There was no sense postponing it. “I’d better go below and tell the general. Fish me out if he throws me overboard.”
He found Eaton in the wardroom, his hand freshly bandaged, drinking a cup of coffee that the surgeon had spiked with rum. “Mr. Putnam,” he acknowledged.
“General, how is your hand?”
“Well, I shall bear a scar, like the great Captain Cook, but it will not be any debility. How was your excursion?”
“Very educational, sir, and I am glad to see you better. Sir, I—”
“Have some coffee, Putnam.”
“Thank you, sir, I will.” He poured himself a cup, half wishing also for a shot of rum in it, but he did not ask. “Sir, I have just spoken with Lieutenant Perry; new orders have arrived.”
“Bearing upon our mission?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, let’s see them. Are those the orders in your hand?”
“Yes, sir. I feel first I should say—”
“Nonsense, hand them to me.”
Bliven did as he was bidden, unable to think how to soften the blow. He rose and paced the wardroom nervously as Eaton read slowly, and then a second time more slowly. Even in the dim lamps of the wardroom he saw the color drain from Eaton’s face.
“No,” murmured Eaton. “This cannot be.” He looked up vacantly. “We are ordered to abandon the march to Tripoli. They have made a peace with Yusuf. Hamet Pasha they are cutting loose; he is to return to Egypt. This is impossible.”
“Sir, who are the orders from?”
Eaton looked again at the last page. “Commodore Barron in Malta. The treaty was concluded by Tobias Lear. I do not understand; he was the one who cleared the way for us to make this expedition. This is impossible.”
With a sick feeling Bliven remembered all that he sensed about Lear, and believed that he did understand, all too well.
Eaton began almost physically to swell. “This is outrageous. I spent a fortune. I made promises on the honor of the United States. I—”
Bliven could see his rage rising like magma in a volcano, and wished to stem it. “Sir, how will you ever tell Hamet Pasha?”
“Oh, good God. Do we still have people ashore? Tell Lieutenant Perry he must get them onto the ships at once. If any are still ashore when Hamet finds out he has been so foully double-crossed, they won’t live for ten seconds.”
“I will see to it at once.” Bliven clattered up the ladder, thankful to be away from Eaton’s stricken presence. “Mr. Perry”—Bliven found him still on the quarterdeck—“General Eaton urgently recommends that you recall any of our people who are still onshore. If they are there when the news breaks—”
“Thank you, Mr. Putnam. I have already sent a boat for them. This eventuality was mentioned in my own orders. It was foreseen that Hamet Pasha might receive word of this before we did ourselves.”
“No”—Bliven shook his head—“he had not at the time I left him.” He started suddenly. “Your own orders? From whom?”
Perry blinked in surprise. “Why, from Commodore Barron, of course.”
Bliven nodded in slow recognition. So Barron was part of it. Well, once he picked up the consul and his daughter from Algiers, at least he must go to Naples. Preble would still be in Naples, and he could condole with him there.
Bliven returned to the wardroom, thinking that someone had considered this move and its ramifications very carefully, someone who could foresee likely consequences, and it was Tobias Lear’s catlike smile in his mind’s eye when he regained the wardroom. “All the Americans ashore are already being rounded up; they will be aboard shortly, General.”
Bliven resumed his chair to offer his silent support, for truly there were no words to offer, when Eaton spoke suddenly. “I must write a letter to Hamet Pasha. Our lives would not be worth two pennies if he sees us again.”
Bliven found Eaton’s letter box in his baggage and set out paper and ink and pen for him. “Can you write, General?”
“Yes, yes, thank you. I can hold the pen adequately.”
“What can you tell him?”
Eaton sighed deeply, chose careful and marked words, and spoke slowly. “Abandoning an ally, whom you have induced to rely on you, after he has set you in a place of advantage, is the oldest trick in Arab diplomacy. He will recognize it instantly. He will be shocked, only because he did not think us so sophisticated.” His eyes met Bliven’s with deep pain. “Nor did I. Nor did I.”
