The Barbary Pirates

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

By the time we repaired and loaded the Nautilus on the American schooner and approached Tripoli, it had been more than a month since Aurora had escaped Sterett in Sicily, taking little Harry with her. Time enough, in other words, for the mirror to have been erected and tested. Could something two thousand years old, possibly inspired by Atlantean designs thousands of years older yet, actually work? We didn’t want to be surprised by a beam sweeping out to sea.

Confirmation came a different way. As we approached the African coast we spied a wisp of smoke in the distance and cautiously closed, realizing that some ship had been burning. What we saw was a small brig low in the water, her rigging gone and her masts blackened like trees from a forest fire. The smoke drifted from a charred hull.

“Fire can start from a hundred reasons,” Cuvier said uneasily.

“And be put out in a hundred ways,” Sterett said, “unless the entire ship ignites at once.”

We lowered a boat and rowed across, confirming what we suspected. There was an awful smell of ash, putrefaction, and roasted flesh emanating from the vessel, with burned bodies on the deck. The name, Blanca, suggested Spanish origin, although jack and staff had been incinerated. On the starboard side was a circular hole, three feet in diameter, where the fire had eaten entirely through the wooden hull and caught the inner decks and timbers. Nothing stirred, inside or out.

“So it’s true then,” Cuvier finally said.

“By Lucifer, the mirror cuts like a cannon ball,” Fulton added.

“Rather than test their infernal machine on a derelict they aimed it at an innocent merchantman, crew still aboard,” I guessed. “It must have gone up like a torch and then drifted out to sea. Look at the helmsman there, welded to the wheel. He died where he stood.”

“This is utterly barbaric,” Smith said. “There’s nothing more painful than to die by fire.”

“So our timing will be critical,” Fulton said. “We must sail my submarine in under cover of darkness, dive, propel ourselves into the harbor, make the rescue, and then retreat underwater to Sterett’s schooner offshore. If the sun rises and we haven’t destroyed the mirror of Archimedes, the Enterprise will ignite like this ship and we’ll all burn, drown, or be enslaved again. Gentlemen, we must assault the most impregnable harbor in the Mediterranean, slip by a cabal of determined fanatics, disable their most closely guarded weapon, rescue a woman and child from the central harem of the ruler’s palace, and slip out like a fish.”

“Jolly good!” said Smith, infused with that mad English enthusiasm that has given them an empire. “I’m for paying that Dungeon Master back, I am.”

“Or we can just sneak about, doing our best,” I amended. I’m all for valor, but cautious about suicide. “My experience is it’s easier not to shake the nest when going for the honey. I’ve had the sailors help in making us some makeshift Muslim garb for disguise.”

“You’re a clever sort, aren’t you, Ethan? But a regular Lion of Acre if it comes down to a fight, correct?”

“Certainly.” I blinked, wishing I still had my longrifle.

“Our small numbers must be our advantage,” Smith went on. “The Barbary scum won’t be expecting an attack from a handful of men, emerging out of nowhere. Little Pierre here may be able to slip into places or unlock gates the rest of us couldn’t hope to.”

“Who are you calling little, Monsieur Beefeater?”

“It is the littlest men who have the greatest hearts. Look at David versus Goliath. Look at the Little Corporal, now first consul of France. We are each blessed in our own way, and must use our skills to advantage.”

“Well put,” Cuvier said. “Ethan, with his head for women, can head for the harem. His voyageur friend can help free helpless prisoners. Smith with his blasting expertise can make a sortie toward the mirror. Fulton will steer and I’ll crank to create chaos in the harbor. Surprise, confusion, and darkness will be our allies, and revenge and disruption our goal!”

He seemed quite the bloodthirsty buccaneer for a biologist, but then the French do have élan. “You agree we have a chance, then?” I clarified. If I was going to lead my friends on a rescue mission of my old paramour and illegitimate son, I wanted success to at least be possible.

“Oh no. But patriotism, love, and your own folly, Ethan, dictate that we must try.”

We hoisted Nautilus off the American schooner’s deck with block and tackle and lowered it over the side. It rocked in the waves like an ungainly copper log, banging against the wooden hull. The vessel seemed about as seaworthy as the bearskin coracle we’d fashioned on the American frontier, and three times less buoyant. But it didn’t immediately sink, and Fulton was brisk as a bunny as he organized our war party.

“The voyageur will man the rudder because it’s tightest in the rear,” he said. “Then Gage to keep him company and crank the propeller when it’s time. Smith and Cuvier will counterbalance in the bow. I’ll stand in the tower to con the boat and shout directions to Pierre. We’ll sail to the harbor mouth, dive, and creep. Now: Do any of you have a problem with claustrophobia in a dark metal cylinder heaving up and down in a restless sea?”

We all raised our hands.

