Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival

by Dean King

  Riley ordered his crew to ready the longboat for launching. He could only hope that the repairs would allow it to reach the wreck. The sailors ran the boat into the sea and this time, following Riley’s instructions, boarded in an orderly way, over the stern one at a time. In their rush, however, they had failed to bring the oars. Grabbing a broken board, they paddled the heavy vessel through the surf.

  The boat was half swamped by the time they reached the wreck, but Riley was determined to keep it afloat. He and one of the crew stayed behind while the others climbed on board the Commerce and handed down a bucket and a small keg for bailing.

  Then came an unexpected arrival. The pig, as loyal as a dog, paddled up to the wreck. The sailors shoved it on board.

  On shore, two of the camel riders, probably Arabs, who were armed not with the threatened firearms but with scimitars, reached the sailors’ bivouac and joined in the plunder. They made the camels kneel and loaded them with barrels of bread and salt beef, sails, spars, and the other useful items the sailors had hidden in their tent. These discoveries seemed to inflame the Sahrawis’ passion. The jackal pranced about feverishly, staving in the casks of water and wine with an ax, defiantly spilling their contents on the sand. The campfire quickly became a bonfire, the Sahrawis zealously piling on everything they could not carry. The sailors watched dejectedly from afar as their trunks, chests, navigational instruments, books, and charts went up in flames. At last, some of the youths drove the loaded camels over the dunes.

  Riley conferred with the crew. They had nothing left to feed or comfort themselves with. There was no escape on shore. They would likely be washed off the wreck and drowned at night when the tide came in. And if not, a rising sandbar behind the brig would allow the Sahrawis to approach them at the next low tide. They found a few bottles of wine and some salt pork left on board. With these, they decided to head out to sea in the longboat.

  As they shoved off, a wave crashed over the bow. The boat reeled backward, filled, and began to sink. They hit the brig stern-first. Some of the sailors scrambled up onto the deck. Two grabbed the boat’s painter and stern line and steadied it, preventing it from smashing against the brig again. Two others bailed furiously.

  The Sahrawis watched dumbfounded from the shore. The idea that the sailors would escape in a boat was almost as ridiculous as the possibility that they might run away on the desert. There was no place to go. Nonetheless, they were vexed by the sailors’ attempt to flee and began gesticulating to convince Riley to return. The jackal shouted at the youths, who with their weapons hustled over the dunes. The remaining Sahrawis bowed to the ground, rose smiling, and calmly beckoned with their hands. On the brig, the sailors scoffed at them. After a while, the jackal sent the others away. He took up a goatskin filled with water and held it over his head, offering it to the sailors. He then waded with it into the ocean up to his chest.

  Judging their chances in the longboat to be slim, Riley had no choice but to try to establish some sort of rapport with the old man and hope for a change of heart. He lowered himself over the side by the hawser and crawled along it to the shore, where the Sahrawi handed him the skin. Riley thanked him and carried it back to the brig. The Sahrawi now indicated that he wanted Riley to return to the shore while he went on board the brig.

  Riley explained to his reluctant crew that he thought their only chance lay in befriending the man and submitting to the will of the Sahrawis. He was going to return to the shore and allow him to come out. The jackal’s clan hiding behind the dunes now returned to the beach unarmed. The half-naked women and naked youths sat on the sand near the water with pacific expressions. They looked up to heaven to show their kind intentions. The jackal greeted Riley in the Sahrawi way: “Allahu akhbar!” God is great!5 He then made his way out to the brig.

  Riley sat down among the family. Grinning, they pulled the hat from his head and passed it around, trying it on one another and laughing. They stroked his trousers, his hands, his hair, and his sodden leather “feet,” fascinated by the unfamiliar textures. Some intertwined their fingers with his while others shamelessly rifled his pockets. He could smell their dusty unwashed bodies and matted hair, and he could sense his own fear in his twinging nostrils and knotted intestines. Their sudden change in demeanor did not fool him. Their treachery was palpable. He rose to his feet, waved his arms desperately, and shouted to his men, but the noise of the surf swallowed his words. What he was trying to communicate could not be signed. He wanted them to hold the jackal until he had been allowed to leave the beach.