Eaton had not yet dipped his pen in the well when both jumped as they felt the concussion and then heard cannon fire, not on this ship but close, six-pounders, by the sound of them, then a shouted order to beat to quarters, the drum tattoo and the thunder of men scrambling to their posts, unlashing and rolling out guns, men struggling up the ladder with tubs of water and linstock matches already lit.
Bliven and Eaton exchanged astonishment. “Maybe all was spoken too soon,” said Eaton, and they hurried up the ladder to the quarterdeck. At once they saw the cause: The ships were obscured by the length of the mole, but they could tell from the rigging that raced by, a small brig flying Tripolitan red and yellow stripes, trying to run into the harbor, hotly engaged by the Hornet and with the Argus bearing down at her best speed.
Eaton and Bliven went straight to Perry. “She has no idea we’re here,” said Perry. There was no time to weigh the anchor, and he ordered it cut loose, and he commanded the bosun to set topsails and jibs. She gained some little steerage as soon as the sails filled, and they heard another exchange of broadsides from the other side of the mole.
Perry brought her about. “Mr. Andrews,” he roared to his second lieutenant, “she will turn sharp into the harbor as soon as she’s clear. Meet her with the port broadside before she knows we’re here. Fire at my command when I turn.”
“Aye, sir!”
Perry made eastward toward the end of the mole, and once he saw the Tripolitan’s bowsprit become visible entering the harbor he made a sharp starboard turn, bringing his port guns to bear on her at a hundred yards before she could take any evasive action. “Fire!” Nautilus’s half-dozen port six-pounders roared to life, and at least two of her balls struck home, for a second later they saw chunks of wood fly into the air from the brig, but too far away to see how much damage they had wrought.
It hardly mattered. With two American schooners closing on his port quarter and now another on his starboard beam, and seeing an American flag flying from the Derna fortress, the Tripolitan collapsed his sails and ran up a white flag.
At first Bliven thought, I’ve seen that before, but this was a different circumstance from his encounter with the Tripoli. Further resistance here was not just futile but suicidal, and the question became moot when she dropped her anchor and her men appeared on deck with their hands in the air.
“Bosun, rig an anchor!”
“Already done, sir.” They looked forward and saw a line secured through a clot of cast-iron kentledge brought up from the bilges. It would not hold in a strong tide, but it would do for now. The bosun had smartly prepared to drop it over the starboard side, out of the Tripolitans’ view.
“Let go your anchor.” It took out thirty feet of line before it slackened and they tied it off. The last question of their intentions was answered when Perry got his cutter down filled with marines, and at its approach every last one of the Tripolitan crew dove into the water and swam for the mole.
The marines boarded the ship cautiously, but after searching it minutely signaled that it was abandoned. They took command of a ghost ship; Perry went over with his bosun’s mate and Bliven. They rounded her stern and saw her name, Sameera, painted in English and Arabic. “Mr. Putnam,” said Perry, “it is my duty to send you to Algiers, and I cannot spare one of my own ships. As senior officer in command, I declare this ship a prize of war.”
“But the war is over.”
“They didn’t know that. And they fired on us. I declare this ship a prize of war, I name her the United States Ship”—he thought for a moment—“Defender, and I place you in command. Sheffield, my boson’s mate, will act as your bosun. You will accept volunteers for a prize crew. You may have one man in four from my crew and the crews of Argus and Hornet, when they join us. You will sail for Algiers as soon as possible, I would hope in the morning. Do you understand?”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
They boarded the brig. Mr. Sheffield, acting bosun, was an extraordinarily tall and lanky Englishman with a heavy influence of Nordic from his mother’s side. They inspected and found the damage inflicted was purely superficial. It was below, in the hold, where they found themselves shocked almost silent.
