The Sea and the Sand

by Christopher Nicole

Three days later they sighted the walls of Algiers. Exactly on schedule, because it was the morning of 31 May 1815. He had twenty-four hours to reconnoitre the city before Decatur made his move. Twenty-four hours in which he also had to keep out of harm’s way, but he did not anticipate any difficulty in doing that. Although, looking at the matter from Decatur’s point of view, he was somewhat concerned. He had only ever seen Algiers from a distance, and from sea level, before. Now he realised at once how much larger, and therefore presumably stronger, it was than Tripoli. Nor were there any signs of its being under siege — again like Tripoli.

  From the hilltop which the caravan had to mount before descending to the gate, he could look out over the Mediterranean, and there were undoubtedly ships out there, perhaps three, he thought, squinting into the glare at the far-off patches of white canvas. Presumably they were American vessels, apparently being as ineffective as they had been outside Tripoli. He had absolute faith in Decatur’s courage and determination and ability, had no doubt the rest of the squadron was poised just over the horizon, waiting for the twenty-four hours to elapse before they went into action, yet he could not escape a sinking feeling as he gazed at the several jetties creating a twisted entrance to the inner harbour, every one commanded by a battery of guns, at the strength of the walls, and at the numerous armed men, obviously soldiers although they wore no uniforms, who manned them. Everything of course depended on their will to fight. And that will depended on their commander, who, from all accounts, was scarcely the ageing Dey, Yusuf AH, but his most prominent corsair, Mohammed ben Idris.

  The caravan descended the hill side, and reached the gate. Here there were more soldiers, inspecting them carefully as they entered: Mohammed ben Idris had clearly not forgotten he had lost Tripoli to a land assault, and was taking steps to make sure that the Americans attempted no surprise attacks from that quarter.

  ‘Who’s this?’ the sergeant of the guard demanded as Toby came up.

  ‘He is a pilgrim,’ the camel master explained; he stood with the soldiers to tell them what was inside each camel pack. ‘He seeks to enlist in the army of the Dey to fight the Americans.’

  ‘He should be worth a regiment,’ the sergeant marked. ‘I will myself escort him to the barracks.’

  ‘I will find my own way to the barracks,’ Toby told him. ‘Am I not permitted to spend a last evening of freedom? I have heard that Algiers is a city where every pleasure known to man may be obtained.’

  ‘That is true enough,’ the sergeant agreed. ‘If a man has money.’

  ‘I have money,’ Toby said.

  ‘He has dinars by the dozen,’ the camel master agreed.

  ‘Then enter, friend, and enjoy your evening. Tomorrow we will set about making a man of you.’

  Toby went through the gate, and found himself in the huddle of small streets which composed the kasbah. He was surrounded by narrow doorways and overhanging balconies, strange odours and loud noises, from the cries of men and women and the wails of babies, to the chatter of parrots and the barking of dogs. It was difficult to be sure just where he was, but he knew the harbour had to be downhill, and made his way there to gain his bearings.

  ‘I seek the palace of Mohammed ben Idris, friend,’ he said to a passerby. ‘Can you direct me?’

  ‘Up the hill,’ the man replied, which was not particularly helpful.

  Toby slowly climbed the main street, and halfway up found himself outside a most imposing house. ‘Would this be the palace of Mohammed ben Idris?’ he asked another passerby.

  ‘This is the house of the Sheikh Abd er Rahman,’ the man told him. ‘The palace of the great lord Mohammed ben Idris lies up the hill, hard by the citadel.’

  ‘I thank you, friend,’ Toby said, and continued his climb, at the top remaining in the shadows of the houses of the kasbah, while he surveyed his goal. It looked formidable enough, with no windows overlooking the square until the fourth storey was reached, and access only through huge iron-barred wooden doors, outside which there lounged three very well-armed men. The castle itself, a hundred yards farther up and bristling with cannon, scarcely looked better defended.

  Not for the first time Toby realised what a debt he owed to Decatur’s cool judgment; there was no way he would ever get into that keep, undetected, without a mammoth diversion. It remained to be seen what the defenders would do when American shot started falling about them.

  He went back down the hill, as it was by now late afternoon, and found a coffee shop where he was able to sit down and have something to eat and drink. ‘I seek a lodging for the night,’ he told the innkeeper.

