The Shores of Tripoli

by James L. Haley

  “I realize I said too much. Won’t you sit down? I did not mean to give offense.”

  Jonah stood by the chair but was plainly too nervous to sit. “But did you mean it?”

  “Did I mean what?”

  “What you believe, that all men deserve a chance to make their own way. That every life is important. Did you mean it?”

  “I did, yes. We do not always live up to it, mind, but yes, that is the creed upon which our country was founded. It inspires us, even when we fail to achieve it.”

  Jonah unwound his cloak and Bliven saw that he was carrying a large bundle. “If I place myself in your hands, will you take me to America and deposit me in a place where there is no slavery?”

  “I am sure that can be arranged, but that would seriously complicate our talks with your master, would it not?”

  Jonah drew himself up. “He is no longer my master. Please listen.” Now he sat, and motioned for Bliven to do the same. “Do you remember your first visit, the walled garden, and the gate through which you left?”

  “Yes, very well.”

  “At this moment that gate is unlocked, as is the door to the banqueting hall. If you take that staircase all the way to the top, a corridor leads to the harem. Its door is always guarded by two eunuchs, and you would have to take care of them.”

  Bliven rose and opened the door of his cabin. “Corporal Jones, if you please,” he called out.

  He was quiet until Jones appeared. “Arouse your marines and tell them to get something to eat. Then come back here.”

  It took only a couple of minutes. “Jonah, you remember Corporal Jones.”

  “How do you do?”

  “A pleasure, I’m sure, but what the hell are you doing here?”

  “He is helping us effect an escape,” said Bliven. “Now, how many guards are there over the bagnios at night?”

  “Four.”

  “Who has the keys?”

  “The chief of the watch stays in a sentry post at the far end.”

  “Jones, if your men can overpower those guards quietly, we can release and arm the prisoners. We have at least one gun and sword for each, do we not?”

  “Yes. By God, sir, I like the way you think.”

  “Jonah, where does the consul stay?”

  “His room is directly beneath the harem, on the third floor.”

  Bliven thought hard and fast. “There must be a palace guard. What of them?”

  “Their barracks are against the fortress wall, on the other side of the palace. If you approach in secret and if you can avoid firing weapons, they may not respond at all.”

  “All right, Jones, get your marines ready, break out a hundred muskets and swords. The guards would see the jolly boat coming toward the quay—we’ll have to go to the city waterfront and make our way around.”

  “Yes, I understand,” said Jones, who saluted and disappeared.

  With Jones gone, Bliven noticed the look of gravity on Jonah’s face. “You have taken quite a step tonight, Jonah.”

  “This is the third time that I have faced the lion,” he said, nodding.

  “I do not know what you mean.”

  “When I was a child I was captured and taken to America, not knowing if I would live or die. As a young man I was captured by pirates, not knowing if I would live or die. And now you agree to take me to America, and I have no idea what fate awaits me there. When you face the unknown, you do not know how it will turn out. Or as we say, when you face the lion, you cannot know if he is hungry or not.”

  • • •

  DURING HER BORING MONTHS in the harem of Dey Mustapha, Rebecca Barnes discovered that life actually was quite unregimented. She discovered that, contrary to Western perception, the harem was not just the retreat for the potentate’s voluptuous interludes. In the Mohammedan world, all women lived sequestered, and the harem housed all his female relatives, who lived together, until one was wanted for a wife, and established a kind of pecking order like hens in a yard.

  Rebecca quickly learned that, as she was consistently referred to as a guest, she could impose her wishes on others, for in the Islamic world, hospitality is an almost sacred responsibility. She learned to balance on that edge between requesting comforts for herself and making herself so obnoxious that they might actually throw her into a prison. It became her habit to sit up later in the women’s common drawing room, snacking, for there were always trays of dates or figs or sweetmeats, or reading, for courtiers, especially the English consul, had managed to procure some English books for her.

