For Love of Country

by William C. Hammond

  Richard could hardly keep his fury in check. “Your Excellency,” he managed in a tight voice, “may I propose another solution?”

  Bin Osman arched his thick eyebrows. “By all means do so,” he replied.

  “I propose,” Richard said, “that for the same sum of two hundred thousand muzamas I be granted two requests. First, that I be allowed to meet privately for one hour with my brother and Captain Dickerson at a location of your choosing. And, second, that my surgeon be allowed to examine every American prisoner held in Algiers.”

  Bin Osman’s jaw fell. “That is all, Mr. Cutler? You are willing to pay so much for so little?”

  “It is no small matter to me, Your Excellency, to see my brother and his shipmates alive and well.”

  Bin Osman glanced questioningly to his left, at his khaznaji and vekil kharj, and then to his right, at the sea captain who stood with arms folded across his chest, the bulge of arm muscles visible under his thin shirt. He, too, returned the dey’s glance without comment.

  “Done,” the dey announced. “Your requests are granted, Captain Cutler. At 4:00 this afternoon I will send guards to the jetty to escort you and your surgeon to the prison.”

  “Thank you, Your Excellency,” Richard said with glacial formality. He bowed once, quickly, then turned sharply on his heel and began walking out of the royal chamber, motioning to Chatfield to follow him. The two guards at the door made no move to stop him. Kercy, aghast at the breach of diplomatic protocol, hastily took his leave with a series of bows and backward steps. Once out of the royal chamber, he hurried after Richard.

  “Capitaine! Capitaine Cutler!” he panted as he caught up with him. “You have insulted His Majesty by leaving so. You must go back and apologize. Maintenant! S’il vous plaît, monsieur! You must!”

  “Fuck His Majesty,” Richard threw over his shoulder. He rounded on the consul, his lips curled in contempt. “Je crois que tu comprends très bien ce mot ‘fuck,’ Monsieur de Kercy, non?”

  The consul stood speechless as Richard and Chatfield made their way down the narrow, dirty streets of Algiers toward the Gate of Jihad and the harbor where Falcon rode peacefully at anchor.

  Nine

  Algiers, September 1788

  THE AGE-OLD TRADITIONS OF Christmas had always been faithfully observed by the Cutler family. Early on Christmas Eve, friends and neighbors gathered at the Cutler home on Main Street to sing the songs of the season and to enjoy mulled cider or a drink of hot rum, water, and sugar. Later, after supper, the family dragged the Yule log through the front door and into the sitting room hearth, sprinkling it with spiced cider just as their Saxon ancestors had done and later setting aside a burnt fragment to tie to next year’s log, thus carrying the tradition forward in perpetuity. Later still, with his brood huddled before the fire and his wife seated beside him, Thomas Cutler read by candlelight the familiar passage about the decree from Caesar Augustus as Caleb and Lavinia, the youngest of the five children, stifled yawns, determined to carry the magic of this evening as far into the night as their parents would allow.

  The next day, Christmas, was the only morning of the year that the children eagerly attended the First Parish service, for they had placed bets among themselves on how long Parson Gay’s sermon would last. Halfway through the diatribe, inevitably, Will would set his younger siblings to quiet giggling when he covertly stretched out his mouth with his middle fingers to mimic the austere facial features of the good reverend. And they knew that a present or two awaited them after the service, as well as a Christmas feast of roasted venison, sweet potatoes, fried onions, candied apple rings, and pies so choice with buttery crusts that even the adults rubbed their stomachs and groaned contentedly when the meal reached its reluctant conclusion.

  There was nothing merry, however, about the Christmas of 1775. Will was with his family in spirit only, as he forever would be, and the revolution that had claimed his young life was spreading like a wildfire throughout the colonies. Elizabeth Cutler did what she could to inject a sense of purpose into the family’s traditions. Richard, approaching sixteen and now the oldest child, understood the role he must play for the sake of his siblings, especially sweet Anne, whose grief over Will’s death seemed inconsolable. But it was a role he could not play. He missed Will terribly. There was no reconciling his sorrow and rage. Caleb tried to cheer him; time and again during those days leading up to Christmas he begged Richard to play checkers with him or go outside in the bracing air for a game of sticks and hoops. Richard always put him off, promising to play some other time.

