Swords From the Sea (73 page)

Beating time with his arms, he shouted, "Selim!"

From a knot of sleepers the big janizary arose, clutching his drum. Pulling out the sticks, he began to beat the drum for assembly.

Chapter Nine

In the early morning watch of the second night, John Dent, commanding the Nautilus, altered his course to stand in toward the invisible African coast. At the same time he ordered lights doused along the deck where the watch still worked at running lead into the bullet molds and tying up the hot bullets into small handy bags.

The orderly waist of the schooner was encumbered by some strange gear, two of her guns being mounted on clumsy wheeled carriages, beside nine kegs of powder, sacks of cannon balls, and the chests containing the bullet bags.

The schooner heeled only slightly in the light offshore breeze. When the sky showed clear above the sunrise on his port quarter, John Dent let out a silent breath of relief. Just off his starboard bow twin fragments of islands showed; beyond them, against the monotonous gray of the coast escarpment, a spate of green became visible. That green was the valley of Derna, fertile because a river ran through it. Near the outfall of that river, hidden in the recess of the bay, the city of Derna would lie.

"Steady as you are," he told the helmsman.

John Dent was nineteen years old and newly in command of the schooner. As he counted the powder kegs again to verify their number, it crossed his mind that the two officers who had had the Nautilus before him had been killed off Tripoli-one of them, Richard Somers, by an explosion of powder.

It worried Dent that he had no suitable tackle to horse to the improvised fieldpieces, when he gained touch with Eaton's force on shore.

Promptly after sunup a morning ration of rice and a few dates was laid beside Paul. A veiled girl, who had filled a jar with water at the river's edge, offered him some. He cupped his hands and leaned out from his carpeted niche to drink.

The water was still cold, and when he had sipped it, he rubbed his wet hands over his inflamed eyes and rubbed back his hair. When he had finished, the girl lifted the jar to her head, steadying it gracefully with one hand, merging into the throng passing through the city gate where the Yankee prisoner had been placed in the recess usually occupied by idle members of the guard.

He had been put there, he knew, for all these common folk to see. Women carrying out infants, and clothing to rinse in the river, donkey drivers and turbaned mullahs, peasants driving in carts of grain and fruit-they could hardly escape seeing that the American brought in by their masters the corsairs was helpless and injured, craving water like any poor soul of the fellahin.

Hadjali had cared for him well enough after his capture, giving him the gray charger to ride from the Well of the Gazelles to the cedars and date palms of Derna. There the slash under his ribs had been dressed by an Italian physician, plumper and better clad than Mendrici.

But his trousers were fouled with the blood that drew flies ceaselessly after sunrise warmed the air. Only with an effort that set him to sweating could he get to his feet and move along the shadow of the wall, stared at by his curious guards.

They gave him a blanket to pull over him when the night chill came in from the bay. By their speech he identified Sardinians, Neapolitans, French, and even some Germans among the soldiers-fugitives, renegades, or adventurers from war-torn Europe. Some of them were undoubtedly captives like himself who had elected to do armed service for the Beys. Others, like Hadjali, had been drawn to the wealth of the Barbary ports.

While the corvos-the guards-carried Spanish muskets and American-made pistols, the townspeople were not allowed arms. They went about their tasks lashed like animals, and as callous of hurt as animals. They stepped out of the way when corvos marched down the street which seemed to be the great street of the town leading back to the gardens and the white walls of the governor's palace.

From the wall above Paul's niche, giant hooks projected. His guards pointed these out, explaining that offenders were pushed from the summit of the wall, to fall upon the hooks and die there, sometimes very slowly. "Like fish strung up."

And like fishhooks, the points of heavy steel were barbed and clotted with remnants of flesh. They were old and evil as the resplendent castle.

"Douceur," the corvos begged of Paul. A sweetening, a gift. In Spanish silver, or Venetian gold-they knew the value of all the coins, and they tried to get him to pay for wine, or a water pipe. But he had left only the francs and carubs in Marie's purse, and he did not want to give those away.

His inflamed body craved water.