  Thus she was the only one awake to hear the commotion far down the staircase that lay outside the harem entrance. She knew better than to try to open the entrance door, which was barred and guarded, but as she heard the tumult grow louder, which was unprecedented for this time of night, some indefinable feeling warned her to be prepared. She was accustomed to going barefoot upon the carpets and stone floors of the harem, but as soon as she heard the commotion in the courtyard and looked down from the lattice shutters and saw American marines charging up the staircase, she ran to her chamber, found the shoes in which she had been captured, and put them on.

  Hearing the same cacophony, the dey’s wives and female relations began emerging from their bedrooms and opened a squealing, chattering retreat regarding what it was best to do. One who also saw armed men in the courtyard grabbed Rebecca by the wrist and sought to pull her into the stone bath chamber, but she shook her off; there were no weapons, but she seized a small alabaster box and raised it in a threatening manner. The oldest of the women stopped suddenly and shouted; during her months in residence Rebecca had come to understand enough Arabic to know she was saying they could overpower her.

  She backed through their entry loggia toward the heavy oaken doors to the outside, when the shouts and footfalls of the marines became audible on their own floor. Two sudden gunshots outside the doors sent the other women scrambling back toward their interior recesses.

  Bliven left ten of the armed prisoners by the staircase in the courtyard to prevent anyone from following them up as he and Jones led the marines in bounding up the stairs to the third floor, where two split off to find the consul, and two more marines followed them up to the fourth floor. There they saw as they were told two enormous guards flanking the door, wearing Zouave pantaloons held with broad red sashes and open vests, and they held broad scimitars that they had drawn from their sashes upon hearing, and seeing, the Americans approach. They were a sight never to be forgotten, like something out of the Arabian Nights, or painted Blackamoors in an English country house.

  As they advanced with scimitars drawn, Jones stopped and commanded kneel and fire to the two marines behind him, followed an instant later by the bang-boom of the hammers striking the caps, igniting the main charges. Normally the sixty-caliber balls passed through their targets, but these men were so beefy that they fell dead with the lead inside them.

  Bliven was the first to unbolt the door and spring through, alert for more opposition, but saw only Rebecca, who jumped back as the door crashed open.

  “Miss Barnes?”

  “Yes.”

  “We are attempting to break you out. Are there more guards up here?”

  “No, never.”

  “Are there any more white women held here?”

  “No, I am the only one. The other women have locked themselves in their rooms.”

  “Come, then, there is not a moment to lose.”

  The report of the muskets had finally alerted the barracks, and a commotion began to grow at the far quadrant of the palace. Bliven took her hand and all fairly flew down the stone steps. Consul Barnes and two other marines awaited them at the landing on the third floor. Further, they all descended to the limestone courtyard where the dey held his audiences.

  As they rushed on down, Bliven just caught sight of the v
an of palace troops pouring into the court from the entrance portal. “Squadron!” he shouted to the armed prisoners, and they knelt and cocked the hammers. “Fire!” All ten muskets exploded simultaneously, eerily lighting the courtyard and the palace guards, who curled and fell into a ball or fell back and splayed spread-eagled on the paving stones. It bought them time, but only seconds. “Come on, boys!”

  Bliven led them down, racing through the corridor, past the banqueting hall, and out into the garden. As they neared the gate, he could hear more troops storming down the staircase; they could not shoot them all.

  He turned left and right in near panic as he saw Barnes and his daughter dart out the gate. “This is madness, this is madness,” he repeated to himself as he lifted the latches on the lions’ cages and opened their doors. He counted on the beasts’ surprise to make them retreat before him; he flapped his arms shouting, “Ha! Ha!” With roars of alarm and confusion and defiance, he herded them down the walk toward the banquet hall door. Bliven slammed the gate shut behind him just as he saw the first of the troops reach the door at full run but then stop within two steps at the sight of four angry lions crowding their path.

