The Sea and the Sand

by Christopher Nicole

  Now Enterprise commenced firing at them, but aiming again deliberately wide. From the distant shore no one would be able to tell anything more than the essential fact: that one of their ships was being chased by an American, and was so far escaping.

  ‘Bring that fellow aft, Toby,’ Decatur commanded.

  Toby signalled the two men he had guarding the pirate captain, and the Moor was brought to stand beside the helm.

  ‘Now you are going to con us through these sandbanks,’ Decatur told him. ‘And remember, my friend is still very hungry. If we touch, you die, piece by piece. My friend is also very partial to toes and fingers, and lips and tongues, and eyeballs most of all. He eats them raw.’

  Toby licked his lips and pinched the pirate captain’s cheeks appreciatively.

  A perfect stream of sailing directions issued from the man’s lips, and within seconds they watched rippling breakers to either side, while they themselves slipped through deep water. Sextant at his elbow, telescope in hand, Decatur made notes of the various courses and traverses, as the channel changed direction several times, and Toby realised how hopeless it would have been for them to attempt this passage without a pilot.

  But the white walls of Tripoli were coming ever closer. Behind them the Enterprise ceased firing and bore away, apparently in frustration, in fact to sail north as rapidly as possible and regain contact with the American squadron, cruising off Malta. It seemed fairly certain that the Intrepid was going to get into Tripoli; getting back out again was not guaranteed without close support.

  Decatur watched her go. ‘Now, then, Toby,’ he said in a low voice as the schooner dwindled from sight. ‘It is all up to us. You,’ he told the captain in Arabic. ‘Is it deep water alongside the quays in the harbour?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ the man said. ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Twist his prick for him, Toby,’ Decatur said in English.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Come on,’ Decatur said. ‘You are supposed to be an ogre; act the part.’

  Reluctantly, Toby began to fumble with the man’s clothing, squeezing every piece of flesh he could find.

  Apparently with effect. ‘There is water by the quays,’ the man screamed. ‘I swear it by Allah. Only the south-western part is shallow.’

  ‘I guess we can believe that,’ Decatur decided, and Toby gratefully ceased his activities.

  Decatur himself took the helm as they were now in a clearly marked channel, only a quarter of a mile from the pierheads. There was a fort on each head, bristling with cannon, but these were silent, while the battlements were lined with cheering Moors, welcoming them to safety from the American patrol.

  ‘Do you see Philadelphia?’ Decatur muttered, scanning the harbour as it opened before them.

  Toby shaded his eyes; they could not risk using their European telescopes this close. Inside, the harbour was larger than he had expected, and was crowded with shipping, most alongside the quays. Behind the vessels, the housing clustered into narrow streets, leading up a shallow hill towards a larger fortress from which there flew a green flag. Up there, too, were a large number of cannon, poking their muzzles through the embrasures. And against the quay immediately beneath the citadel was the Philadelphia, entirely re-rigged, and with guns in her ports; she was almost ready for sea — but there were no men to be seen on board. He could hardly believe their good fortune.

  ‘There,’ he said.

  ‘Aye.’ Decatur had seen her in the same instant. ‘Shorten sail,’ he bellowed. ‘Look lively, lads.’

  The watchers on the shore were starting to shout comments as the corsair continued into the harbour at full speed. Now the huge mainsail was dropped, but she continued across the calm water far too fast, making straight for the frigate. At that moment the captain, ignored by his guards as the moment of decision approached, broke free and ran across the deck.

  ‘Stop that fellow!’ Decatur shouted.

  Toby ran behind him, but was too late; the captain reached the rail, threw up his arms, and dived over the side, to the accompaniment of an enormous upsurge of amazed noise from either side.

  ‘Well, then,’ Decatur said. ‘We shall have to find our own way back out, to be sure.’

  *

  The spreading noise awoke Felicity, where she lay in a heated doze. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the Vizier lay beside her, enjoying his siesta. It was a time of day when he was most sexually active, and she was his selected companion on at least four days out of every seven. He never seemed to tire of her, and in fact his siestas were gradually becoming longer and longer, as he preferred to lie abed with her, playing with her body, than attending to business.

