mind who may be of importance, in that regard. But pray continue.”
There was only the scene of Woodson’s body in the boat now, his brave clue and finding the pirates at Mona Island, just where Woodson had said they’d be. Fallon described the battle briefly, touching on the laundry and bunting, and the taking of Ceres and Céleste at some cost to Rascal.
“But there was specie aboard, so that was a salve to the wounds we suffered,” said Fallon. “And now I have a schooner to sell into the service, if you will have her.”
“Yes, of course, for I am woefully lacking in schooners and will welcome her into the service, along with Loire, which I am sure will be appraised handsomely. The prize agent has been away to England and only returned yesterday or Loire would already have been appraised. Aja did a brilliant job getting her set to rights.”
Fallon was not surprised at Davies’ enthusiasm for more ships. He could imagine the great difficulty of communicating with Royal Navy ships throughout the Caribbean, there being some ninety or so, and knew that small vessels were much prized to convey critical orders and news to them. But the dispatch vessels had to be able to defend themselves, as well, which both Céleste and Loire had the guns to do if handled well.
“But tell me, Nicholas,” said Davies, “will you have breakfast with me tomorrow so that we may continue our conversation? I fear I have kept you from your ship just as you’ve arrived. That will give me time to review my dispatches on the situation in Algeria and speak with someone who’s recently returned from there. I might invite him to breakfast, as well, for he will have information that is only a few months old.”
There was a knock at the cabin door.
“Come,” said Davies, and his steward entered with the news that Samuel Jones 2nd, Captain of Renegade, 36, was about to be piped aboard. Renegade had been on the ways for weeks getting her copper bottom cleaned and was just coming back into service.
“You remember Jones, of course,” said Davies. More a statement than a question, for who could forget the man’s bravery in fighting Coeur de France in ’98, a French ship-of-the-line many times Renegade’s size in men and metal. Coeur was anchored in an unassailable position in the harbor at Port-a-Prince when Jones took Renegade in disguised as a Spanish ship and opened fire, luring Coeur out to do battle—and into a trap. Coeur was on the bottom now, burned to the waterline, and that single battle may have saved the slave rebellion on Saint-Domingue from failure. Coeur’s sinking was famous throughout the Royal Navy, although the whole plan was Fallon’s.
“I remember him well,” said Fallon. “It will be wonderful to see him again.”
In very little time Jones was piped aboard and shown to the great cabin to present himself to his admiral and rejoice at seeing his old friend and, truth be told, his idol, Nicholas Fallon.
“May I congratulate you on being made captain, Samuel,” said Fallon. “Well deserved, I say.”
“Oh, thank you sir, thank you,” replied Jones, blushing in spite of himself. He was tall and gangly and fair-haired and blushing came easily. “But it would never have happened but for your planning, sir. Begging your pardon, Admiral Davies.”
“No, no, Jones,” responded Davies, seeing Jones’ embarrassment at giving credit elsewhere. “No, you are quite right. All credit to Captain Fallon for confounding the French.”
Jones gazed about the room a bit starstruck. He had left home at 12 to join the Royal Navy as a ship’s boy and never could have imagined that one day he would hold that most exalted of ranks, captain. His was a birthright of inferiority with humble beginnings, and now he was standing in an admiral’s cabin with the two men he admired most in the world.
“Sir,” he gathered himself to make his report to Davies. “Renegade has sent up the last of her yards and another five days should see us put back together and ready for sea.” Of course, frigate captains would want to be at sea as quickly as possible. New frigate captains, in particular.
“Very good, Jones,” replied Davies. “I will see to your orders shortly. Meanwhile, perhaps you will do me the honor of dinner aboard Renegade at your convenience. I would like to visit with your officers, some of whom I know are new.”
“Oh, sir, that would be wonderful,” said Jones. “The men will be excited and I will order the cook to lay on his best.”
They chatted amiably a few more minutes and then Jones left to return to his ship and Fallon took his leave, as well. As he was rowed to shore to meet Elinore, he thought of the stranger Davies was inviting to breakfast the next morning. He hoped he would put his mind at ease but, even as that hopeful thought came to him, he knew it was false.
THIRTY-TWO
THE NEXT MORNING BOTH LOIRE AND CÉLESTE MADE THEIR WAY TO THE prize agent’s dock where the ships would be valued and bought into service as Royal Navy dispatch vessels.
The Cruisers and Convoys Act had been enacted by Parliament in 1708 and it had survived, with minor modifications, to 1800. Privateers like Rascal generally operated under the same system, although Somers, being the ship’s owner, had his own variation in play. All prize money was allocated by eighths. Two-eighths went to the Somers Salt Company; two-eighths to Fallon as captain; one-eighth was divided amongst the officers and sailing master; one-eighth between the surgeon, carpenter, and gunnery captain; and the final two-eighths divided among the crew. It was a system everyone felt was equitable, particularly since Fallon was a lucky captain and prize money seemed to follow him.
