The Shores of Tripoli

by James L. Haley

  Sam entered; thinking that his latest information was needed, he took his papers with him and saw the chart. “Where are we?” asked Preble.

  Sam took up a pencil, referred to their latest latitude and longitude, regarded the scale of the map, and set the point down carefully. “Here, sir.”

  All leaned over the table. Over a space of thirty miles the southern coast of Spain formed a great convex bulge, leading up the far side to Gibraltar Bay. The African coast by contrast formed a great convex indentation of equal size, with Tangier lying at the western end. As the opening narrowed from the westward approach, they saw seamounts and shoals clustered on the Spanish side; all the ships favored toward the African shore until hewing to the very middle channel through the straits themselves. “Can we make Tangier by morning?” asked Preble anxiously.

  “How is the wind?” asked Sam.

  “Still light, northwesterly.”

  “I should guess mid-morning, sir,” said Sam, “A bit sooner if it picks up and doesn’t change.”

  “Excellent. Excellent, excuse me.” Preble strode through the wardroom and ascended the after ladder with more than his customary energy.

  It was nearing the end of the first dog watch, and Bliven had the deck, distantly and unobtrusively supervising a tall young midshipman named Jerrell at the wheel.

  “Mr. Jerrell, how are you faring?” asked Preble.

  “Good afternoon, sir, very well.”

  “Mm.” He glanced over at Bliven, who approached.

  “A new course, Mr. Jerrell, south by east, we’ll use this little wind instead of fighting it.”

  “That will take us toward Tangier, sir,” said Bliven.

  “Exactly. Aeolus has barred us from Gibraltar for the time being, but as our next business must be in Tangier anyway, we will proceed there directly. Well, bring her around smartly, Mr. Jerrell, carry on.”

  The dog watches having but two hours’ duration, Bliven at its conclusion went belowdecks hungry but knowing that dinner was still two hours distant. He clattered quickly down the ladder to the gun deck, and he glanced further down into the berth deck; it occurred to him how easily had he accustomed himself to the proportions of a frigate. Those who inhabited his world in Litchfield would become dizzy from this enclosed and relentlessly efficient space, but to him it was palatial, and the tiny Enterprise seemed a lifetime away.

  Finding the wardroom empty for the moment, he went forward to the galley for a cup of tea over which to read. In passing down the berth deck, some of the sailors just coming off their watch were preparing the remains of their morning biscuit for a snack. They had removed their neckerchiefs, wrapped biscuits in them, and, taking turns with a hammer, broke them into small pieces to soak in their tea. The racket in the closed deck was frightful, yet that third of the crew then trying to take their four hours of sleep lay so exhausted that they roused in their hammocks only slightly.

  “Mr. Putnam, good afternoon.”

  He recognized the ship’s surgeon’s raspy, high-pitched voice before he had taken cognizance of him. “Good afternoon, Dr. Cutbush.”

  “I was preparing tea. Let me pour you some.”

  “Precisely why I came, thank you.”

  It had already brewed, and the second cup was instantly filled. “Lemon?”

  “Thank you, no.”

  Cutbush paused in his motions. “You do not care for lemon?”

  “It is not my habit.”

  “Don’t see many lemons in Connecticut, I’ll wager.”

  “Not often, no.”

  “Never tried it? Let me urge it upon you. Use lemon in your tea, and you will never be touched with the scurvy.”

  “Truly?”

  “What the British discovered with limes is equally true of lemons, I am sure of it. I prescribe it.”

  “Very well, lemon, then. I shall adapt.”

  “Ah, good. You only wanted for encouragement.” He handed Bliven the cup.

  He thanked him and started back to the wardroom, but Cutbush interrupted him. “Come, keep me company.” He inclined his head farther forward, toward the sick bay. Bliven saw for himself that indeed, as Cutbush had earlier described, he had hung sheets forward of the galley that morning and left them up after sick call, to screen himself off from the constant commotion of the gun deck.

  Apart from Preble’s friendliness on account of his books, Bliven was unused to such familiarity from a superior, but then Cutbush was not a line officer.

  Cutbush seated himself at his small desk and motioned Bliven to the other chair as he closed several books, marking his places by closing them on each other at their open pages. Although he had become familiar with the interior spaces, it seemed to Bliven that the spare accommodation of the sick bay revealed the ship in a way that the other areas did not. The massive spaced ribs protruded within, thicker even than the thirty-inch oak hull, making plainly visible the ships’ famous resilient strength, which sheltered the sick and the injured within. It seemed appropriate, in an odd way, that just as the prostrate seamen revealed their inmost bodies in the sick bay, so too the very skeleton of the ship stretched about them.