  So it was that Christmas morning in 1775 that Caleb approached Richard as he sat alone at the kitchen table where the family would soon gather for supper. He held a package in his hand, wrapped simply in paper, and this he gave to his older brother. Richard separated the folds. Inside was a wooden model of a ship. He balanced it in his hand, immediately aware of the significance of the gift. Will had been a master whittler, and for each of the past three years he had given Richard a model ship as a Christmas present. Richard kept the collection upstairs on his dresser as a shrine to his brother’s memory, the intricate detail of the masts and yards, and the standing rigging fashioned from their mother’s sewing thread testifying to the loving care Will had invested in each model, a gift to a brother whom he, in turn, loved.

  What Richard now held before him, however, was no masterpiece. It was the crudest of ship models, essentially a block of wood with its center cut out to form a quarterdeck in the stern and a forecastle in the bow. Two twigs were stuck in holes knocked in the wood with a nail: one a bowsprit, the other a single mast rising from the center of the hacked-out section.

  Richard looked at his brother, at eye level with him because Richard was seated. “Thank you, Caleb,” he said. “I like it. But . . . why?”

  Caleb’s lips began to quiver. Tears sprouted from the corners of his eyes and coursed down his smooth cheeks. He choked on his reply; when finally he was able to speak, his words came out as a high mournful wail that was at once both accusation and supplication.

  “I’m your brother too, Richard. I’m your brother too!”

  A GENTLE RAP on the cabin door broke the reverie. “Yes? Enter.”

  Micah Lamont stuck his head inside. “Seven bells,” he announced, adding, when Richard appeared nonplussed, “You asked me to come to you at seven bells, Captain.”

  “Yes, of course. Thank you, Mr. Lamont.” Richard glanced down at his watch to confirm the time of 3:30, a motion that allowed him pause to collect himself. “We will weigh anchor as soon as Dr. Brooke and I are back aboard. Please prepare Falcon for departure.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Richard’s mood had eased somewhat since his return from the dey’s palace. Once aboard, he had gone below to his cabin and shut the door, remaining there, alone, for nearly two hours. When he emerged, he summoned his two officers and the ship’s surgeon to his cabin, reviewed with them what had transpired at the royal court, and advised them that they would be departing for France that very evening. They would not, however, be sailing to Toulon. The medical facilities there were no longer needed. They would sail instead to Lorient, a French seaport on the Bay of Biscay. Lorient was considerably closer to Paris, he explained, and it was a seaport with which both Richard and Agreen were well acquainted. From there they would travel to Paris to meet with Captain Jones.

  “We will be gone less than a week,” Richard concluded, glancing at his mate, who would be in command of the vessel during their absence.

  “Understood, Captain,” Lamont replied.

  “Are you ready, Dr. Brooke?”

  “Ready, Mr. Cutler,” the frail, gray-whiskered surgeon replied. He patted his brown leather medical bag for emphasis.

  “Good. Agee?”

  “Five thousand dollars in gold coin accounted for,” Agreen assured him, “and secured in the gig.”

  “Thank you. Gentlemen, it’s time.”

  On deck, Richard motioned to
the surgeon to step down into the gig. Ashore, by the jetty, ten Muslim soldiers, dark as mahogany and heavily armed, waited by a mule-drawn wagon.

  “Good luck, brother,” Agreen said. He squeezed Richard’s shoulder.

  Ashore, the mayhem so palpable in the morning was by now far less in evidence. Perhaps that was the natural way of Algiers, Richard mused as he sat in the gig’s sternsheets and observed the relative tranquility outside the walls. Earlier in the day, before his audience in the royal palace, this area had been crammed with herdsmen and traders and government officials and exotic beasts. At this hour, only a few individuals were walking about, each dressed in the flowing white robe and turban of an ordinary Arab citizen, none of them paying much attention to the gig or its passengers. Perhaps, he speculated, the relative quiet and lack of visible humanity were due to the soldiers standing at attention by the jetty. The soldiers were clearly on His Majesty’s business, and judging from their iron demeanor, God help any man stupid or unlucky enough to get in their way.

