Swords From the Sea

by Harold Lamb

  The clamor outside the tent was cut by a musket volley. Paul ran to the entrance, to be elbowed aside by Eugene. He learned afterward that the Marine lieutenant had ordered the volley fired over the heads of the throng. It drove the excited nomads into a frenzy, as they caught up spears and knives, crowding together to rush the line of Europeans in front of the tent.

  There Selim faced his fellow Moslems with scimitars in both his hands. Farquhar stood quietly by him, with pistol poised.

  Before another shot was fired, Eaton's stocky figure stepped out between the groups, walking into the frantic Moslems. He had no weapon, and he did not raise his voice as he walked among them.

  Spears and muskets were leveled at him. Hamet raced into the crowd, wildly slashing with his sword, wounding a man in front of Eaton. The American caught the rein of the horse, and shouted over the outcry. For a moment his voice held them, and heads turned to listen.

  Beside Paul, Farquhar lowered his pistol with a sigh. "Touch and go," he observed critically.

  At mid-morning the Englishman traced for the line of the shadow on the sand with his finger, and said; "At least we will have the finest marble monuments for our graves."

  Lazily he nodded at the pillars still standing in the ruins. It gave him a certain satisfaction to think of death. And he was well aware that the mad expedition of the Yankee had come to a full stop.

  Marie in her own way sensed the change in Eaton. The ebullition of the dawn clash had drained away from him, and he sat among them complaining morosely. The Arabs could not be moved forward again-they were preparing to search inland for grazing and water, Hamet with them. "I promised them that a hundred Marines would land from our vessels at Bomba, to join them. The fickle chameleons asked for proof that our ships would be still waiting in the bay of Bomba."

  "Ta!" Eugene assented quickly. "For them you should have a sign."

  "Am I Moses, to draw water from the rocks?"

  Eaton's fatigue lay on him like a blanket, and his body yearned for a cup of Mendrici's wine, which stifled thirst without staying it. He had cajoled his semblance of an army across the Libyan desert. He had not blamed O'Bannon for the luckless volley that morning. The trouble lay deeper than that, and for once William Eaton saw no way to remedy it.

  Through his tired mind crowded the impossible difficulties that beset him: food would suffice, at half rations for the Europeans alone for about three days; the surviving horses, without water for two days, would barely serve to draw the fieldpiece up the heights. Already he was two weeks late at the rendezvous where the Argus waited-if the ship had not given him up and sailed away from the hazardous coast.

  "The Devil," Eugene persisted, "has given a sign."

  When they looked at him curiously, he explained. He had been investi gating tracks around the ruins with the Bedouins who were curious about the missing horses. During the night their enemy had appeared for the first time, to play a trick on them-to steal mounts and rations under the noses of the Yankee sentries. Such a trick alarmed the Arabs more than an attack. No one knew where the Tripolitans had dropped from.

  "From the xebec," put in Farquhar promptly. "Xebec lands three spies to bedevil us. Then-presto-flies off to Derna to report us. Two to one, I have it solved. Done with you in shillings, Eugene?"

  The Tyrolese shook his head with a rumble of agreement. Almost, the Tripolitans had managed to set Eaton's exhausted command to fighting itself.

  In the silence that followed Paul looked up. "If Isaac Hull is in the Argus, sir, he will be waiting at his station."

  He knew that stocky, careful Hull would stick to the rendezvous until new orders reached him.

  Eugene grunted. "Our Arabs will believe only their eyes. Show them the ship!"

  "Then give me your gray charger," cried Farquhar, "and an Arab, and I'll race him to the spot."

  Ninety miles it would be, Paul reckoned from what Eaton had let drop. Two days in the saddle would get a messenger there. It was vital for Eaton to gain communication with the ships.

  "General Eaton," he called anxiously. "You-"

  "I have done it once," Eugene proclaimed. "Yes, I Eugene Leitensdorfer walked the way from Tripoli to Grand Cairo. Isso-you would not have known me. A dervish, a begging dervish-ahmak, mad, making prophecies, curing sick eyes by touching with my finger. Also, I lived."

  When he had made his boast, Paul said: "Let me try, sir."