  ‘In Algiers? There are no lodgings to be had in Algiers, save you sleep in the street. We are at war, friend. Had you not heard this?’

  ‘At war?’ Toby laughed. ‘Where are your enemies, then?’

  The innkeeper smiled. ‘It is true, they are difficult to see, because they keep their distance. They lie over the horizon, and pretend to interfere with our shipping. They are American ships of war.’

  ‘Americans?’ Toby asked. ‘Who are these Americans? But wait …’ he frowned. ‘There were people of some such name fighting against Tripoli some years ago.’

  ‘These are the same,’ the man told him. ‘They are infidels from far across the sea who have the effrontery to sail past our harbours. The Tripolitanians defeated them, as they will be defeated if they attempt to attack us here. But the general of our lord the Dey, Mohammed ben Idris, takes no chances, and has commanded the outlying farmers to come into the city with all their produce, that we may be fully stocked and garrisoned in case these infidels come at us across the land.’

  ‘But you said they were on ships, at sea,’ Toby argued.

  ‘Indeed they are, friend. But their ships cannot harm us. There is no ship in the world can enter this harbour without being blown to pieces. Our defences are too strong. No, no, only an army can hope to oppose us. Not that we fear an army, either.’

  ‘All of this I have heard,’ Toby said, wondering if it could be true. In which case he was indeed on a suicide mission. ‘I have myself come to enlist.’

  ‘But that is good news,’ the innkeeper cried. ‘They will make a man of you in that army. And if that is true, why … I might offer you a bed in my own quarters for tonight.’ He eyed Toby’s bulk. ‘I should enjoy making a man of you myself.’

  Toby got the message: he was well aware that most Moors were fairly ambivalent in their views on sex.

  ‘I will thank Allah for your generosity, friend,’ he said. ‘But I have sworn an oath that I shall share my couch with no one, man or woman, until I have fulfilled a certain duty.’

  ‘Then I shall pray to Allah that you are rapidly successful in the performance of this duty,’ the innkeeper said. ‘And I will not turn so honest a man out into the street. There is a stable at the back with clean, dry straw, where you may be reasonably comfortable. I offer you this, in the expectation that our friendship will outlast your oath.’

  Toby bowed, hands pressed together. ‘I assure you, friend, that if Algiers stands when I once again am free of obligation, our friendship will prosper mightily.’

  So, Stephen, he thought, you now have to rescue me twice. But the stable was indeed dry and clean, and he slept soundly, awakening at the first cockcrow, feeling the adrenalin flooding his system. This was to be the day of days.

  But there was time yet; Decatur would scarcely get moving before the beginning of the morning, if only to give him the time to position himself close to Idris’s palace. There was time to eat first, and he was very hungry.

  He went back into the inn, where there were several men already eating and drinking coffee, all stopping to stare at him, and then checked, as he realised that his friend the innkeeper was deep in argument with half a dozen heavily armed men standing in the doorway. Instinctively he knew they were seeking him. But how, and why?

  If he immediately suspected the innkeeper, he realised he was almost certainly wrong as the men came i
nto the building, pushing the alarmed man in front of them.

  ‘I have no enemies of the state here,’ he protested. ‘In my establishment? Now Lord Mansur …’

  The man he so addressed, a tall, lean, dark-visaged fellow with a savage expression, stared at Toby. ‘Your establishment is a den of spies and infidels,’ he growled and pointed. ‘That is the man we seek.’

  The innkeeper turned. ‘Him? Why, Lord Mansur, that is a pilgrim, a goodly fellow who seeks enlistment in the army of the Dey.’

  Toby sized up the situation. The other seven men in the room were placing themselves against the walls in the hopes of staying out of harm’s way. But he had no doubt that each of them was armed, and that all of them would support the soldiers if it came to a fight. Equally he knew he could not oppose even his muscles, and a single dagger, to the swords of six soldiers. And, as he had discovered last night before retiring, the stable at the back was a dead end. His only hope of survival lay in the flat roofs of the kasbah.