  When the two Americans stepped ashore into the blazing late-summer heat, they were searched for weapons and then escorted through the intricately decorated Gate of Jihad. Once inside the city walls, the party split in two. Four soldiers headed straight up toward the Qasbah with the treasure wagon. The six remaining soldiers guided the two Americans along a dirt pathway set between the city’s east-facing wall and a long row of what Richard assumed were administrative buildings, set so close together that there was hardly enough space to walk between any two of them. The sights and smells and sounds that had assaulted Richard’s senses earlier in the day were here less noticeable, as if this area had been declared off-limits to ordinary citizens and the ruckus and stink that they and their animals generated.

  When they arrived at the last building, a dreary one-story, whitewashed affair featuring narrow, glassless slits for windows, the officer in charge of the detail ordered a halt and signaled to the Americans to stay put. Richard watched the officer enter the building and then examined, to the extent possible, the area directly behind it. He could see the first prison barrack clearly enough—it rose two stories higher than the administrative building set in front of it—but he noticed no movement either inside or outside its walls.

  The turbaned officer reemerged and summoned the Americans inside. The building’s interior was refreshingly cool, though it took awhile for Richard’s eyes to adjust to the relative darkness. Two Muslim soldiers took up positions by a wooden doorway to his right, one on each side, as the officer indicated to Lawrence Brooke that he should follow three other guards through another door on the other side of the building leading outside to the prison compound. He spoke emphatically in Arabic to the two remaining guards before holding up one finger to Richard: one hour, the time he had purchased. He then followed Brooke and his escort outside.

  Richard stepped between the guards, opened the door. Caleb was up in an instant and walking toward him with a noticeable limp. A second man rose to his feet but remained standing beside a thick wooden table where he and Caleb had been seated.

  Caleb was thinner than Richard had ever seen him, his skeletal frame only partially concealed by the large shirt with open sleeves that he wore along with baggy cotton trousers and sandals. He was bearded, unkemptly so, and his eyes and cheeks were hollowed. But his embrace was firm and unflinching, and his deep-set blue eyes glistened as he embraced his brother. “Richard! By God, I feared I would never see this day!”

  Richard was so overcome that words utterly failed him. He held Caleb at arm’s length and stared at him, then clasped him to his chest. So frail was Caleb that Richard could feel his ribs through his shirt. Still he could not bear to release him. It took several minutes, several precious minutes, for the severity of the moment to ease its bite.

  “You look well, Caleb,” Richard managed at last. “Better than I expected.”

  Caleb forced a smile. “I manage. We all manage. We have Captain Dickerson to thank for that.” He indicated the man standing by the table. “He’s done so much for us,” Caleb explained. “Each day we’re fed a pound of bread and some bits of camel meat. That’s standard prison fare. But Captain Dickerson is able to procure some decent food for us every now and then, and he makes certain our clothes are boiled once a week. The Arabs respect him. He’s the reason we’re still alive—or at least not sold off to some worse form of slavery.”

  Richard released his brother, walked over to the table. “Thank you, Mr. Dickerson,” he said, gripping the man’s hand. “Thank you for your care of my brother and the crew.” He was grateful Dickerson was in the room. Had he not been, Richard knew, it would have been impossible to keep his frayed emotions in check.

  “My duty, Mr. Cutler,” Dickerson said in reply.

  There was a brief, awkward silence, broken finally by Caleb. “How are Mother and Father, Richard? And Anne and Lavinia?”

  Richard turned around. “Everyone is well, Caleb. They send their love to you, of course.”

  “And Katherine?”

  “Beset daily by Will and Jamie’s mischief. And Caleb? You have a niece. Her name is Diana. She was born just before I sailed from Boston.”

