The Shores of Tripoli

by James L. Haley

  We called at Algiers to deposit the new consul there, Mr. Lear, late personal secretary to President Washington, and we surveyed conditions at Tunis and Tripoli. There we were informed of the willingness of the Two Sicilies to contribute to the war—gunboats, supplies, men—but we had to come to Naples to fetch them.

  A boat came out to us from the American consul, a Mr. Barton, and his wife, inviting the officers to dinner. I know this gave some pause to the commodore, for when the last squadron was here under Morris, they did little else but attend dinner parties, and Mr. Preble is anxious to leave a better mark. But I do not believe that Mr. Preble’s reputation could be made to suffer by indulging in some society, certainly not after his being praised by Nelson himself. Our party was the commodore, the surgeon, the chaplain, and myself. I went in my capacity as the commodore’s aide, but by seniority he should have taken his first lieutenant, so I hope it causes no resentment.

  The consul’s house we would not call a palace, but it is very grand by our standards, steps of marble, floors of wood laid in the most imaginative parquet, and most brilliantly colored rugs. We had almost commenced with the first course (for society here is so polite that they eat in stages) when a messenger pounded on the door, with the intelligence that we were about to be honored with an informal visit from Their Majesties, thus dinner was delayed a few moments. The king is a great lover of ships and the sea—he had seen our frigate enter the harbor and anchor, and lost no time to gratify his curiosity. So they dined with us most readily.

  The queen is Maria Carolina, poor, unhappy woman, the sister of the Austrian emperor. How strange to think of a queen as unhappy, for not everyone will feel sorry for a queen. After Their Majesties retired, Mrs. Barton related to us that it is well known that the king and queen do not love each other, and that she married him out of a sense of duty, her brother desiring an alliance with the Sicilies. One suspects that this duty must not be altogether disagreeable, for indeed she has given him eighteen children. Half of them have died before the age of five, as related by Mrs. Barton, so that does excite a great natural pity for her.

  Her sister was Marie Antoinette, who lost her head in Paris a number of years ago. Therefore the queen despises anything French, and anywhere two or more people can be found plotting against Napoleon, there will she be, in spirit if not in person (but, I hear, often in person). That she finances many schemes herself I do not doubt, for even though she and her husband have waged a ruinously expensive war against the Bonapartes, they maintain themselves in a luxury that you would find fantastical, and of which I hope your stout New England sensibility would disapprove. To dinner the queen wore a necklace of diamonds and rubies, the smallest of which were the size of cooked beans, all cleverly cut, and they flashed like fire. I think, Miss Marsh, of your own inclination toward charity, and I wonder, if the queen shortened her necklace by two inches, if she could feed the poor of Naples for—what—a year?

  And then there is her husband. The Sicilian king, called Ferdinand III, is a disreputable sneak of an old man who invades Naples to get his throne back every time the French are defeated, and flees every time they win a victory. The last time he ran away it was his good fortune to have Lord Nelson in the harbor, and the whole royal family escaped smoothly on the Vanguard, 74 guns. Also he is the most famously ugly man—set aside king—on the continent, and his nose is of such a dimension that when he sneezes, it must be heard from Gela to Palermo, and probably sets Mount Aetna into eruption.

  Curiously, this awful man made us feel perfectly at home. You see, according to Mr. Barton, he was never meant to be king, for he was a third son. But the old king’s eldest son became imbecile, the second son left to become king of Spain, and that left poor Ferdinand, whose education had been neglected. He had been left to grow up on the wharves with the fishermen and their wives. He learned to love hunting and fishing and gambling, and, let us say, other sports—in Connecticut he could not be elected alderman. Yet he became king at the age of eight, and his prime minister, a man whose cleverness never bent toward virtue, further ignored the king’s education to keep power in his own hands. The queen bye and bye got rid of him because, as she thought, if anyone was to control the king, it must be she—ah! Such a nest of intrigues you never saw, and how it makes me thank God for our own revolution, that we threw off kings and their trappings. And just think if our cause had failed, what we would have, King George being now famously lunatic.