  Meanwhile, the sailors grabbed the jackal’s arms and lifted him onto the wreck, where he demanded their guns and money. The sailors denied having either. He rummaged around the cluttered deck and peered into the flooded hold. Finally, finding nothing, he dived back into the sea. As the jackal neared the beach, Riley started to rise to his feet. The two cameleers, who had quietly positioned themselves on either side of him, seized him by the arms. Daggers suddenly appeared in the Sahrawis’ hands. To struggle, it was clear, meant death.

  Riley did what came naturally to a good captain under stress. He feigned unconcern. “The countenance of everyone around me now assumed the most horrid and malignant expressions,” he later wrote. “They gnashed their teeth at me, and struck their daggers within an inch of every part of my head and note_1.”

  All at once, the jackal was at his throat. He yanked Riley’s head back with his hand and raised a scimitar. At that moment, Riley believed he would be beheaded and suffer the further ignominy of providing a meal for this barbarous gang. The jackal slowly drew the blade across Riley’s shirt collar, slicing it and letting him feel the metal on his skin. But he wanted silver, not blood. He let go of Riley’s head and ordered him to make his men bring the ship’s money to shore.

  On the brig, the seamen had watched this scene unfold. When it appeared that their captain would be executed, they had vowed to avenge his death by arming themselves as best they could, rushing to shore in the boat, and killing as many Sahrawis as they could before they paid with their own lives. Now, to their surprise, Riley hailed the brig. His voice did not carry over the surf. Savage lowered himself down to the sea by the hawser and made his way toward the shore.

  “Bring the money,” Riley called to him, when he was within shouting distance. Savage immediately returned to the brig, not hearing Riley’s final words, “Do not give it to them until I am fairly released.”

  The old man had not found any money on board the Commerce because it was still hidden in the sailors’ clothes. The men now pulled out roughly a thousand dollars and tossed it into a bucket. Porter made the strenuous trip to shore, pushing the bucket lashed to the hawser along in front of him.

  Fearing that the Sahrawis planned to take Porter hostage as well, Riley yelled to him not to come ashore. Porter complied, and one of the cameleers went out into the surf to get the bucket. All the while, the jackal held his scimitar point to Riley’s throat.

  The bucket was emptied on the end of a blanket in front of the jackal, whose eyes gleamed. The sight of such a treasure made him feel suddenly vulnerable, and he ordered his people to carry it down the beach, away from the brig. With their weapons drawn, the Sahrawi men hustled Riley along with them, followed by the women, who kept the jackal’s crude spear homed on their captive’s back.

  After a short walk, the group sat down, and the old man jubilantly divvied up the coins, pushing stacks of ten into three equal sparkling piles: one for the camel men, one for his wives, and one for himself. As the piles disappeared into their haiks, Riley sensed that in their greed they had momentarily forgotten him. He decided to make a break for it.

  As soon as he made a move to rise, however, an alert youth lunged at him with his scimitar. Riley dodged the blow, but the blade drilled his waistcoat before he could roll away from it. The young man prepared to strike again, but the jackal stopped him and gave some commands, which Riley could not understand. The party rose and prepared to leave the be
ach, and he could see they intended to take him with them. Desperate not to be carried off into the interior, he indicated to the jackal that his crew had more money. This had its intended effect. Instead of leaving, the Sahrawis took him back down the beach and ordered him to hail his men.

  What exactly Riley had in mind at this point is hard to tell. “I imagined if I could get Antonio Michel on shore,” he later wrote, “I should be able to make my escape.” He does not further explain his intentions, claiming that he “knew not how, nor had I formed any plan for effecting it.”

