Swords From the Sea (69 page)

A loud whoop sounded from the sprawling figures of the Marines. "Cain't no wolf take our victuals from us!"

Whether some Arab had filched a slice of meat, or whether the man was merely letting out his voice, Paul never knew. Close to him Farquhar was bending over Marie, saying in rapid French: "I'll never believe the Yankees were descended from Englishmen."

He was whispering into her ear, fondling her hand. And the girl sat pas sive as if enjoying it. Paul felt his body stiffen. Awkwardly he started to his feet. Those two, the thought shaped in his mind, were whispering so he would not hear. And she was not the Marie Anne who had slept with her head on his arm, in the carriage-

He found himself standing with his hand gripping Farquhar's shoulder, saying: "It is ill doing, sir, to speak so of a man."

Farquhar's head jerked up, over his high collar. His thin nostrils twitched as if he were trying not to smile. "Lad, it was not of you I spoke." Then his voice altered. "But if you conceive that my words did reflect upon you, I am at your service, sir, with whatever weapon you select. Egad," he added ruefully, "we'll find no suitable seconds among our fellows."

Paul stared at him. He had blurted out a stupid thing. The older man had answered with a patrician's courtesy. Marie still held fast to his hand, her eyes searching Paul's face as if discovering something new in it. "Paul Davies," she said quickly, "did anyone tell you why Monsieur Farquhar joined your Yankees?"

"No," cried Farquhar, "and I'm damned if he'll hear."

"He will, because I am going to tell him."

To Paul's surprise, the handsome Englishman freed his hand from the girl's clinging fingers and sprang up. Something like fear flashed into his set face. He said, "Mr. Davies, I will wait for your word," and turned to stride off alone.

Marie sat for a moment chin on hand. "A woman likes attention from a man, if he is nice to her. Don't you know that?"

Kneeling beside her, stirring the fire mechanically, Paul heard her explain that Eaton had told her how he had engaged Richard Farquhar, Percival's brother, to manage his accounts in Cairo, and how Richard had taken out thirteen hundred dollars to pay his own native debts-she did not know what. But the day after he had been dismissed, Percival had driven up to Eaton's villa to offer his apology, and to serve without payment in his brother's place. "He said not to pay him anything, because he was not worth it, and that in time he would make up a portion of the debt. The General took him at his word."

The gentleness in her voice was something apart from the sounds of the camp and the uncertainty of the night. "He is not like you, Paul, who are so serious and somber. He makes a jest of everything."

Suddenly she put her hand into the Yankee's. "Paul, he lived once in a manor house and had his own stable of racing horses. I think he was an officer then. Now-he laughs at what he calls the Once-Honorable Percival. He did not mean to harm you. Would you hurt him?"

In the smoke of the fire Paul saw the smoke drifting from the pistol he had fired in the duel at Malta. "No, Marie," he cried.

"Then you must tell him so."

Not until he had lain awake long in his blanket did Paul realize how inexorably the girl had pressed him to make his peace with the Englishman. Her gentleness had been stronger than their anger.

Chapter Six

Even drugged by sleep, he sensed a change in the encampment. The nomads, astir as always before sunrise, were moving near him. O'Bannon called out. When he got up to go to the embers of the fire he almost fell over Marie, curled up on a sheepskin near the ashes. She was awake, and she explained the Arab women had warned her to stay away from their tents. "They said," she repeated drowsily, "for me to stay with my own men-"

In the half light of dawn the tribesmen were collecting around the tent that held the stores. O'Bannon complained that three horses had disappeared under the eyes of his sentry.

More than that. Within the guarded tent Paul found the precious sacks in disorder; one at least was missing by his count. While he was trying to strike a light to a tallow dip, Mendrici scurried in, shivering with cold or fear, and stammering that they were being attacked. But at the tent entrance Paul could make out only the mass of tribesmen faced by the eight Marines in their jerseys with their muskets held on the noisy crowd. Eugene appeared to inspect the stores, snarling at Mendrici and swearing that if they had been attacked by Tripolitans most of them would be dead in their blankets already. The Bedouins had demanded an issue of the Americans' rice; Eaton had refused as usual and had gone to argue with Hamet ...

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 gunboats-"

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.