  But I lost my story—that will not help you get published. The king made us feel welcome, because he grew up having no royal manners. The people call him by two names: One is Il Nasone (for the obvious reason), and the other is Il Lazzarone, because he spent his youth among Neapolitan peasants. So his manner is thoroughly hearty, and so lacking in court etiquette—and thus does not require it of others—that you would think him a boor even at one of Miss Pierce’s socials. His humor is crude but warm-hearted; he belches and he swears. And forgive my telling you this, but I must, for Mr. Barton nearly fell out of his chair trying to relate it—when hosting guests in the royal palace, if the king farts, he then scolds his dogs. He has done this for so long that now, whenever he breaks wind, the poor dogs run under chairs, thinking they have done something wrong, and guests in the room actually believe that one of the dogs has done the thing—or else are wise enough to pretend it.

  There. Now I fear I have done it, pray do not be offended. The only way to refine such a letter to be suitable for a young lady’s eyes would be to leave out those things that give shape and edge and blood to the world. I do not perceive that you are cut from that cloth, nor that this is what you would want of me. Am I wrong? If I am wrong, I do not fear that you will be too shy to tell me so.

  Also at this dinner we learned somewhat of the enemy we are to fight, the bashaw of Tripoli, and against such a heathen prince it would thrill any Christian sailor to give battle. We have seen to our business in Tangiers and Algiers and Tunis, which leaves our principal foe, Tripoli, to face us alone. It may take some time to teach this beastly miscreant a lesson. Therefore, if you agree to respond to this, as I warmly hope you will, you may address it to me in care of the United States Consul in Naples.

  We ourselves make for Syracuse in the morning—the king, whatever criticisms one may otherwise level at him, is proving a great friend, and supplying us with gunboats, mortars, powder, &c., to aid in the fight. He does not keep his main naval strength in Naples, as there is too much danger from Bonaparte, but he declares we shall find all ready for us in Syracuse—ah, that famous ancient city, my anticipation at seeing it, after so much reading about it, is such that I fear I shall wander the streets searching out the house of Archimedes, when of course it must have crumbled to dust centuries ago! One hears that there is little left of the city, which indeed is why the commodore chose it. Palermo or Messina have many more comforts, but he equates this with distractions for officers and crew, and he prefers that our thoughts stay constant upon our duty.

  This letter is sent with the best wishes for your health and happiness, from

  Your very affectionate servant,

  Bliven Putnam, Lieut., U.S.N.

  • • •

  THEY STOOD OUT FOR SYRACUSE the next morning, south-southeast under full sail; the sun was setting just as they raised Stromboli, which was a stroke of luck, for the dull glow that issued from its crater warned them clear as effectively as a lighthouse. Preble began to shorten sail, as he wanted to approach the Strait of Messina at least an hour after sunup. Messina the city and the harbor lay some miles beyond the most treacherous obstacles, so he could not put in for a pilot. He accepted that the danger and the responsibility were his.

  He put Bandy at the wheel as they approached, and Bliven offered to go aloft and spot for them. “By God, thank you, Mr. Putnam, I am relieved. But be warned. Boys, the wind is with us, and as we get close it may increase perhaps threefold, for it is being forced between the mountai
ns. Be careful up there. Mr. Bandy, you must hold this course. If the whirlpool is running you will see it come up on the port bow. Putnam will call down to you when he sees it.”

  “Yes, sir, I will.”

  “But you must keep this course until you could piss your pants. Once the straits open up on your right, you must make a starboard turn and come due west until you are further instructed.

  “Look lively now, Putnam.”

  Going aloft was not Bliven’s favorite thing. He did not have the deadly dread of heights that some men have, but the combination of height and roll and the sight of men reduced to the size of monkeys on the deck was an ill combination in his mind. But he must not think about it. He mounted the netting and climbed the ratlines, carefully and one at a time but not in a frightened way, to the fighting foretop, then out to the side and up the second ratline to the foremast crow’s nest. In it he found a ruddy young sailor whom he barely knew. “Well, we could be in for quite a ride the next hour,” he said.