  Their shouts, a scream or two, Arabic babble, and the roaring of the lions faded into the distance as Bliven and the others raced downhill through the streets.

  Sheffield the bosun’s mate had the capstan turning to weigh anchor the moment he saw Bliven hustling his raiders and refugees down the quay. There were a number of small boats tied up along the waterfront, enough that all got safely onto the water without a return trip being necessary. As soon as the boats were tied on, he set the sails; the breeze was favorable but light, and they must make headway at once. The crew cast each boat adrift as they pulled its people up the boarding ladder or over the netting; the last boat cast off as they nosed out of the harbor and into the open sea.

  Through those first moments Bliven kept a suspicious eye on the fortress, expecting any moment the enormous guns to open up on them, but all there remained dark and silent.

  17.

  THE NEEDS OF DIPLOMACY

  July 1805

  With the new consul and his daughter safely below and the liberated prisoners of the bagnio celebrating on deck, Bliven scooted out of Algiers as rapidly as the wind would carry them. He had his eight guns primed with matches burning, in case the old dey decided to send someone in pursuit, but two xebecs that rode in the harbor never stirred. Perhaps, as with Tripoli, it was from lack of crews, or perhaps the dey merely decided to let this chapter end itself. That Moorish fatalism that could lead these people into acts of stunning bravado, Bliven had come to realize, could just as unpredictably lead them into a nonchalant acceptance of something that they had tired of trying to master.

  Within an hour they left the smell of the city behind, replaced by the bracing fresh salt sea air. With late morning the hot desert southerlies gave them a solid push toward Italy, for his Tripolitan brig’s rigging made good use of it, running fast straight before the wind as only brigs can, not turning northeast until well out of sight of the coast.

  Once under way and in a routine, Bliven was surprised to find that Barnes needed greater care than his daughter. For daily wear she cleaned and wore clothes that had been left by the pirates, and showed by her spirit that she regarded it, or had determined to regard it, as an adventure. Her father, however, kept to his cabin. He declined to go about dressed like a Moor, and he expressed the irony that he had fewer clothes now than he did when he was a prisoner, for in their flight he was compelled to leave all behind.

  In such a small and foreign vessel the captain’s cabin was more comfortable only for its stern windows, and it contained the rolls of charts that he needed time to open out and determine which ones he needed.

  He thought at first to share the space with Barnes and give Rebecca the privacy of the second-best cabin, but no sooner were they at sea in this arrangement than he noticed Barnes drawing himself away into corners, his hands together at his chin, his eyes too grieved to show any thought.

  The first time he saw him in this posture Bliven asked, “May I get you something?”

  Barnes shook his head. “Thank you, no.”

  “Are you all right?”

  It drew no response, and Bliven realized that though Barnes seemed physically sound, some injury more terrible than physical must have been done him. He made Barnes as comfortable as he could and he improved by degrees, washing his shirt in his cabin and wearing it wet on deck until it dried, eating more and gradually taking greater part in conversation.

  Bliven put into Palermo long enough to learn the fleet’s whereabouts, that the gunboats and mortar scows were returned to their base at Syracuse—Oh, he thought, shaking his head, thank God I don’t have to thread the whirlpool on my own; never again did he want to experience that great, black, swirling hole in the sea. Instead, he headed northeast and eased the Defender into the Bay of Naples on the sixth of July, where he found the Constitution lying lazily at anchor in the shimmering Neapolitan heat, near the Wasp and Nautilus. Lacking pilot or charts other than those in Arabic, he dropped anchor as soon as he felt sheltered in the bay and before the water became dangerously shallow.

  An inspection of the bosun’s lockers had produced national flags and naval jacks of the United States, England, France, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and the Sicilies, but the signal flags would have been recognized only among the Ottoman navies. A telling indication, Bliven thought, of the limits of the Tripolitans’ abilities to deceive.