“Well, bring along some cards then, Gage. To a new way of warfare!” We all took a slug of grog, the only way to get up the courage to drop into the contraption, and then climbed down to the submarine’s flat, slippery deck. We pushed up the mast and fitted its boom, extended the bowsprit, and turned our metal coffin into a little sailboat. The mainsail was peculiar, a rigid fan-shape like the arm of a windmill. Its color, like that of the jib, was brown.

“The narrow shape is more easily lashed down when we dive,” Fulton explained.

“I’ll sail in close tomorrow morning to pick you up,” Sterett called as we cast off. “You must destroy their weapon! You saw what happened to the Spanish ship.”

“If you don’t find us,” said Fulton as he waved good-bye, “then save yourself.”

And off we went to Tripoli, sighting the gray coast of Africa just as the sun went down. I was pleasantly surprised that not only didn’t we founder, but that the submarine actually sailed on the surface like a smart little fishing smack, more buoyant than I expected. Its tube-like shape gave it a tendency to roll, but it had a fine bow for going into the seas and a rudder sufficient to set our direction. The problem was that we were confined to the stovepipe that made up the interior of the craft. While it had a flat floor, it was still like voyaging in a sewer pipe. The only daylight came from the open hatch and thick glass windows in the little tower where Fulton perched to navigate. The boat corkscrewed in the waves, and the motion soon had Smith vomiting, the smell of which added to our own nausea. For a Brit, he seemed to have an aversion to all things watery and nautical.

Pierre considered our situation and, as always, offered his opinion. “While I am happy to go along with you because you are a complete idiot without the great Pierre,” he announced, “it seems you have made the usual ill choices, donkey.”

“I’m just trying my best.”

“First, I’ve pointed out to the crazy American inventor there that metal does not float. Yes, we are somehow bobbing, but I hope this craft does not leak like a canoe because there is no pine pitch to repair it and it will plummet to the bottom in a very short time.”

“It might be better for morale not to speculate on such a possibility,” I said.

“Second, you have thrown in with savants, whom I told you in Canada have very little practical use. I have noticed these here seem to carry a great deal of useless information about rocks and extinct animals, but very little expertise in assaulting a fortified pirate city.”

“‘A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one,’ Ben Franklin used to say. Just to give you the point, Pierre, if it will shut you up.”

“Third, I see no cannon or rockets aboard, or even your old rifle and tomahawk.”

“I’ve been reduced to borrowing American naval boarding arms, a pistol and cutlass. And we have some of Fulton’s mines, or what he calls torpedoes.”

“Fourth, you are to proceed, if I understand the plan correctly, to a guarded harem to rescue a female friend who happens to be the mother of your child, suggesting not a lot of foresight into that matter, either. Harems, I am informed, are full of women, and there is no group more difficult to govern or direct. Cattle you can corral and buffalo you can stampede, but women? It is like making a file of cats.”

And he sat back, his argument at last made.

“But it seems,” I said agreeably, “that I’ve rectified my bad planning by enlisting my old friend Pierre Radisson. Not only can he point out my faults, but I’m certain he’ll find solutions for all the difficulties he just listed. No one knows better than Pierre the evil character of the enemies we’re up against, and no one is happier riding in a copper sarcophagus to seek revenge against the very woman, Aurora Somerset, who shot him in the back.”

He considered, and nodded. “All this is true. So. I will put my mind to keeping you out of trouble, donkey, and doing so before the sun rises too high. I do have a question for Monsieur Fulton, however.”

“Yes, Monsieur Radisson?”

“Locked as we are in a cramped chamber, and unable to emerge without drowning, just how do you propose to sink an enemy vessel?”

“Ah. It is quite clever, if I do say so myself. On board are three copper bombs, each containing one hundred pounds of black powder and a gun lock to set them off. Protruding from my turret is a spear like a narwhal’s horn, its butt end coming inside through a stuffing box, as you can see. Oakum packing around the shaft keeps leakage to a few drips. Now: We creep under the bottom of an enemy ship and twist the shaft by hand to drill it into the enemy’s bottom. Near its pointed end is an eye, threaded with a lanyard that also comes back to the tower here. After the ‘horn’ is screwed into the victim’s hull, we back off, pulling the lanyard. At the rope’s other end is tied a copper mine. As the lanyard threads through the eye of the narwhal horn, the mine, or torpedo, is pulled with it until it is jammed fast against the enemy ship. Then a jerk of the lanyard sets off the gun lock and the explosion. By that time we have backed sufficiently away to survive the concussion.”

Pierre looked dubious. “And if the torpedo goes off prematurely? Or the horn doesn’t stick? Or the enemy hears us fumbling about underwater?”

“Then we are probably sunk ourselves,” the inventor said. “It is fearfully important to get things right. I’m sure we can all muster the proper intensity.”

“Certainly we have motive for doing so,” the Frenchman agreed.

Fulton turned back to look out his tower. “I see the evening lights of Tripoli. A little to starboard, Frenchman.”

“Do you think they might see us?” Cuvier called up.

“Our sails are small and dark and our hull barely above the water,” Fulton said. “We can tack close before submerging.”