  Why Antonio Michel, the old sailor on his way home after years at sea? Was he the only man Riley deemed expendable? Did he feel less responsibility for him than for the crew he had hired?

  From the brig, the sailors could see that both sides were playing their final cards. The Sahrawis repeatedly threatened Riley with their blades, as he hailed his crew. Of the brave men who shortly before had vowed to go down fighting, not one was now willing to venture ashore. Riley’s desperate voice became a croak.

  Aaron Savage finally screwed up his courage and hauled himself to shore on the hawser. When he neared the beach, Riley motioned for him to stay in the surf. The jackal, thinking Riley meant to instruct Savage to bring the money ashore, allowed them to talk to each other. Riley told Savage his plan, one that would trouble the captain ever after, though no one ever criticized him for it.

  Savage returned to the wreck and told Michel that Riley wanted him on shore. The working passenger from New Orleans dutifully obeyed. The Sahrawis surrounded Michel menacingly as he trudged onto the beach. They expected more money. He had, of course, nothing but the clothes on his back. Enraged, they beat him with their fists and the butts of their daggers. They ripped off his clothes, and the youths jabbed him with the points of their blades. Forced to his knees, Michel pleaded with them to stop.

  Wreck of the brig Commerce on the coast of Africa

  (from An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce, 1817)

  Riley instructed Michel to tell them that he knew where the crew had buried money. This was true. Near the tent, they had planted a new spyglass, a saw, and some other useful tools in one hole and a sack containing $400 in another. In a quavering voice, the rattled old sailor made himself understood. With blows, his captors drove him to the spot.

  Seated on the sand, Riley watched intently, the jackal’s spear poised at his chest and a young brute’s scimitar inches from his head. He knew that he was out of ploys. He also knew that when the buried treasure was dug up, greed would get the better of his guards, at least for a moment. Slowly, imperceptibly, he inched his legs up under his note_1.

  When the excited cries came at last, his guards turned reflexively to look, as he had predicted. Riley sprang to his feet and bolted for the sea. Nothing but his own escape filled his brain, but his legs were slow and dumb on the sand. The padding feet of his pursuers closed on him. He dived headfirst into the surf. The jackal followed him in.

  Riley swam underwater, holding his breath until he could no longer resist the urge to surface. As he breached, he swiveled to see where the Sahrawis were. No more than ten feet behind him bobbed the head of the jackal. Riley felt the spear plunge near his note_1. Just then a breaker caught the jackal and knocked him backward. Riley swam as hard as he could. He fought through the cresting waves until he felt the hands of his men grabbing his shirt. They pulled him over the stern of the Commerce.

  He collapsed on the deck.

  chapter 5

  Misery in an Open Boat

  As wind and water swept the Commerce’s deck, stinging the sailors’ hands and faces, they watched the Sahrawis beat and stab Michel. Finally they loaded his back with their plunder and forced him over the dunes. It was terrible to observe and cast a pall over the men. Not only were they unable to help their brutalized shipmate, but their own helplessness was driven home in the most graphic manner.

  Nevertheless, there was no time to dwell on it. Each wave hammered the longboat against the brig’s hull, racking the smaller craft and jarring the tenuous deck on which they crouched. They now had to pick from their own dismal options. They could return to the shore and try to negotiate their surrender to the Sahrawis; at best they would be beaten and enslaved, like Michel, and quite possibly murdered if they gave offense. Or they could try their luck at sea in the longboat, gambling that it could weather the twenty-foot waves and stay afloat long enough for them to flag down a passing ship.

  According to Robbins, there was “long deliberation” on the question, but this certainly did not amount to more than a matter of minutes. They saw no hope in surrendering to the Sahrawis, whom they bitterly called “barbarians,” “savages,” and “merciless ruffians.” Instead, most of the talk concerned the feasibility of putting to sea in the rudderless, hastily repaired longboat. In Robbins’s opinion, it was “shattered.” Riley called its condition “crazy,” a technical term in his day meaning “in bad shape,” and said it “writhed like an old basket.” Crammed with eleven men, the sixteen- foot craft would ride dangerously low in the water. They took heart in the one factor that had turned in their favor: The wind had grown more easterly, which would help them get clear of the dangerous coast. While the odds were stacked against an escape at sea, the crew opted for the element they knew best, the natural force they had wrestled with all their lives as opposed to the strange and malevolent human one on shore. They would try their luck in the longboat.