When the prizes sailed away to the prize agent, Fallon was rowed to Davies’ flagship for breakfast. As usual, he was met cordially at the channel by Captain Kinis and escorted below to the great cabin, where Davies and a formal gentleman in waistcoat and shoes with gold buckles awaited him.
“Allow me to introduce Sir William Huntington-James, late of Gibraltar and the Levant,” said Davies. “Sir William, meet Captain Nicholas Fallon, late of Bermuda and points west. Gentlemen, please be seated, for I believe I smell breakfast on the way.”
Breakfast was indeed on the way and was served with all the silver dishes, goblets, and cutlery one would expect when dining with an admiral. There were fresh eggs in a cream sauce, a rasher of sausage, jams and marmalades and fresh bread and steaming coffee and Fallon ate as if he’d never seen food before.
“Nicholas,” said Davies, “Sir William has recently arrived from the Mediterranean and I thought he might give us his point of view on the situation with the Barbary states. He tells me it is unstable, shall we say. Sir William?”
Fallon looked at his unfamiliar breakfast companion carefully as he spoke. He was unremarkable, really, having a pallid complexion and graying hair and limpid eyes that didn’t often blink.
“I am employed as a trade representative, sir, and often find myself negotiating contracts for my clients in strange parts of the world. Mostly to do with shipping timber and coal. I am in Bermuda to evaluate the island’s cedar supply, as it were. But I have lately been in the Levant, as Admiral Davies said. Perhaps I can be o
f some small service familiarizing you with particulars of the region.”
Fallon looked at Davies, who lifted a small smile and held his gaze a moment while Sir William helped himself to more sausage. There was, in Davies’ gaze, a message and this was what it said: Sir William is not exactly who he says he is. Which to Fallon meant he was a British spy.
“Thank you, Sir William,” said Fallon. “I would be particularly interested in the harbor at Algiers and the fortifications there.” Fallon, getting right to it and testing his theory about Sir William, for there would be no reason for a businessman to have so much as an opinion about harbor defense.
Sir William looked at Fallon appraisingly, no doubt coming to the opinion that this was a fellow not to be trifled with. He got right to the point.
“It is not a large harbor, captain,” he said, “but it has a hook of land to the northwest called the Great Mole. The mole is over three hundred yards long and forms the letter J. At the tip it is well fortified, though most of the mole is only yards wide. I have counted the guns defending the city and believe there are close to 200 cannon, most 24 and 42 pounders. Ships are guided into the harbor by a pilot and made to anchor under the guns so that if there is any dispute with the dey they are, in effect, at his mercy. Since Great Britain has a treaty with the dey I don’t expect you to have a problem, but one never knows with these fellows. Lately, there have been incidents with British ships that cast doubt on Britain’s relationship with the rulers, to be sure.”
Fallon was not surprised at Sir William’s grasp of the harbor fortifications, for that was what spies were trained to do. He wondered at the man’s life, slipping in and out of cities, carrying his secrets and perhaps an identity or two, never sure of his friends. Or his enemies, come to that.
They spent the next half hour discussing specifics of wind and weather in the Mediterranean, both unstable in the extreme. As for tides, there were none, at least not to speak of, for the inlet of water from the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar was quite narrow.
Fallon’s mind memorized every detail as Sir William related it. The guns of Algiers gave him pause, of course, but he had no intention of being intimidated or putting Rascal and her crew in danger. How that was to be avoided was a good question, however.
“What can you tell me of the prison, Sir William,” Fallon asked, “and the prisoners.”
“When the corsairs take white Christians at sea there is a great celebration when the ships dock. The prisoners are housed in the lower city near the quay and eventually brought to the slave market, or bedestan, where they may be sold to anyone. But if the dey wants a specific prisoner for ransom, or perhaps for his harem or personal attendant, or for manual labor for his government, such as mining stone for the breakwater, he has first rights and must meet the highest bid. Wealthy prisoners or officers are usually held for ransom and often given lighter work. Crews and ordinary seamen and passengers are sold into a life of hardship that cannot be imagined.
“Piracy is a hard business. These reis— the Arabic for captain—are excellent sailors with an obvious streak of brutality and a total ignorance or disregard for what we would call conventional morality. That is how they keep their power. And the unfortunate beneficiaries of their ways are the poor slaves they capture. These unfortunate souls are sold to a worse fate than can be imagined. I have no idea what your fisherman is doing, of course. But we should hope he is still alive, else you are on a fool’s errand, I’m afraid.”
Sir William did not say this unkindly and, in fact, Fallon knew it was a distinct possibility that the senior Visser could not bear up under hard labor.
“Where is the dey’s palace?” asked Fallon.
“The dey keeps his palace and harem and courtiers in the qasba, a fortification at the top of the hill. The palace has a commanding view of the harbor and is heavily guarded, as well. The Algerians are great believers in guns.”
“Yes, I would say so,” said Fallon, thinking that it came from being at war for centuries on end, the “eternal war” against Christians, as he’d heard it called.
But he pushed the thought from his mind and turned the conversation, instead, to questions about the dey’s corsairs.