  In a quick movement he stooped, picked up the nearest bench, and hurled it at the advancing soldiers. They gave shouts of alarm as they leapt backwards, in the same movements drawing their swords. But Toby was already dashing up the stone steps at the rear of the coffee house, throwing aside a man who attempted to block his way, and emerging on to the first floor into the midst of a crowd of half-dressed women and children.

  He ignored them and took the next two flights of stairs, steep and narrow, past more women and children, and some men, all half-awake, half-dressed, and regarding him with total consternation, before emerging on to the roof, in the midst of a sea of washing flapping in the gentle breeze. For a moment he lost his sense of direction, stumbled, and nearly fell into the narrow crevice separating the next roof. He recovered himself, stepped across — it was only a distance of three feet — fumbled his way through more washing, and faced another six men, who must have entered from the street. Idris had surrounded the entire area.

  He turned away from them, and saw the first half dozen reaching the roof he had just left.

  He drew his dagger, and the twelve men slowly advancing hissed their anticipation of imminent danger. But Toby threw the dagger to the floor. ‘I am your prisoner,’ he said.

  Mansur smiled, his teeth gleaming through his beard. ‘My master will be pleased, infidel dog,’ he said. ‘He has long awaited the pleasure of your company.’

  CHAPTER 14

  The Mediterranean and Elsewhere — 1815-1820

  Mohammed ben Idris stroked his beard as he gazed at Toby McGann. Toby’s arms were bound behind him, and he was surrounded by six guards, each with drawn sword. The Moors were taking no chances with such a giant. On the other hand, apart from binding him they had offered him no violence, as yet. They seemed too surprised to have captured him so easily.

  ‘By Allah,’ Idris remarked, ‘but you are even bigger than I remember. Truly, watching you die will be the greatest sport a man could imagine.’ He came closer and pulled Toby’s beard. ‘By Allah,’ he said again. ‘You have planned this venture —’ his teeth flashed as he smiled — ‘all to no avail.’

  ‘Is the camel master to be rewarded, great lord?’ asked the dark visaged captain named Mansur, who remained at Toby’s side, sword in hand.

  ‘Bah,’ Idris said. ‘He did not truly bring us information. He merely bragged about town about the blue-eyed giant who had joined his caravan. It was then I realised who it must be. He deserves nothing.’

  ‘I see you are as honest as ever in your dealings with your people,’ Toby remarked. He refused to despair, even if he had been catastrophically over-confident in not realising that a man who would talk so freely to him would talk equally freely to everyone. But he had at least gained access to Idris’s palace, even if several hours early, and as a prisoner. And surely Decatur would soon be on the move. He had only to keep alive, and locate Felicity, for them both to be safe — and he felt sure that Idris did not intend to kill him out of hand.

  ‘So tell me,’ he went on, ‘where is my wife, Oh abductor of women?’

  Idris gave another flashing smile. ‘Would you like to be reunited with her?’

  ‘I have come here for that purpose and to demand her release.’

  Idris nodded. ‘The effrontery of your people never ceases to amaze me. But as you have come so far without an army at your back, and as I have anticipated your coming, even supported by an army, you shall certainly be reunited with her. I have waited for this moment for a very long time.’ Another stroke of his beard. ‘And when you are together, together you will scream so loud, that your ships out there on the horizon will hear you.’

  Toby made no reply. The more he talked and threatened, the more was Idris digging his own grave.

  ‘Now tell me,’ Idris said. ‘Have you breakfasted?’

  ‘No,’ Toby said.

  ‘Ah. That is not good. I would have you sustain your strength. Very well. My own chef will prepare a meal for you. And for your wife. But now, let us go and find her, eh? Mansur …’ He turned to the captain of the guards. ‘You will send a message to awaken Lord Abd er Rahman, for assuredly he will still be sleeping at this hour. Your messenger will inform the good Abd that I am on my way to call on him, bringing with me Toby McGann.’ He gave a bellow of laughter. ‘Poor old Abd, he will be unhappy about that. He is such a fool. He does not understand humanity. Come, Mr McGann, let us take a walk.’

  Toby’s brain went round in circles. Nothing was as he had anticipated. ‘My wife is with a man named Abd er Rahman?’ he asked.