  “A niece. Diana Cutler.” Caleb shook his head in wonder. “A beautiful name for a beautiful lass.”

  “She is that.” A wave of powerful emotion surged between them when Richard added, his voice cracking, “Had we had a son, we would have named him Caleb.”

  Caleb smiled. He quelled the wave of emotion with, “Well, that means that you and Katherine will just have to keep on trying until you have another son.”

  Richard held up his hands defensively, relieved for the distraction. “No promises, Caleb. It was not an easy birth.”

  Fifteen minutes had elapsed. Forty-five minutes remained. Richard’s eyes flicked from Caleb to Dickerson and back again. “When were you informed that I was coming here?”

  Caleb deferred the answer to his captain.

  “I learned about it from the guards,” Dickerson said. “I’ve managed to pick up a little Arabic, since as an officer I’m excused from heavy labor. I am even allowed some freedom to walk about the city, on my parole. See here.” He drew up his trouser leg to reveal a thick iron ankle bracelet, a badge of special status. “Two days ago, we were informed by the French consul—ah, I see you have met Monsieur de Kercy—that you had an audience this morning with the dey.”

  “And have you been told . . . about what happened during that audience?”

  “The result,” Caleb confirmed. “Not the details.”

  Richard quickly summarized the proceedings, purposely omitting the possible role of Thomas Jefferson. He still could not fully accept the dey’s claims about the American consul, and he would not relay deeply troubling information that might cause the prisoners to lose hope. He did dwell, in detail, on the final offer the dey had made to him. “I pray you understand, Caleb,” he concluded, “why I had to refuse it.”

  Caleb’s blue eyes met Richard’s with an expression of deep concern, not for himself. “Of course I understand,” he said. “We have a country to build, don’t we, and a revolution to justify. Besides, Richard, even if you had accepted the dey’s offer, I would not have left Algiers with you. Under no conditions would I leave here without my shipmates.”

  Richard’s desire to walk over and embrace Caleb again proved almost irresistible. But he felt the seconds ticking by, and in any event, that would only have embarrassed his brother. “Are other Americans being held here? In addition to Eagle’s crew?”

  “Yes,” Dickerson replied. “Five from Dauphin and three from a brigantine out of Charleston. At one time there were fifty-one captives here besides ourselves. But most of them have been sold off elsewhere. One of them converted to Islam,” he added bitterly. “And Mr. Cutler, I have the sad duty to report that three of Eagle’s crew have departed this life.”

  “Who?” Richard heard himself ask.

  “Nathan Reeves, Ashley Bowen, and Jo
shua Winter.”

  “How?”

  “Reeves and Winter from the plague, three months ago. Bowen was executed, not two fortnights after we got here. He went off his head and tried to escape. Trouble is, as you’ve seen for yourself, there’s nowhere to escape to. We warned him about that, to no avail. They brought him back from the desert half-starved and raving mad, cursing Allah and the dey and every Arab that’s ever lived. They tortured him for his heresy. He was still alive when they spiked him on a hook on the outside wall. It took him two days to die. It was a warning to the rest of us. We could see his body every day while we worked on the breakwater. They left him hanging there until nothing was left but bones picked clean by the birds.”

  Richard was too appalled to speak right away. Three good men lost, Christian men, fine, able-bodied seamen. Reeves and Winter hailed from Weymouth; both were married with young children. Bowen, hardly in his twenties, hailed from Cohasset. He had wed a comely Hingham girl just a month before Eagle’s final voyage. Richard had stood up for him at their wedding.

  “I’ll write to their families,” he said, as if to himself alone. “And I’ll ask Katherine to look in on Mary. She’s so young. She’ll take this very hard.”

  “Aye, that she will,” Dickerson agreed.

  “And I’ll write Father,” Richard pledged in that same faraway tone that nonetheless contained a timbre of iron resolve. “Cutler and Sons will not forget these men or their families. We take care of our own. Please tell them that, Mr. Dickerson. Make sure they understand.”