  The Tyrolese shook his heavy head indulgently. "Younker, here you are blind and dumb. How can you speak? How easily you would be killed!" His glance roved from the silent O'Bannon, to Mendrici, who had feared to leave the tent. "Perhaps Selim," he suggested doubtfully.

  Not Selim, Paul thought. The swaggering janizary, leader of Eugene's bravos who called themselves cannoneers, had no loyalty to Eaton. The whole crew recruited in Alexandria would be more apt to hunt loot than to give intelligent advice to the American vessels.

  Getting up to face Eaton, the boy ignored Eugene: "Sir, I request per mission to ride to Bomba immediately. I am able to perform no useful duty here, while these gentlemen have all important duties-"

  "The young cock crows!" snapped Eugene.

  "I have seen the pinnacle headlands of Bomba. I can identify them, as well as the rig of the Argus and the Hornet."

  His desperation held the attention of the older men. Paul felt that he was the one to make the try, and that Farquhar had volunteered only as a sportsman, to race a horse against odds.

  Eaton merely turned his head. He seemed stricken by his exertions in the numbing heat. As usual he let Leitensdorfer have the word.

  Truculently the adventurer heaved up his broad body. "If this younker came back-if he swore by Salbal and Bathbal and Authierotabal he had sighted the ships-would our nomadic allies believe it? He cannot speak their speech! They do not doubt your word, General Eaton. No! They merely behold you beaten by your enemies. So, they become afraid. You must break their fear. Show them a sign, a vision to stir their hearts-trick them, like the Tripolitans. Do not reason-"

  "Le coeur a ses raisons," Marie broke in, smiling, "que le raison ne connais pas."

  The Tyrolese whirled, surprised: "Hein?"

  "The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know."

  He stared at her; then his harsh voice boomed out. "True, as the little mademoiselle says. Do not argue. Touch their hearts. General Eaton-pardon me, but you must get your command into motion. Sound the pas de charge. Now!"

  Eaton wiped his flushed forehead. "Gentlemen! Mr. Davies, I'll ask you to come with me."

  Through the furnace of the sunlight, he led the way to his tent, stared at by the drowsy Greeks who hugged the shade. Letting the entrance flap drop behind them, he poured himself a cup of wine, gulping it down.

  "You'll not have one, Paul?" He hesitated, putting the cup down. "Two weeks ago Hamet Pasha detached two riders, to make all speed to the Bomba rendezvous. I think he was losing confidence even then. They did not rejoin. By now we must allow that they were captured or killed. I did not want it reported in the camp. You are a civilian, and unacquainted with the country. Someone must make another try. As the colonel suggests, Selim would have the best chance of success."

  Eaton's stupor of weariness, Eugene's dislike of him, Farquhar's indif ference, all linked together against Paul. The boy's sandy head went up in challenge and his lean brown hand clenched against his sides.

  "I have the best reason for going."

  "May I ask what that is?"

  "My brother is one of the prisoners in Tripoli. He is-" he forced the words through his clenched teeth-"William Bainbridge."

  "Captain Bainbridge? Of the Philadelphia?" At first Eaton was puzzled, then sharply skeptical. "Why, his brother must be the lieutenant, in Syracuse, or Malta. Much younger, I believe. Yes, he was with Decatur when they burned the frigate. And-"

  He paused, remembering that Lt. Bainbridge had fought the notorious duel at Malta. "And in the bombardment of Tripoli," he said instead, "the g
unboats-"

  Paul's fists knotted, and his lips stiffened. "I had gunboat Number Five."

  Eaton's tired eyes narrowed in thought. Number Five had failed to close with the enemy, for some reason.

  In Paul's mind the picture was clear, of the line of small improvised bombardment vessels moving through with the reefs toward the gray fortifications rising above harbor-of the yard stripped from the mast of his vessel by a chance shot from the forts. He had made every effort to steer the drifting boat, until it struck on a submerged reef within range of the forts. He had fallen behind the battle line that Decatur handled so brilliantly, and had almost lost his ship.

  "Young Decatur mentioned you in his report," Eaton observed, still uncertain that the boy before him was Bainbridge the naval officer.

  "Aye, sir. He stated, 'I regret that Lt. Bainbridge's boat, being disabled, prevented him being equally successful."'