  Often, when she awoke like this before him, she wondered why she did not end it all. His clothes and weapons were on the far side of the room. It would be a simple matter to leave the bed, pick up his curved dagger, and drive it into his chest with all her force. It should be a simple matter. But she did not know if she could strike the fatal blow. Equally, she did not know if she would then be able to kill herself. Because not to do that … There had been a case of a concubine killing her master during her sojourn in Tripoli. The woman had been sewn up, alive, in the belly of a dead ass, and then left there. She had been fed and given water to drink, every day, while her body had slowly putrefied along with the carcass. Felicity could still hear her screams, her pleas to be strangled.

  And her lord had not been Mohammed ben Idris.

  In any event, the moment was past for this day at least; the noise had also awakened the Vizier. He got up and went out on to the flat roof overlooking the harbour, returning a moment later with his white teeth gleaming in a grin.

  ‘One of our ships seems to have gained another victory,’ he said, kneeling astride her naked body. ‘By Allah, but I do believe you have brought me nothing but good fortune, my pretty little pomegranate. As well as much pleasure, to be sure. Now …’ He turned his head as there came an urgent knocking, and Felicity realised the noise from outside had grown even louder. ‘Cover yourself,’ Idris commanded, as he left the bed again and wrenched open the door.

  Felicity hastily dragged the sheet across herself, for an officer stood in the doorway, gabbling almost incoherently. But she caught the word ‘Americans’.

  Idris seized his scimitar and his robes, and was dressing himself as he ran down the corridor, banging the door closed behind him. Felicity sat up, threw back the covers. Through the opened windows she could hear shouts and screams, and now the explosions of both cannon and small arms. The Americans! Capturing the city? That had to be an impossible dream. But if it was happening … and something was certainly happening.

  She scrambled out of the bed. To make the journey from the harem up the stairs to the Vizier’s apartment she was always required to wear her haik and yashmak. She wrapped herself in the haik, but ignored the mask, then stepped from the upper doorway on to the roof. For her to be out here alone, overlooked by the guards on the other walls and with her face uncovered, would surely earn her a flogging but it would be worth it to see the end of Tripoli — and Mohammed ben Idris.

  She ran to the battlements, looked down, and caught her breath as she watched what was obviously a Tripolitanian ship manned, equally obviously to the first glance, by Moors, crashing alongside the USS Philadelphia where she lay beside the quay immediately beneath her.

  The captured ship was Mohammed ben Idris’s pride and joy. Visitors had come from all over North Africa to inspect the Tripolitanian prize, and stroke their beards and wonder at the prowess of men who could obtain such a marvellous machine of war. Now … She stared at men, wearing Arab robes to be sure, but discarding these to reveal American uniforms beneath, scrambling over the sides of the big frigate. They moved with an orderly haste, some score of them, armed with muskets, taking up positions along the inner bulwarks to fire into the Moors who were gathering on the quayside, while two other parties went down the hatches, forward and aft, carrying barrels of what had to be gunpowder; th
ose who remained on board the much smaller corsair were readying the ship to pull out to sea again, warping her about to face the harbour mouth.

  Felicity found herself panting as she watched the well drilled manoeuvres being carried out, and then lost her breath altogether as she saw two other men hurrying on to the American quarterdeck, swords drawn. One of them she had never seen before. But the other, towering above his companion, dark hair fluttering in the breeze …

  ‘Toby McGann!’ she muttered. ‘Toby McGann!’ she screamed, before she could stop herself. ‘Oh, my God, Toby McGann!’ Her knees gave way, as the afternoon turned black.

  Toby heard the shout above even the tumult around him. He looked up at the battlements and saw her there, for she had thrown the cowl of the haik back from her head. He had not seen her for four years, but he recognised her immediately. Felicity Crown! Alive, after all. And a slave, here in Tripoli. Felicity Crown!

  Decatur grabbed his arm. ‘Haste, Toby,’ he snapped for Arabs were attempting to climb up the after topsides. Decatur drove one back with a thrust of his sword, then fired his pistol point blank at another bearded face.