“The dey has some 60 corsairs who are called pirates abroad but operate more like privateers, begging your pardon. They are licensed by the dey to plunder shipping and raid countries for slaves, with the dey keeping most of the money they bring at market or in ransom. The corsair ships are mostly xebecs or captured enemy ships and they carry soldiers called janissaries. They do the boarding and hand to hand fighting and all reports are they are quite good at it. Apparently, they are noisy and terrifying and utterly fearless. The corsairs are commanded by their so-called admiral, whose flagship is Serpent, a rather large xebec with many guns and oars. His name, incidentally, is Zabana. He is Turkish and French and completely ruthless. No other reis has had his success at sea, or on land, come to that. He is very powerful and perhaps feared by the dey, in some ways.”
Fallon was thoughtful as he gazed past Sir William at the sea and sky beyond the great cabin’s stern windows. The golden morning was giving away to a brighter, whiter sunshine that promised to be warm.
“Tell me, Sir William,” he said at last, “what is the language in the Mediterranean? How does an Englishman communicate?”
“Ah, that is an excellent question,” answered Sir William. “There are too many languages! Consider that the Mediterranean is sometimes called the sea in the middle of the earth and you will understand. Captain, there are over thirty kingdoms, republics, and principalities along its shores. But there is a common language, of a sort. It is lingua franca, a sort of perversion of Italian, with some Turk, Greek, Spanish, and a bit of Portuguese thrown in for spice. It is a language of many tongues, so to speak, and is spoken by sailors, brokers, traders, and slave masters all over the Mediterranean. If you speak Spanish you will be understood well enough, I assure you. I believe even the dey speaks lingua franca.”
Davies had been quiet through most of the breakfast, but as the dishes were cleared by his steward he leaned into the table and addressed himself directly to Fallon.
“Nicholas, I am at a loss as to how to advise you, or help you in any way, which causes me great distress. And I am outraged that the British government permits these deys and sultans to rule the Mediterranean and take Christians as slaves. Why, Nelson himself was quoted in the Gazette as saying that it made his blood boil that his own country, the mightiest sea power the world has ever known, should pay a tribute to sail there. A tribute! From Great Britain! Were it up to me we would bombard Algiers until the dey surrendered and then go on to Tripoli and the rest.”
“Indeed, Admiral, it may come to that one day,” said Sir William cooly. “If Great Britain refuses to pay its tribute there will be war.”
The breakfast concluded, Fallon thanked Davies and Sir William and left to return to his ship. His small ship, smaller still on a great ocean or in a far-away harbor surrounded by more cannon than he had ever seen in one place in his life.
THIRTY-THREE
THE NEXT DAY WAS SUNDAY AND BEAUTY ORDERED A MAKE AND MEND day, which allowed Rascal’s crew to patch, darn, and wash their clothes and generally have the afternoon to themselves without having to be on duty. Fallon, however, had much to do and even more to think about.
At the top of his list was what to do with Little Eddy. The boy had been all but invisible since Loire’s prize crew had come back aboard, no doubt hoping that he would be “out of sight, out of mind.” But he was very much in Fallon’s mind and he decided to speak with Beauty, Visser, and Aja and get their thoughts. Really, he was just putting off the decision.
In fact, here was Aja at his cabin door.
“A note from Admiral Davies, captain, sir,” he said. “Just came by his gig.”
“Thank you, Aja,” said Fallon, taking the note and putting it aside for a moment. “I’ve been meaning to compliment you on your fir
st independent command in getting Loire to Bermuda and then English Harbor. And your work on setting her to rights was truly impressive. I’ve no doubt the prize agent was astounded by your efforts. It looked like the ship was taken without a shot! But, truly, your abilities belie your age, young man. Well done.”
Aja beamed, beamed like a child at Christmas seeing the toy he’d wished for, prayed for, appear with a bow. Nothing mattered more to him than Fallon’s approval and he stood awkwardly smiling now before mumbling his appreciation and shaking Fallon’s hand.
“Now, if you will be so good as to ask Beauty and Visser to join us here I’d like your collective guidance on a matter,” said Fallon, returning to the business at hand. Aja left the cabin and Fallon turned his attention to Davies’ note, which revealed an invitation to dinner aboard the flag-ship that afternoon. Besides he and Elinore, the guests were all friends: Beauty, Aja, Visser, Doctor and Señora Garón, and of course, Paloma. Now that was a dinner to look forward to, thought Fallon. There would be a vineyard’s worth of wine poured and Davies could be relied upon to have his cook lay on his best.
But here was a knock at the door and his little meeting was about to begin.
“First, we are all invited to dinner on the flagship,” he said to the group as they squeezed into the cabin and sat down around his desk. They all smiled in anticipation of the invitation and the sure knowledge that the dinner would be a feast, indeed.
“But I’ve asked you here for your counsel,” continued Fallon, turning serious. “Something must be done about Little Eddy and I would like us all to be in agreement, if possible, as to what that something is. It is black and white, I’m afraid. He either stays aboard or he is sent home on the next packet ship to Bermuda.”
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