  “Yes, sir, Lieutenant, that’s what I hear.”

  “You game for it?”

  “I am if you are, sir.”

  “Good man.” Good man, indeed, thought Bliven. He was not about to admit how glad he was for company up here. Alone he might lose his nerve, but he had learned never to do so in front of the men. “What is your name?”

  “Harrison, sir.”

  “Well, Harrison, here we go.”

  With his sharpest observation, Bliven could barely make out the tree line on the Calabrian coast dead ahead, when he discerned turbulence well ahead off the port bow. He raised his glass, and only in the magnification did he see it, a great spinning black hole in the sea, and he saw it just as he felt the ship lurch ahead in the compression of wind and current behind them. Of all the things he had seen since he had gone to sea, this was the only one that truly frightened him, truly turned his bowels to water as he witnessed the mighty power of the ocean. Gripping the handrail, he shouted down, “Whirlpool! Two points off the port bow!”

  “How far?” shouted Preble.

  “A mile and a half!” At least he hoped it was that far. He looked to his right, praying to see the Sicilian coast open away and give them room to turn. He could see it ahead, but a turn now would ground them.

  “A point to starboard, Mr. Bandy,” said Preble. “We can give it a little more room.”

  “One point to starboard, aye, sir.”

  A minute and a half later they heard Bliven shout down again. “Turbulent water, one thousand yards off the port bow.” Bliven looked pleadingly at the Sicilian coast and saw it recede, showing blue water off the starboard bow. He spun back to his left; he needed no glass now to see the black whirlpool sucking an endless spin of water down into its depths. “Whirlpool! One mile off the port bow!”

  “Start your turn, Mr. Bandy, gently.”

  “Aye, sir.” Sam’s expression never betrayed any emotion, yet he gave himself away.

  “I said gently, Mr. Bandy, you’ll have us on the rocks.”

  “Aye, sir.” He stopped the wheel in a fifteen-degree starboard turn, squeezing the blood from his fingers before he would turn any sharper.

  Sam had determined not to look but could not help himself. Even without the benefit of being aloft, he could see it, heaving piles of foam for more than a thousand yards before the whirl sucked them down.

  “Steady, Mr. Bandy.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Preble watched the Sicilian shore recede. “Very well, thirty degrees starboard turn, Mr. Bandy, come to due west.”

  “Thank Christ, sir!”

  It took Preble so by surprise that he bellowed out laughing and couldn’t stop, until at length he coughed and grabbed his stomach. “Mr. Putnam, come down from there!”

  “Aye, sir! Well, Harrison, I thank you for your company.” Only then did he notice the sailor’s eyes shut tight, his knees shaking, his very white hands gripping the handrail. “Harrison!”

  “Sir?”

  “It’s all right, we’re through.” Suddenly Bliven was glad that Lieutenant Sterett was no longer around. He would probably have hanged the boy.

  On his way to gunboats being gathered in Syracuse, Preble had little desire to stop in Messina, but put in long enough to see if any of his ships happened to be there and was surprised to see Nautilus undergoing minor repairs. He sent word to Somers to follow him to Syracuse when he was able, and pressed on. It was seventy miles, and propelled by the shooting winds through the strait and four-knot current, they reached it by dusk, discovering the Enterprise already there. Bliven took great pleasure in seeing her again, now under Isaac Hull, but was glad to be serving where he now was.

  He had made it a habit to be on deck whenever they entered a port that was new to him, and as they passed over the breakwater into the harbor of Syracuse, he squinted into the sunset and tried to imagine where the fortress would have been, from where Archimedes beamed his deadly mirrors down on the Roman fleet. Fitting, he thought, that he should ponder this while shielding his eyes from such a glare. He retired early, for he had drawn the next day’s morning watch, and he did not see Nautilus follow them into the harbor and anchor next to Enterprise.