  Toby recovered his senses and also fell to, and the assault was temporarily repelled, while the American sailors were hurrying back up from below, their powder trains laid and lit.

  ‘Rejoin the ship,’ Decatur bawled. ‘Deck party repel boarders.’

  Because now was the most dangerous part of the whole operation; they had to remain on board Philadelphia until the last possible moment, to make sure no bold spirit succeeded in putting out the fuses.

  ‘Stephen,’ Toby stood to attention. ‘Permission to go ashore.’

  Decatur, hastily priming his pistol, cast him an astonished glance. ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘I have seen her,’ Toby said. ‘Up there.’ He pointed at the battlements, which were now deserted.

  ‘Seen who?’

  ‘Felicity Crown.’

  ‘Felicity Crown? That girl who was taken by an Algerian three years ago? You are mad.’

  ‘I saw her,’ Toby shouted. ‘I tell you she is here in Tripoli, a slave. Stephen …’

  ‘And you would attempt to rescue her? If she is indeed here, and not some figment of your imagination. Do not be a fool. Worse, do not play the traitor. If we could risk a sortie ashore with any hope of success, would you not go after Captain Bainbridge and his people, rather than a woman? But your place is here. These men are your responsibility.’

  Toby flushed at the rebuke and bit his lip, but he knew his friend was right. In addition to the large Moorish force assembling on the quay, clearly meaning to charge them at any moment, the cannon on the fortress itself were being run out, and several of the corsairs had been cast off to block their attempt at escape. Every man was needed for the coming fight if they were going to survive. The entire command had had this drummed into them by Decatur before they had set out; that their mission was to destroy Philadelphia and escape again — not to attempt the impossible by thinking of Bainbridge, and thus give the Tripolitanians the opportunity to claim another victory. But to walk away from Felicity …

  ‘Give fire,’ Decatur was shouting, and his men delivered a volley into the advancing Moors, driving them back again. ‘Now,’ he shouted. ‘Regain the ship. Regain the ship.’ The sailors ran back across the deck of the frigate and leapt the bulwarks on to the corsair.

  ‘Get aboard her, Toby,’ Decatur commanded. ‘And cast off. Make sail.’

  ‘But you …’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  Toby obeyed the order, scrambled across the gunwale. ‘Release these grapples,’ he shouted. ‘Set sail. Push her away.’

  He himself exerted all his strength to drive the two ships apart, then turned to look for his friend, saw Decatur, waiting on the quarterdeck for the first Moor to emerge over the side.

  Decatur levelled his pistol, shot the man through the head, then turned and ran for the rail. Shots whistled around him, but he made a clean jump, and Toby was there to seize his arm and pull him to safety, even as the corsair heeled to the breeze and started to come about, drifting clear of the frigate now filled with screaming Moors firing their muskets, but fortunately very wildly. In front of them was the more serious danger, as half a dozen ships sailed to and fro, bristling with men, also shouting threats and imprecations — but at least behind them, the cannon on the citadel were unable to shoot, for fear of hitting their own people.

  ‘Straight for them, Toby,’ Decatur snapped. ‘It’s the only way. And we must …’ His voice was drowned in the most enormous explosion Toby had ever heard.

  *

  ‘A coup de main,’ Edward Preble said proudly. ‘A coup de main. I will write to the Board about it, Stephen, you may be certain of that. About all of you.’

  Decatur winced as the surgeon removed the dressing from his burns, and applied a fresh one. There was not a man of his command, still alive, who was not burned on some part of his body by the flying cinders and flaming debris of the Philadelphia; the real miracle was that any of them remained alive.

  ‘And you, Toby,’ Preble promised. ‘That was a right gallant deed. Your father will be proud of you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Toby closed his eyes as the surgeon turned his attention to him. But when he closed his eyes, he saw and heard — his ears still seemed to be ringing — nothing but the blazing holocaust which had been Tripoli Harbour. He remembered the ship being thrown on to her beam ends, remembered hurrying below to discover several timbers started and seeping water, remembered having the pumps manned and himself using his great muscles to keep them from foundering. Water below, fire above. Their masts and sails and rigging had all been burning as they had closed the Tripolitanian ships, Decatur, face blackened and uniform half blown away, clinging to the helm.