  The captain set two hands, probably the ordinary seamen Hogan and Barrett, to bailing out the longboat with buckets. He sent Porter, a strong swimmer, to the momentarily deserted beach to retrieve the two broken oars, which they needed to get through the surf.1

  Riley instructed the rest of the crew, under the two mates, to lash together some spars and rig them out over the stern of the Commerce in its lee. They were to guide the boat there and secure its bow and stern lines to the ends of the spars so that the boat was held clear from the brig. When it came time to cast off, Riley hoped, this would give them headway and prevent them from being smashed by a wave on the hull of the brig.

  Riley had much to orchestrate before they left the wreck, but he personally attended to the most important thing: securing fresh water. At the brig’s hatchway, he stripped off his shirt and lowered himself into the dark abyss. Guided by touch, he moved through the trapped seawater down through the hold, now on its side, until he surfaced in a pocket of air. As he took in the strange sensations, the odd, muted shifting of the cold water, the echo of the surf, the ominous creaking of the brig’s straining timbers, his thoughts inevitably turned to Michel.

  The story of Michel’s fate was something that the captain, caught up in an insidious cycle of guilt and denial, would never quite get straight. Despite later stating that he did not actually see what happened to Michel, he offers a graphic description in his Narrative anyway: The angry Sahrawis, he wrote, plunging “a spear into his body near his left breast downwards, laid him dead at their feet.” They dragged Michel’s “lifeless trunk across the sand hills” and he felt “an inexpressible pang” at the sudden realization that he alone was responsible for the sailor’s “massacre.” He was momentarily “bereft . . . of all sensation.”

  In reality, it did not happen that way. In a letter published in the Connecticut Courant predating this account, Riley wrote that the crew escaped the “armed Arabs, all except Antonio Michael [sic], whom they seized and kept.” Robbins’s version concurred with Riley’s letter. Perhaps Riley later concluded that it was more reprehensible to have left a captive than a dead man.

  Riley certainly knew that he had encountered a moral conundrum.2 As a captain, a man who was used to bearing total responsibility for his ship and men, he believed that he had done what he had to do to protect his crew. He was correct that the practical effect of his actions had been best for his men, preserving for them an indisputable leader rather than an outsider, and an old man at that. Yet he continued to struggle with
the morality of his decision and his lingering guilt.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dark hold, Riley sifted through the floating tangle of hammocks, sea chests, and odd planks until he found what he was looking for. Rolling over a large half-full cask, he felt the bung still tight. This good luck encouraged him, and he applied all his strength to maneuvering the barrel through the flooded wreckage and up the hatchway to the surface.

  On deck, Savage and Clark helped him stave in the cask and transfer the water to a four-gallon keg that would fit in the boat. There was enough left over for everyone to drink as much as he wanted. It was a moment to savor. Some—the lucky ones—would not fully assuage their thirst again for a long time.

  Porter returned with the oars. Of his own accord, he had also dug up and lugged back the sack of silver coins buried the day before. This was apparently the same bag of dollars that Antonio Michel was digging for when Riley made his escape. For this to be the case, Michel must have dug up the instruments that they had buried nearby instead of the silver, and either the silver must have been forgotten after Riley’s escape, which seems improbable, or Michel could not find it. Ironically, the Sahrawis would have preferred the dollars, and the sailors could have made much better use of the spyglass and tools. In any case, Riley only shook his head, thinking that either greed had overcome Porter’s sense or he was foolishly optimistic. Later he would make Porter bury it again.