Lying on his blanket under the eyes of the crowds, turning to ease the throbbing ache in his side, he realized that fever was burning away his strength. When he closed his eyes against the swarming flies, the street around him had the sounds of his own street.

In his home at this hour he had walked out so often, careless of anything except the scent of the lilacs and the salt breath of the river where vessels passed carrying people on casual errands or long journeys, wherever they willed to go ... Whatever might come of it, he would find his way out to a boat-to go home ...

That morning, when he had given away the rice he could not eat to one of the beggars that haunted the guard post, he found that the gate itself was being cleared. A detachment of infantry wearing fezzes aslant arrived at the double, and formed up with bayonets fixed. Mounted spahis drove the huddles of peasants aside into alley mouths.

After them trotted grandees from the palace, splendidly horsed. Officers of the Bey, Paul guessed. Hadjali accompanied a foreigner in black with the glint of a gold chain at his throat, who held a lace handkerchief to his nose against the stench of the alleys. They drew rein just outside the great gate, and after a moment Hadjali called back at Paul.

"Yankee-what vessel is that?"

In his wall niche Paul could see nothing except the masts of polaccas drawn up on the shore a quarter-mile out. "Which vessel?" he asked.

Impatiently the renegade swung down from his saddle, coming over to haul the prisoner to his feet and hurry him limping out to the cavalcade. There Hadjali pointed to the east.

A mile away, off the headland that topped the valley, lay the Nautilus. Under the glare of the early morning sun, Paul made out a boat pulling away to shore, with the measured stroke of naval oarsmen. The boat seemed to be heavily loaded.

"Goelette," he said briefly.

Hadjali snarled. "A schooner! We know it is an armed schooner. But which one, and what is its mission near Derna?"

Paul was silent. Around one of the islands he observed square tops'ls heading into the bay, and a tiny wisp of a sail escorting them. That would be the Argus following a sloop in.

The next moment the riders had sighted the other vessels. The foreigner spoke sharply in Spanish. Deferentially Hadjali answered. Paul caught the word "Excellency" and wondered if the stranger were an envoy from Madrid. Then he winced at the sting of a whiplash across his mouth.

"You have a tongue," Hadjali gibed. "Use it, Yankee. What armament have these vessels? And why are they so interested in entering our port? Do they wish, then, to pay a ransom for you?"

The officers, who had understood him, looked curiously at the prisoner, who merely wiped uncertainly at his mouth. Paul was blessing his stars that they did not realize they held the brother of Captain Bainbridge, who was in Tripoli.

"Our frigates," he said, "carry forty-four guns."

The renegade's dark eyes gleamed. "That also we know, my friend. We counted those we took from your flagship in Tripoli. These are no frigates-"

The cavalcade started into the street, and Hadjali hastened to mount to follow them. Passing his prisoner, he called down: "Your price is two thousand dollars, Yankee, and I have no wish to lose it. Back to your cubby with you."

Something in Paul's face amused him. "Since you understand so lit tle, I will inform you. Your general who marched from Alexandria so secretly has at last arrived. That schooner has been trying to land guns, and failing to hoist them up the cliff to him. If he will have the kindness to wait until tonight, he will surely join you with his command, after Hassan Agha arrives from Tripoli to greet him."

With a word to the nearest guard, Hadjali cantered off after his superiors. The soldier jerked his head toward Paul's niche. Stepping back, the prisoner limped and caught the corsair's arm, as if in pain. While he rested, he slipped the silk purse from his pocket into the man's fingers, which closed on it swiftly, feeling the coins within it. An eye glanced down inquiringly.

"Hassan Agha," said Paul. "Who is he?"

Fortunately the man understood a little French. He answered in monosyllables, while he slid the purse into his girdle. "Commandant. Army of Tripoli. Officers of the advance." He nodded at the dust stirred up by the horsemen.

"How great is the army of Tripoli?"

But the guard, his money safely stowed, only shook his shaven head topped by the smart fez.

Sitting down on a stone by the water fountain, Paul cupped some water in his hand and washed his lacerated mouth. From his seat he could watch carts hurrying out to the shore battery with powder cartridges. Beyond the battery gleamed the blue surface of the bay, empty now of all the corsair shipping which had crowded into the river mouth and the line of wharfs.