  Macdonough, Tripp, and the others had been successful. They had won that first futile engagement of an American fleet in the Old World. Even with their miniature unhandy craft, they had an instinct for doing the right thing under fire.

  His brother had surrendered, in that same trap of a harbor. And his own name had become a byword from Malta to Gibraltar.

  When Eaton, convinced of his identity, asked him sharply how he managed to appear in civilian dress on the African shore, he explained mechanically that he had taken advantage of a month's leave to hurry to join the land venture being fitted out at Alexandria. The name he had taken, Paul Davies, was a family name.

  "Your month's leave will have expired."

  "Aye, sir."

  Eaton studied the boy, curiously. "Lieutenant, you've had two tries at the Barbary coast, and you want to go on with a third? I understand about your brother. If we fail this time, you'll be in hot water with Commodore Barron. If we succeed-"

  Instinctively the older man reached for the wine. His long jaw thrust out. "Barron's lying up in hospital. Some dysentery. God knows where our ships are."

  Paul did not explain that he himself was supposed to be on sick leave. Older men, veterans of the last war, would give consent easier after they had said their say.

  "In their offices," exclaimed Eaton, "they can't know what we face along the Barbary coast. If only we had not lost the Patriarch, in his tomb."

  "Aye, sir," nodded Paul hopefully, wondering who they might be.

  "Time was, a year ago, I tried to tell them in Washington that we must meet the aggressions of the Barbary savages and pirates by retaliation." The New Englander raised his voice as if defying his political opponents. "The Secretary held that we'd better pay tribute. We should not commit an outward act of war. Even Mr. Madison predicted, instead, a political millennium in the United States-arising from the goodness and integrity of mind of Mr. Jefferson, who was to move all nations by his persuasive virtue and mastery skill in diplomacy." His hot blue eyes focused again on the boy. "To hell with diplomacy! If I succeed, and William Bainbridge is freed, I do not know what will happen to me. If I fail, I haven't a doubt the blame will be mine alone."

  When he paused, Paul put in quickly: "Aye, sir. May I have a horse to start at once for the rendezvous with Hull?"

  Eaton nodded, and looked at his watch. With shrewd caution he added: "Lieutenant, you'd better keep your-family name."

  On returning to the council, Eaton explained that Paul, who was actually a lieutenant in the American Navy, would be the one to go ahead to the ships. To Paul's surprise, Eugene accepted this after a second's thought. "Bien," he said.

  He was more surprised when, after a musket and powder-flask, with a bag of dry meat and rice, had been handed over to him, Eugene appeared, leading his powerful gray, saddled. A good horse.

  When he mounted the gray, Marie was not to be seen. Selim, who had been deep in talk with the Tyrolese, also swung himself into a saddle, flinging his cloak behind it. The janizary had a musket slung over his broad back. "Your eyes, younker," explained Eugene, his mustache lifting in a grin. "I have told him of the landmarks."

  Eaton nodded. "It's a task for more than one."

  A moment later Eugene said: "Your tongue-to communicate with Selim." By the rein he led a wiry Arab pony on which Marie Anne perched sidewise. She had her scarf over her head, her bundle roped behind her.

  To Paul, Eugene whispered: "Now you will take care, younker. Do not separate. Do not let your woman out of your sight." For an instant he stared up at them. "Kinder!" he exclaimed. "Children!"

  And he led them through the camp, shouting out something in a language unknown to Paul. Farquhar waved his hat to Marie, calling out: "Bonne chance!"

  "Marie," Paul said, "you're a fool."

  Apparently she had not heard him. She was humming, "Mironton, miron- ton. Malbrouk s'en va t'en guerre-You think, Lieutenant, that the camp is safer for me? Have you forgotten that I once asked to go on a ship?"

  He thought about that, while she hummed softly.

  Chapter Seven

  Early in the afternoon when they were climbing the shallow ravine that opened up the heights, he thought about something else. In the shadow, keeping out of the glare of the sun, Selim reined in and held up his hand. Paul had been following where the broad back of the janizary led.

  "He wants you to listen," Marie interpreted, "to his drum."

  With the horses quiet, Paul could catch the faint tapping of the saddle drum. Going to where he had a sight of the half-moon bay and the rubble of ruins far below, he saw something that made him whistle.

