The Barbary Pirates

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

My admiration for the military discipline of my nation’s small navy was dampened by the crew’s efficiency in rigging a hemp noose. The sailors, frustrated by their grounding on the reef, seized with enthusiasm the idea of throttling at least one passenger of the escaping pirate ship. Sterett, I remembered, had become famous for running one of his own crewmen through with a saber as a response to cowardice, during a 1799 battle between the Constellation he served on and the frigate L’Insurgente. This was an episode in the undeclared naval war with France that I’d helped put a stop to. Republican newspapers had clamored for Sterett’s punishment, but he’d coolly replied, “We put men to death for even looking pale on this ship.” Of course the Navy liked that so much, they gave him a promotion. Now he was to be my nemesis as well.

“Fulton, explain to them who I am!”

“I already have. He’s a scoundrel American who threw in with the Barbary rogues like another Benedict Arnold. I don’t care how badly Omar tortured you, Ethan—how could you go back on your pledge to keep the mirror secret? Are you coward, or traitor?”

“Likely both,” Sterett said, sizing me up.

“Dammit, man, who do you think got you sprung free from that Tripoli hellhole?”

“By a devil’s bargain! Didn’t you just aid yonder pirates in stealing an infernal machine from Syracuse, when we expressly promised each other not to?”

“I did it to save your life!”

“Death before dishonor, Ethan. That was our pledge. It’s your bad luck I volunteered to help these brave Americans intercept your mission, and my bad luck we were a few hours late.” He turned to Sterett. “Hanging may be too good for him. He has very few principles at all.”

“Then the devil will finish the job for us.”

I struggled against the sailors holding me. “I’m stuffed full of principle! I just fall in with the wrong kind of women! And spend a little too much time looking for treasure, since I don’t have what you’d call a proper career. I drink, I gamble, I scheme, but I do know something of electricity and firearms. And I mean well.” It seemed a feeble defense even to me.

“Do you deny you’re a turncoat to the United States of America and every man on this ship?” Sterett had his sword out and looked like a farmer who has cornered vermin in a larder. Excitable people should never be armed.

“On the contrary, I’m trying to be a hero!”

“By throwing in with pirates?” cried Fulton. The rope cinched against my throat.

“By trying to save my son!”

That stopped them.

“My boy, who I didn’t even know I had until a few days ago, is still aboard that pirate ship and in the clutches of the weirdest bunch of cultists, fanatics, magicians, mesmerists, and megalomaniacs this side of the House of Representatives. His mother is captive in Yussef’s harem, and if I hadn’t played along they’d both be sold into the worst kind of slavery. And you, Cuvier, and Smith would already be dead! While you were running for the reef, I just killed one of the more annoying of the bunch, that Osiris I met in Marguerite’s Palais Royal brothel. I gave Aurora Somerset a bloody nose, and was plotting how to sink their whole scheme when one of your cannon balls knocked me overboard. You and I and the fiery lieutenant here are the only ones who can fix things now, but only if you stop pulling on this damned noose!” It was getting hard to talk.

“You and us how?”

“By using your genius and my pluck, Robert, to slip back into the heart of Tripoli and destroy that mirror once and for all!” I nodded eagerly, as if going back to that den of slavers and extortionists was the brightest idea I’d ever had.

The crew was grumpy about having no one to hang, but a length I got Fulton and Sterett settled down enough to hear me out. By the time we kedged off the reef there was no chance of catching Aurora and Dragut anyway, and the ambitious lieutenant was interested in any proposition to erase the ignominy of running aground, which is a mortal sin for any captain. The navy reasons that with so much ocean, it shouldn’t be that hard to avoid the shallow parts.

“How are you going to get into Tripoli?” Sterett asked skeptically. “Commodore Morris won’t risk our squadron in those reef-strewn waters for the exact reason we’ve seen tonight.”

“It’s time we harnessed the ingenuity of our new nineteenth century,” I said, my clothes stiff with salt as they dried. “I’ve been thinking about how to defeat this peril for a long time, but it’s really Robert here who offers the solution.” Actually, I’d only been thinking since they put the noose around my neck, but the prospect of execution does focus concentration.

“What solution?” Fulton asked.

I addressed Sterett. “My scientific colleague here has invented a vessel so revolutionary that it threatens to make all other ships obsolete,” I began.

“You said that’s not the way to sell the thing!”

I ignored Fulton. “It’s called a submarine, or ‘plunging boat.’ It sinks deliberately, like Bushnell’s Turtle during our American Revolution, and could deliver a crew of intrepid saboteurs directly into Tripoli harbor.”

“The Turtle failed to sink any British vessels,” Sterett pointed out.

“But Fulton has advanced the technology a full generation. Why, he told me he stayed underwater off Brest a full three hours!”

“This submarine really exists?”

“It’s called the Nautilus, and is so remarkable that it may someday end war entirely.”

Sterett looked skeptical, and Fulton bewildered that I had stolen his sales pitch.

“Or make wars more terrible than ever,” I added.

Suddenly, Fulton saw his opportunity. “Ethan, this is the way to prove myself to Napoleon!”

“Yes. I remember you told me the French want to break the Nautilus up, but you couldn’t bear to and sent the pieces to Toulon to test in the quieter Mediterranean. Here’s your chance, thanks to me.” I could still feel the abrasion on my throat where the rope had cut, but I don’t hold grudges except against true villains. “We pack the Nautilus down to Tripoli, sneak into the harbor beneath Yussef’s palace, and rescue Astiza and little Harry.” I nodded. “All we have to find is a set of adventurers willing to risk their lives in a metal sausage and cut their way through an army a thousand times their number.”

Sterett was looking at me with new respect.

“That, at least, is no problem at all,” Fulton said.

“You have some volunteers in mind?”

“Cuvier and Smith, of course. They’re reconditioning my plunging boat. They decided to wait in Toulon in hopes of hearing news of your hanging, before daring to face Napoleon again.”

“Ah. It’s good to be remembered.”

“And me, gentlemen,” Sterett said. “You’re not going to romp among the pirates without my ship in support. My bully lads will say the same.”

“We may have to have a lottery,” I predicted. “Just how many can we squeeze into this craft of yours, Robert?”

“Three, if we want room aboard to get your wife and son out. Of course some of us will most likely be cut to ribbons when we venture ashore, so we might want four or five to start. But then we need room for explosives, too.”

“Explosives?” I massaged my throat.

“To blow up the mirror and the navy of Tripoli. Maybe that damned dungeon, too.”

“Five against the janissaries and cutthroats of the bashaw of Tripoli!” Sterett said. “Perfect odds! By God, gentlemen, I am heartily tired of lurking at Malta with Commodore Morris, and positively thirsting for action. Gage, I’d heard you were quite the hero, but didn’t quite believe it until now.”

“I have a hard time believing it myself.” My plan had been to sneak quietly about, but Sterett and Fulton apparently wanted a noisier demonstration of American might. Well, a battle tomorrow was better than hanging today. “If you don’t mind, I’ll get my family out of the line of fire first.”

“It is fire that will save your family, Mr. Gage,” the lieutenant said. “We’ll so light up Tripoli with hell and pandemonium that you’ll be able to rescue half a harem if you want to.”

That didn’t sound bad at all. But no, I had Astiza, hang it, and no more business with harems except to get her out of one. By the devil, it’s complicated to be a father and suddenly responsible! Oddest thing in the world, really.

But not entirely bad to have someone to rescue.