So we neared the port. While Tripoli is on Africa’s northern coast, its bay faces northeast, formed by a protective spit, islands, and reefs. The westernmost entrance is a gap in the reef just two hundred yards wide. We sailed close enough that we could hear the breakers and Fulton could judge our position by their creamy white. Then the inventor had Pierre rudder us into the wind while he popped up through the hatch to swiftly drop and lash the sails and mast. Then he came down, closed and locked the hatch, and turned a handle. There was a hiss and gurgle as buoyancy tanks filled.

“Archimedes himself discovered the principle of displacement that suggests how a boat may be made to sink or rise,” Fulton said.

“Fish use the same principle in their swim bladders,” Cuvier said.

“And humans sleep in a feather bed,” I put in.

It grew even darker, so we lit a candle. “We are now below the surface, gentlemen, and about to make history with an undersea naval attack.”

“Without being able to see where we’re going?” Pierre amended.

“Yes, we are somewhat blind. My compass is illuminated with bioluminescent fox fire, an innovation first suggested by Franklin for the American Revolution’s Turtle, so once again we benefit from the wisdom of Ethan’s mentor. From here we’ll navigate by compass, and then rise just enough to peer through the tower windows. Ethan and Pierre, start cranking our screw propeller. Cuvier and Smith, look to our guns and powder.”

It was humid and close inside the submarine. Pierre and I were soon sweating as we cranked away.

“How long can we stay down without any air?” the voyageur asked, panting.

“With this crowding, three hours,” Fulton said. “But I brought a copper container from Toulon pumped full of two hundred atmospheres, which was suggested to me by the chemist Berthollet. If released it should give us oxygen for three hours more. If the candle begins to gutter, we’ll know we need more air.”

There was no sensation of progress. Occasionally Fulton, peering at his compass, would call a slight course correction. Once we heard a scraping on the starboard side, as we grazed a harbor reef, and we steered away. Finally the inventor told us to rest and he began pumping a lever that emptied water from the ballast tanks. The faintest glow came from the tower windows as they cleared the surface of the water.

He waited a moment for the water to sheet away and then turned in all directions, looking about. Then he dropped down to grin, excited as a boy.

“Gentlemen, we’re in the middle of Tripoli harbor and no alarm has been raised.” He nodded to Pierre. “Good job, helmsman.” And then he clapped his hands, once, with a pop. “Now. What do we want to blow up first?”

“The castle, then the harbor,” I said. “Smith can carry one of your explosive torpedoes, and you can time your submarine assault for dawn. Blow up at least one corsair to create confusion, with a final torpedo in reserve. Cuvier to crank, and you to navigate, Robert.”

“But it is America that is at war with these rascals, and we are Americans, are we not? I’m afraid that, as hopeless as this assault is, Ethan, I must insist that I join you. Smith can crank and Cuvier can steer the submarine. I’ll carry a mine ashore because I’m the one who built it and know how to fuse it.”

“You’re willing to give over command of the Nautilus?”

He smiled. “If I let the French play captain for a while, maybe they’ll buy her! You’ll put in a good word for me with Napoleon, won’t you, Cuvier?”

“And why does the Englishman have to crank for the Frenchman?” Smith interrupted.

“You’re stronger, with more endurance than our biologist. You know as well as I do, William, that it is almost impossible to get a Frenchman to do anything he doesn’t want to do, while an Englishman will volunteer for almost anything, particularly if it is arduous and disagreeable. We must all recognize our national traits.”

“And what’s the American trait?”

“To get into quite unnecessary trouble through idealism, pride, and the need to rescue helpless women. Right, Gage?”

“Astiza is anything but helpless.”

“At any rate, you two savants are the best to figure out how to attack enemy shipping in this harbor. Pierre has worked with Ethan before, and I’m a Yankee as well. Our nation has declared war, and now we’re going to execute it, or die trying.” He swallowed, and by God I liked him, eccentric inventor or no. I always admire a judicious man who masters his fear more than an enthusiast with stupid courage.

“I’ll pick you up when you have the woman and the boy, and you can put in a good word with Napoleon yourself,” Cuvier promised. “We leave nobody behind.”

“And can England and France cooperate?” I asked Smith.

“Let this be a new beginning, under the Peace of Amiens,” the Englishman said. “I’m betting that Bonaparte never goes to war with my country again.”

“Perhaps France and England will even be allies,” Cuvier said.

“Don’t speculate too ludicrously. But at least we can man this casket together.”

“To peace!” Pierre said. “Except for this little war here.”

“Dawn is when our work must be done,” I reminded, “lest the mirror be used against us. When the sea lightens, surface slightly, and listen. When chaos begins ashore, try to strike in the harbor. If everything is timed perfectly, we might have the slimmest chance.”

“Nothing goes perfectly in battle. You know that.”

We were all quiet a moment.

“But not for the other side, either,” I finally said. “In gambling, you don’t have to be perfect, just good enough to win the game. Let’s put on our Arab robes.”