  Sunlight flickered on the brass of the field gun in motion. A dark queue of human beings strung out behind the gun, and tawny camels brought up the rear. A tiny animated spot on the gray sweep of the coast below him. Something had started Eaton's force forward again.

  After a while he asked Marie: "What was he calling out when he led you through the camp?"

  She squirmed in the saddle before answering. "'Maggots get up from your dungheaps and look. This-this girl child is riding ahead of you to Derna.' And then he told me to sing something gay."

  Paul grinned. Eugene, after all, had produced a sign of his own, to get the column going again. He had played a trick. He had shamed the men by the sight of the girl riding off ahead of them.

  On the bare shoulders of the mountain, Selim the janizary took command without a word. Out of sight of the sea, he forced the horses cruelly, heading into the glare of sunset, squinting at landmarks Paul could not make out: stagnant water lying in a pit of a red rock gorge; a dark ridge where wild fennel grew, to stay the hunger of the beasts.

  He served as their eyes. When gray wisps floated away on the skyline beside them, Selim's sun-darkened head turned to inspect the running gazelles. A moment, and they had vanished in a fold of the earth. But when something tawny stirred against gray rocks ahead of them, the soldier slid from his saddle. Throwing his rein to Marie, he ran on crouching, priming the pan of the musket he took from its sling.

  When Paul joined him, thinking that he had sighted enemies, the janizary gripped the boy's arm, scowling. Dropping to his knees, he laid his musket across a standing stone and sighted carefully. At the shot, wings threshed in the nest of boulders beyond them. Drawing his long curved knife Selim dashed forward and threw himself on a great bird, slashing off its head.

  It was a bustard. They managed to eat some of its flesh-Selim chewing avidly at his portion. Then for the first time he lingered, allowing the horses to breathe. Going away a few steps, he spread out the cloak that also served him for a blanket.

  On his cloak the giant of a man acted strangely. Facing away from the sun, he laid down his short sword and knife. From his belly he unwrapped a length of white felt which he folded and set upon his shaven head, to hang down behind like an empty bag. Making a motion as if washing his hands, he raised his voice in a cry that Paul had heard often: "God the merciful, the all-powerful-"

  With his evening prayer finished to his satisfaction, the janizary swaggered over to talk ch
eerfully to Marie.

  "His heart is good now," she explained, "because he has on his kalpak, which is his hat. He could not wear it until now, because the Turks might have seen it and beaten him to death as a deserter. Now, when the Tripolitans see it, they will know he is a janizary, which is an old infantry soldier, like the Guards."

  "Has he seen any sign of a Barbary force?"

  Laughing, Selim shook his head.

  "He says no. If they saw him now, ten Tripolitans would run away from him. He called them dog-born dogs."

  She translated dutifully, word for word. Silent, she rode beside Paul under the half-moon that gave only a fitful light. When the exhausted horses stopped to crop at green growth, Marie's head dropped in a stupor of sleep. As long as the janizary wanted to push on, Paul could not halt to sleep.

  At need, he reflected, he could not force obedience from the soldier. At most, he might persuade Selim, by Marie's help, to carry out an order. And he began to understand that Selim was careless of danger. The man, Marie made clear, was trying to find a way to his home somewhere in the Serbian mountains across the sea. "He has not seen it for six years."

  It was strange to think that the janizary with the scarred animal-like head actually had a home. Marie managed to find out things like that ...

  Paul had his first sight of an enemy the next noon, when they halted on a headland, and he searched the horizon for any sign of the American ships.

  Pointing down beneath them, Selim said: "Tobruk."

  A strip of the coast showed, where a mud-walled village circled a tiny harbor. Among the smacks moored there Paul recognized the lines of a slender vessel with its yard lowered to the deck-the xebec that had followed Eaton's command.

  "Lieutenant, you are seeing ghosts," Marie retorted. "I see only harmless fishermen."

  Paul shook his head, wondering if the scout vessel had cut in to escape observation by the Argus. From this haven of Tobruk to the very rock of Gibraltar, the Barbary powers lay sheltered by their landlocked ports, hidden and insatiable, drawing sustenance from Africa behind them, and levying tribute on the commerce of the sea. The xebec, which looked to the casual eye like a fishing craft, could strike like a serpent.