“There are enough arms here to start a revolution,” breathed Bliven. Braces of muskets, kegs of powder, swords, all of the latest manufacture. How lucky that they had not landed damaging shots on her; she could have blown herself and them to atoms. “Do you wish to offload them, Mr. Perry?”
“No, take the cargo intact to the commodore in Naples. I will report its presence; they can decide what disposition to make of it.”
Bliven had no trouble finding volunteers to go to Algiers, for with that assignment came the prospect of an earlier arrival at Naples, with light duty until their schooners could reclaim them, and who knew when that might be? He also took six marines under a corporal, a swarthy youth of nineteen named Jones.
From Derna it was eight hundred miles west by north just to round Cap Bon, and then another four hundred miles due west to Algiers. Much of it he fought ahead at about four knots in only a marginally favorably wind, and it took ten days to reach their destination. He felt more in command as these days passed, and lacking Sam’s navigational skills, he was meticulous in skirting the hazards of Malta and Pantelleria, and the many islets and submerged rocks that spiked the capes of Tunis.
He felt not just relieved but accomplished when he stood into the bay of Algiers in a shimmering late afternoon, proceeding in until he could view the long stretch of arches of the bagnios, as he wanted to get an idea of the number of prisoners who left every morning for slave labor and returned stooped in the evenings. He considered firing a gun as a signal to bring the consul out, but at last report Lear was in Tripoli, working his dark magic.
He decided at length that it was just as well to call at the palace in the morning, present his orders in a businesslike manner, and fetch Barnes and his daughter, for all had been agreed already.
• • •
NEXT MORNING he was up before the sun, leaning on the rail, watching for signs of life in the bagnios, which when it came he counted about a hundred prisoners mustered and marched off. He thought of the nearly a year that Bainbridge and his crew had been held in Tripoli; they were now to taste freedom again, but these had surely been here longer.
The Sameera, now the Defender, had no craft larger than a jolly boat, which he had lowered, and it was rowed to the quay by the bagnios. He and Corporal Jones had made themselves as presentable as possible, and he decided to loiter a bit at the head of the quay to see if anyone came to meet them, for once they headed into the tangle of streets, of which no one seemed more important than another, they would be easier to miss than find. After twenty minutes and growing more anxious, he finally inclined his head to the corporal and they headed up toward the casbah and the palace. They saw few people in the streets, but he could not determine if that was significant.
When they reached the palace entrance they knew they had been noticed, for Jonah the black chamberlain was waiting for them at the portal. “Lieutenant—”
“Putnam.” He saluted. “This is Corporal Jones, United States Marines.”
“We were not expecting visitors,” said Jonah. “Are there others coming?”
“No, we are the whole delegation, I’m afraid.”
“I do not understand.”
“Is Mr. Lear still in Tripoli?”
“He is,” Jonah answered. “Your consulate is vacant at present.”
“You are familiar with the terms of the general agreement between the United States and the Barbary powers?”
“Intimately.”
“Then it will not surprise you that we have come for our consul to the Two Sicilies, Mr. Barnes, and his daughter, and any sundry American prisoners which you still hold. Your master agreed in this convention to release them.”
“It is not in my power to let you have them.”
“May we have an audience with the dey?”
“I doubt that he will see you.”
Bliven folded his arms truculently, a posture unusual for him, but he had practiced it when alone in his cabin, with the added affect of cocking his head to one side. “Mr. Jonah, it is my duty to carry out the orders I have been assigned, and my government will take a very dim view indeed of obstacles being thrown in my way at this late date. Now Tripoli and Derna are nearly destroyed, and that war is over. Do you really want the entire American fleet in your harbor to have to collect these few people? Does your master really want to look down the barrels of two hundred guns? If they come here, does he think they will not use them?”
It took several seconds, but they could see Jonah’s resolve crumble. “Very well, follow me. I will see what I can do.”
Bliven and Jones waited for a quarter of an hour in the drawing room with the mahogany furniture before Jonah came back for them. “His Highness has graciously consented to an audience, but I warn you, he is not pleased.”