  ‘A rich fool,’ Idris told him. ‘Far too rich for his own good. Mansur here used to command a ship for him. But he gave his allegiance to me, when I settled here. That was a wise thing to do. Do you not think so, Mansur?’

  ‘Truly, great lord,’ Mansur agreed.

  They were on the street now and walking down the hill, while the crowd which had gathered round Toby when he had been led from the coffee house to Idris’s palace, grew even larger as it followed.

  ‘Would you not estimate that Abd become enamoured of Felicity Crown when you first brought her to him?’ Idris asked.

  ‘You brought her to this place?’ Toby asked.

  ‘I captured the ship on which she sailed, fourteen years ago,’ Mansur acknowledged. ‘She was the only worthwhile thing on the vessel. I brought her to Algiers, to my then master, Abd er Rahman, and he looked upon her, and desired her, and would have kept her in his harem, but that he was forbidden to do so by his head wife.’

  ‘Ha ha!’ Idris continued. ‘A man ruled by his wife. Only a fool is ruled by his wife, Toby McGann. As only a fool would ever value a woman so high as to risk his life for her. You are as big a fool as Abd er Rahman. But we have arrived.’

  Toby gazed at the house where he had paused the previous afternoon. Of course, the palace of Abd er Rahman. And Felicity was in there, almost certainly not as closely confined as he had anticipated. If only he had known that, he could have regained her and left the city by now.

  The door was opened by a bowing eunuch, and they were taken inside to a luxuriously furnished reception chamber.

  ‘Do you know,’ Idris said reminiscently, ‘this is the very room where I laid eyes upon Felicity for the first time, and wanted her. Ah, if a man could see the future, and know the trouble she would bring me, would I not have allowed Abd to place her on the common block? But then, it has all turned out satisfactorily, has it not?’

  Mansur made Toby stand against the wall, still surrounded by armed men, while Idris waited in the centre of the room. ‘I do not understand you Idris,’ he said. ‘You claim to desire Felicity and yet you have sold her to this man?’

  Idris smiled. ‘Oh, indeed. I would have had her flayed alive and stuffed, and placed by the door to my bedchamber, but he wanted her. Even after she had belonged to me, and then you, and been a mother, he wanted her. I am a business-man. I sold her to him for twenty thousand dinars.’

  ‘Twenty thousand dinars?
’ Toby could not believe his ears.

  ‘I have told you, he is a fool. More than a fool, for he was so anxious to lay his hands upon her, he agreed to a certain condition on the sale, a condition which he did not believe could ever arise. Ha ha! He agreed that should you ever come to Algiers, seeking your wife, he would return her to me, on repayment of half the purchase price. As I say, he did not believe that could ever be possible, for it is the province of fools that they never believe any other men can be as foolish as themselves. So now, you see, I have you and I will have Felicity, and I have ten thousand dinars. Abd, my old friend,’ he said, as the stout little old man hurried into the room, ‘a pleasant surprise. I would have you meet Lieutenant McGann of the United States Navy.’

  Abd er Rahman stopped and stared at Toby. ‘I do not believe you.’

  ‘Oh, it is McGann, Abd. Have you ever known me to lie? He has grown a beard, but we shall soon shave that off. And he is wearing Arab clothing, but we will discover that beneath his robe there lies an uncircumcised infidel. Anyway, I will prove it to you in the most simple of fashions. Fetch the woman.’ Abd er Rahman plucked at his beard. ‘I cannot believe it,’ he muttered. ‘I cannot. And you would have me bring the woman here? Before these men?’

  Idris gave a shout of laughter. ‘Has she not already been exposed to these men? But let her wear the yashmak.’

  Still Abd hesitated. ‘You have not repaid the money.’

  ‘It awaits you at my house.’

  The little man’s shoulders became more rounded than before, and he growled an order at the eunuch waiting in the doorway. ‘There is some devilry here,’ he said. ‘Idris, you are indeed a devil. You mean to kill her?’

  Idris chuckled. ‘I will kill them both, but not until I have had my sport with them.’

  He looked at the doorway, and Toby caught his breath. The eunuch had returned with the woman. She wore both a haik and a yashmak, as if she were about to go out on the street. But he knew immediately that it was Felicity. Oh, to be able to see outside, and know whether the American squadron was standing in!