  Before Bliven got Defender’s jolly boat down, Preble had sent the Constitution’s jolly boat over to fetch him and report. The day was windless, the bay still as glass in the summer heat, and Bliven stood to better enjoy his approach to the looming Constitution’s familiar tumble home, so broad that the boarding ladder lay flat against it, no more difficult to ascend than the ladders within. After a week on his tiny brig the spar deck seemed enormous; a quick glance to his right revealed Preble on the quarterdeck, feet wide apart as always, hands knotted behind him, waiting.

  “You were successful?” Preble asked even before quick salutes and the shaking of hands.

  “Yes, sir. I have the new consul and his daughter on board. But, forgive my confusion, I understood that Commodore Barron was now in command.”

  “He is,” Preble shot back, “but he is unwell. He is in his cabin.” He lowered his voice. “In fact, he is most very unwell. He is so unwell that another change of command is being undertaken.”

  “Indeed?” Bliven gasped. “Back to you?”

  “Oh, hardly. Rodgers again.”

  Bliven sagged. “Oh, no.”

  “Heh! Quite a pretty dance, eh? But I am the one alone on the quarterdeck for the moment. We’ve been waiting on you so we can go home.”

  “Well, I am beyond delighted. Now, the consul and his daughter are most anxious to get ashore, get into some new clothes, and have some decent food. And, contrary to all assurances, we found the Algerine bagnios crowded with American prisoners. I took it upon myself to fetch them home; I have a hundred and four on board, two died en route, just too weak. As you can imagine, our deck is very crowded, and they are almost crazy to get ashore. What shall we do with them?”

  “Oh, God, I don’t know, we can ask the consul. I suppose we could leave them here so they can await commercial passage, or I suppose we might have to bring some back with us. God, I hope not.”

  “The Barneses are my first concern, sir.”

  “Of course they are.” Preble nodded. “Of course they are. Casualties? Did you lose anyone?”

  “No, sir. I would characterize resistance in the city as token, at most.”

  “Well, I am not surprised,” Preble concurred. “With Morocco out of it and Tripoli reduced, and Tunis has never been in play—I suppose the old bugger in Algiers had no heart to go on alone.”

  “We did have to
shoot a few guards in getting the girl out of the harem. Some others chased us through the garden, but—well—the lions were very useful in keeping them well behind us.”

  “Ha! Your report should read like a novel. Do you have it?”

  “Not yet, sir, no, I am sorry.”

  Preble crossed his arms and turned suddenly as exacting as he was with any other junior officer. “You’ve had a week, Putnam. Why not?”

  “Well, sir, the young lady has been rather a handful.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes, sir. I would have thought, considering we rescued her with nothing but the dress she was wearing, she would have kept close in her cabin. But she is a gruesome resourceful and managing young woman. No sooner was the ship in our power and we were under way, but she scoured through the vessel, picking out spare pantaloons and blouses. There was no cooking in the galley before she had thoroughly boiled the clothes and kitted out herself and her father with three complete suites, so they had the freedom of the ship. Were it not for their white skin you would take them for the purest brigands.”

  “Well, by God” was all Preble could say.

  “And then she went through the bedrolls most systematically, finding in one of them a scimitar, which she now wears in her sash like Grace O’Malley herself.”

  “Well, now,” breathed Preble; the approbation in his voice was plain.

  “And what’s more than that, she interested herself in every aspect of the sailing, and the navigation. She inquired of me the purpose and operation of every line and sheet, had me demonstrate the sextant, and inspected my calculations. And if I did not know better, I would swear she understood them.”

  “Ha! If I were not but three years married and my wife with a babe in arms, I would explore the possibilities with this young woman.”

  “And she is but sixteen, sir.”

  “Hm! So she is more within your range, then. Do you fancy her?”

  “No, sir.” He hesitated, and decided not to reveal more, as he and Clarity had agreed to keep their engagement secret. “I believe I have still fairer prospects at home. She is most genially sociable, though. I have tried to keep her pacified, but she was even after me to play at cards with her.”