  • • •

  THEY WERE NOW WELL INTO AUTUMN, and the chill was pronounced. Bliven was on the quarterdeck, coffee already within him—gratefully, for the cold made him sleepy—to start his watch. At six bells, the sun just rising over a still Ionian Sea, the quiet was shattered by two pistol shots that echoed across the bay. He judged the general direction, pulled out his glass, and saw six men on the shore, just outside the city walls. He made out a navy cutter pulled up onto the beach, and he no sooner determined that they must be fighting a duel than Preble came boiling up from below.

  “Give me that.” He yanked the glass from Bliven’s hand and peered through it intently. Even as he squinted, the morning quiet was split by the cracks of two more shots, and he saw one of them fall. “God damn it, I knew it, I knew it!” He spun around. “Bosun!”

  “Sir?”

  “Get the longboat and rowers into the water. Mark over there by the city wall? Bring those officers to me without delay. If one of them is dead, bring me his body! Take the lieutenant of marines with you and disarm them.”

  Bliven was relieved for the forenoon watch but stayed on deck as the longboat returned and he lowered the boarding ladder for them. Stephen Decatur, who now commanded the Enterprise, came up first, then others; last among them was the famously devout Richard Somers from the Nautilus. There was a bloodstained patch at his right hip, on which he limped heavily, and a large bloody bandage compressed his upper right arm. Johnson, the commodore’s clerk, saw them coming and rapped on the sea cabin door to announce them; they filed in without pausing.

  All Bliven heard for the next quarter-hour was the thunder of Preble’s rage: “God damn it, Somers, you were going to fight them all? You epic idiot, you prince of fools! Were you not aware that Decatur is the best shot with a pistol in the navy?”

  “Apparently not that good, sir. It was Lieutenant Decatur that wounded me in the hip; he hit nothing vital.”

  “Why, you goddamned gull, that is his signature! Every man he has ever dueled he has shot in the ass! And you, Decatur, remove the smile from your dainty face or I will do it for you! Decatur, you of all people, sir! Your first tour was cut short when we had to send you home after your little altercation with that British officer. Damn you, you are a good fighter and you can be a good officer, sir, but your lack of self-control is costing us your services!”

  “If I may, sir.” Decatur reached into a waistcoat pocket. “A copy of my letter to Lieutenant Somers, attesting my regard for him, apologizing for any words that were meant only in fun, and urging him to reconsider his determination to fight me, or the gentlemen who had moved him to think it proper to challenge them all.”

&nb
sp; He laid the letter on Preble’s desk, but the commodore did not pick it up. “Nevertheless, you fought him! And you, Somers, why was this not good enough for you?”

  “A man can only be pushed so far,” swelled Somers. “Their abuse had—”

  “Oh, shut up!” shouted Preble. “Anything you can say I have heard fifty times before from others. God damn ye! The enemy is out there, not in here! I tell you, if this incident is ever, ever repeated, I care not who is at fault, or who challenges, who accepts, who the seconds are, all involved will be dismissed from the service and cast off in the nearest port, so help me God. Do you hear me!”

  Bliven heard an echo of “Yes, sir.”

  “Each of you is fined one month’s pay. Now, get this man below and see what Cutbush can do for him.”

  They filed out, neglecting to close the cabin door. “God!” Bliven heard Preble explode within. “God! Why do I suffer these people?”

  14.

  PILLARS OF FIRE

  Autumn 1804–Spring 1805

  Amid the fury of his berating the lieutenants over their duel-fest, Preble did not notice Decatur lay a sheaf of papers on his desk. It was only after relieving himself from the stern walk, sending for a glass of milk, and gathering himself for a few moments that he organized the weeks of dispatches.

  The most troubling was from Oliver Hazard Perry, a lieutenant on the Adams when she called at Gibraltar to transport Richard Morris and his family home. A British sloop, the Phaedra, anchored only a hundred yards off her bow, and during the course of the night enticed five of Adams’s crew to jump overboard, desert, and swim to the British vessel. None were recovered, and once again the civilian authorities in Gibraltar were either powerless to affect the situation or were in sympathy with it. In any case, the question had to be posed whether such harassment was a new British policy, and how that would affect America’s conduct of the war.