Eaton must be on the height to the east. Between that and the city lay a hollow sprinkled with fruit orchards and houses. The houses nearest the town were being occupied by troops, who deployed among the ditches and brush heaps, where fire from the wall would cover them.

From all around him the inhabitants were being herded back into the streets or across the river. Paul did not like the looks of such a methodical defense. If heavy guns were brought down the eastern slope, they might do damage. But he thought of the single nine-pounder the Marines had hauled across the desert ...

The sun was almost overhead when he heard the bark of the gun and sighted a wreath of smoke in one of the orchards halfway down the slope. Except for the drifting smoke, the dark gardens seemed deserted and at peace. The sound of the gun was like a faint handclap, followed by a spatter of musketry.

The single gun kept on popping stubbornly, aimed ridiculously at the side of the city.

Paul had been watching every motion of the ships. They followed a strange course-the dainty sloop, the Hornet, heading in to the eastward, and then coming about. The little craft drew closer to shore, as if intending to try a landing.

She came on toward the shore battery, closing in. Behind her the schooner and brig came to anchor.

The sloop kept on. The eight guns of the battery flashed, and smoke drifted back, eddying over Paul.

When he could see her again through the smoke, the Hornet was closing within two hundred yards of the battery. Her sail rose over the rampart where the guns flashed and slid back. At a hundred yards she let go the anchor, and her four guns went into action. The whirr of grapeshot came into the air.

At the gate the infantry scattered to take cover, and the prisoner slid to the ground. He began to crawl toward the battery as soon as he was left to himself. Small particles of shot lashed against the old walls above him.

Then he heard the guns of the Nautilus and the deeper note of the carronades on the Argus. The ships had closed in to the shore itself. Their fire was sweeping the stone bulk of the battery, the gardens, and the walls of Derna. Moving a little at a time and listening, he could interpret the reverberation of sound.

The sun slanted from the west when he caught the first change in the sounds. The battery was silenced. Its garrison was streaming back into the hollow, away from the Hornet.

Almost within reach of the platform of the battery, he edged himself to the right, to see across the hollow. There was nothing to see. No smoke puffed from the orchard where Eaton's cannon had taken position.

Beyond the wash of the surf the Nautilus lay at anchor, her sails reefed down, her guns searching the buildings wherever musketry sounded. Blue figures moved about her afterdeck, and once a telescope flashed in the sun.

Paul had a strange impression that only the three small vessels were alive in the sweep of the bay.

Up along the summits behind the city bodies of horsemen moved, com ing toward the city. He could not make out what they were. He crawled up into the battery, finding the guns secure on their carriages, the powder intact in the pits, and not a man visible. The garrison had carried off their injured.

From one gun to the other he went, trying their elevator screws and touchholes. Then the sounds altered ominously. Along the west of the city the musketry fire quickened. He did not hear the broadsides of the ships. Something like a low cheer came from the sea.

Raising himself to an embrasure, he stared out at the black sloop, lying out from him like a crippled bird, her sail flapping in shreds.

Her men were clustering aft and cheering. Across the hollow other men were visible coming down from the orchard, keeping a rude line. They disappeared among the trees, under the lash of bullets from the houses.

Then they emerged in the bottom of the hollow, running down to the beach. Their dusty gray changed into the blue of the Marines and the drab coats of the Greeks. The stocky figure of Eaton, and lanky awkward O'Bannon. They ran slowly, stumbling among the rocks.

They were circling the buildings, heading for the silent battery on the shore, and Paul counted forty of them before they began to fall to the ground.

Two of them climbed to the rear of the battery, their muskets poised, the breath rasping in their bodies. Behind them panted a boy in midshipman's garb. They stared down the emplacement, and sighted Paul.

"The first and the fifth and sixth piece are charged and primed," he said. "All of them are serviceable."

The Marine let out a yip. "Jerusalem! Eight guns." With his sleeve he wiped the blood from his cheek. "Shot away the rammer out of our'n," he explained, and gripped Paul's arm. "Them cannoneers did," he insisted. "Them flummydiddlin' cannoneers shot away the rammer-"