  But the very fact that they resembled a fireship, together with the total shock the Moors had also received from the explosion, had turned out to their advantage. They had been in the midst of their enemies, their guns exploding to either side, and then through them and between the pierheads before the Moors could understand what had happened. Clearly it had never crossed their minds that the Americans would seek to destroy their own ship. Just as they had never supposed any ship could penetrate their sandbanks without a pilot.

  Their pursuit had been half hearted, as they had presumed the invaders must go aground, to burn helplessly. But the Americans had got the flames under control, and the bearings Decatur had so carefully taken on the way in, properly reversed, had taken them back out, and by the time the Moors had gathered their wits sufficiently to mount a chase, the squadron had been appearing over the northern horizon. It had still been a near thing, for the pirate vessel had been slowly sinking, and Preble had had to put boats down to pluck his men from the sea as the corsair had at last slipped beneath the waves. Yet they had carried out their mission. Decatur had dared, and he had succeeded, in surely one of the most remarkable feats of arms in history.

  At what cost? Why, very little, in terms of casualties. Half a dozen men badly wounded, two killed. And Toby himself? If no more than lightly burned, he wondered if he was not the most serious casualty of all. Because there was another vision, looming from amidst the flames and smoke, whenever he closed his eyes. That face, looking down at him from the battlements, and so abruptly disappearing. He did not know whether she had fainted or been dragged away to some unspeakable torture. Or had merely regretted calling out his name, had not, after all, wished him to know she was there. It was even possible that she might have been hit by a stray bullet or a burning splinter. But she had been there, and she must have been there through all of the long months he had been sitting in Syracuse. She had been there, suffering, while he had been fishing on the command of James Barron.

  And she would remain there, as he realised once the euphoria of their raid had worn off. Decatur’s feat had accomplished nothing towards saving her, or Bainbridge and his men. It had been a necessary gallantry, desi
gned to prevent the Tripolitanians from utilising the advantage they had gained by seizing the Philadelphia. Undoubtedly they had caused immense damage; when the American squadron had returned to the head of the channel the next day, parts of the port were still burning.

  But the damage had not been decisive, nor had it inhibited the Moors’ determination to fight. When the frigates had attempted to approach closer, using Decatur’s pilotage notes, the guns on the harbour forts and those on the citadel had opened up so heavy a fire Preble had been forced to order a retreat. Tripoli was not going to fall to an assault from the sea, that was more certain than ever.

  Thus Felicity Crown was as lost as if he had never seen her at all. It was the second time she had been almost within his reach — and he had turned away.

  *

  So, once again, blockade. But now the entire war had become hateful to him. To walk the quarterdeck of the Essex, as winter bloomed into spring and the whistling mistrals — the strong north-westerly gales which blew, sometimes for days on end, out of a clear sky — dwindled to gentle breezes as spring eased into summer, to stare at the shore and know that perhaps she was staring back, was the most exquisite torture he could have imagined possible.

  She had seen him, and he had seen her, and understood her situation … and he had sailed away, because he had chosen the path of duty to that of chivalry. Would Father have made that choice? How that thought haunted him.

  Yet equally haunting was the thought of what he would have found had he got ashore and rescued her. Had he not recognised, years ago, that she could never be regained, because the girl he had known and admired and, indeed, fallen in love with, as he now knew to be the case, no longer existed. Not after four years in an Arab harem. He attempted to comfort himself with the reflection that the girl he had fallen in love with had probably never existed at all, even before that fateful gale off the Portuguese coast. He knew nothing of Felicity Crown. He had fallen, with boyish impetuosity, for a face and a figure, for a concept rather than a human being. And fate had conspired to leave that concept imprinted on his mind. It were best forgotten. He would do best to return to America and the sanity of the Long Island farm, and drink a glass of whisky with Father, and find some homespun, apple-cheeked girl to wed, and be happy — and pursue his career in the Navy, Tripoli no more than a distant nightmare.