Jonah led them back to the limestone courtyard he remembered, overlooked from the fourth floor by the wooden lattice balcony that he knew now must be the dey’s harem. Led into the dey’s presence, they removed their hats and saluted.
“Am I of so little account now that they send a lieutenant and a corporal to speak to me?” demanded Mustapha. “I will not speak to less than a captain!”
“Your Highness,” Bliven said, bowing slightly, “let me assure you that no disrespect was intended by detailing me to make this journey.” He started to say that the senior officers were much occupied with the conduct of the war, but quickly realized that would make it sound like they were too busy for him, and it would make matters worse. “Perhaps they were aware that Your Highness seemed pleased with me on our last visit.”
“My lions were pleased with you.”
“Yes, sir. Your Highness, my government has sent me to recover Mr. Barnes and his daughter, and sundry other American prisoners that you may hold, as provided in the treaty lately agreed to by Your Highness.”
“I see. And, Lieutenant, it has come to our notice that your government has agreed to pay my vassal, the bashaw of Tripoli, a sum of sixty thousands of dollars to end the war. As I am his superior, I have the honor to demand one hundred thousand dollars for the release of your citizens.”
“Your Highness, I have no knowledge of such a provision in the treaty, but I was informed that the release of our consul and the others Your Highness has already agreed to.”
The dey stood angrily. “Of course you have no knowledge, you are a mere lieutenant. Go back, tell them to send someone of authority to deal with me, someone who will agree to my terms—or, perhaps, appoint a new consul to the court of the Two Sicilies.”
Though he was angry, it was impossible for Bliven not to notice the old man’s frailty as he descended his dais and glared at him and Jones. “My chamberlain tells me that you threaten to bring your entire fleet if I do not meet your demands.”
“Not our demands, sire, only the terms that you agreed to.”
“Why are these two people so very important to you?” the dey demanded petulantly.
“Because that is our creed, sire, that no one should be unjustly imprisoned. As Americans we believe that every life has value, that God gives every man the freedom to pursue the best destin
y he can make for himself. Perhaps that is the difference between our way of life and yours.”
The dey’s head snapped back, his eyes like dark embers framed in the voluminous white of his hair and beard, and Bliven realized he had said too much. He wondered if maybe now he and Jones would join those already in the bagnios.
“Ah, Lieutenant,” the dey said at last with a sigh. “You have become as noisy as your superiors. And equally annoying.” He turned his back and walked away, lifting a finger for the chamberlain to follow, but Jonah first shot them a look over his shoulder of such undifferentiated emotion that Bliven was left wondering what it was he meant to convey.
They were left to find their own way out, but without an escort they were free to talk, and cast about for a solution. Bliven’s thoughts kept centering on their hold full of muskets and powder, and the hundred American prisoners in the bagnios. If they could find a way to liberate and arm the captives at night, perhaps they could storm the palace and free the consul and his daughter before the barracks could respond.
• • •
AT TEN THAT NIGHT, Bliven had lain down in his berth, wondering just as sleep stole over him whether the old dey was puzzling over what the Americans might do, if he felt vulnerable at all at this state of affairs. He started awake when he heard the watch shout a challenge, and he heard the small, hollow thump-thump of a small boat tying up to the boarding ladder. He was on his feet and in his boots before two sharp knocks rattled his door. “Enter.” He smiled at himself, for he had said it like Preble, without meaning to.
“Lieutenant, sir”—it was one of the marines—“this Negro gentleman has come aboard and requests to speak to you.”
“Have him come in.”
Jonah entered, wrapped in a black cloak, shod in soft slippers. “Lieutenant Putnam, I hope you will forgive my intrusion.”
“If you will forgive my surprise.”
Jonah smiled tightly. “Understandable. Lieutenant, you spoke very boldly to my lord today. No one has ever said such things to him. He was furious.”
The Shores of Tripoli Page 34