  “You seem to have no patients today,” Bliven ventured.

  “I try to keep a healthy ship,” said Cutbush as he arranged himself. “I am certain that the most prevalent disease I treat is malingering. I must write a treatise about it. Ha! Trick is to diagnose something so terrible that a day of excused duty can’t be worth the treatment.”

  Bliven grinned. “Do you invent names for new diseases?”

  “Constantly.” Cutbush gestured to the empty berths in the sick bay. “As you see, it works!”

  “May I ask? Cutbush is an unusual name. Does it have a particular history?”

  “I have wondered that myself.” As Cutbush relaxed, Bliven could detect no accent in his Pennsylvania speech. “I have no idea.”

  “Cutbush,” said Bliven. “Perhaps it was a name for foresters, or gamekeepers.”

  “My father was a sculptor and woodworker.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Oh, yes, his best commissions were figureheads for ships. A number of the navy’s first ships had his figureheads on their prows.”

  “Ah. So, you have done him one better.”

  “How do you mean?” Cutbush asked.

  “Well, carving upon live people instead of wooden ones, you see.”

  As Cutbush smiled Bliven continued, “I’ve been wanting to ask you, the commodore is often unwell. Is it serious? Should he even be out here?”

  Cutbush’s eyebrows rose. “He is a hard man to keep down. He has ulcers of the stomach, painful, but not fatal if controlled. And how are you? Have you any complaints or maladies?”

  “None, sir, I thank you. I am very well.”

  “Well.” Cutbush rose and stood over him. “Look up into the light.” He cupped one hand behind Bliven’s head and the other under his chin, looking into his eyes. “Open your mouth, stick out your tongue.”

  Bliven did as he was bidden. “Do you suspect something? Is something going around?”

  “Not at all. I am pleased to see so strapping a specimen when I chance across him.” He tested Bliven’s shoulders for any weakness but found none. “The sea affects different men differently, you see. Some men thrive on it, others begin their decline the day they leave port. You, I am inclined to believe, are one of the former. Have you any tendency to seasickness?”

  “No, sir, I am happy to say.”

  “Good, but let me caution you.” Cutbush sat back down and took a sip of tea. “Lads come to sea thinking they are invincible. They think that mundane injuries only happen to older seamen, and mostly they do. But always carry it in the back of your mind, when you are about any activity that is strenuous, keep your mind on it. Mind your footing aloft, lift burdens carefully and not from
an awkward position. Nothing can cut short a man’s usefulness more than to wrench his back or give himself a hernia—and that does not happen just to old men; you can be struck down at any age.”

  Bliven thought suddenly of Todd back in Boston. “Or lose a leg in battle.”

  “Yes, I should be very sorry to see you lying in pieces on my table.”

  “You showed me your cockpit before, a dingy place to exit this world, I must say. This is much nicer. Is that your pharmacy?” He looked more closely at the open chest and saw supplies of castor oil, calomel, and ipecac syrup, just as he would see at home.

  “Yes, one must make do with remarkably little,” Cutbush said wistfully. “Emetics, purgatives, astringents—mostly they aim to help the body heal itself. I wish I could do more in the way of real intervention. I do have Peruvian bark for a fever, acidulated wine to relieve the effects of consumption, but of course once that sets in there is little to be done. Mercury ointment, of course, for the men who have been with loose women. But it is not much of an arsenal.” Cutbush shook his head. “Not much at all.”

  “One of the seamen who was flogged said you treated his wounds with honey?”

  “Ha! A little secret from the ancient Romans. Galen wrote about it, that and many other things. I believe we share an interest in what can be learned from the past, do we not?”

  “Indeed we do,” said Bliven. “I have never read Galen. Do you have that book?”

  “He wrote several books, actually, but sadly, no, I do not have them on board. Much of what he wrote is outdated, of course, but when I did read it, I was struck by how much we should perhaps revisit in a more modern way. That honey kills infection is beyond question; the Romans used it for centuries.”

  “My word.”

  “Did you know”—Cutbush paused and smiled—“Galen believed that most diseases of the mind could be cured by talking with a wise old man who was trained to tease out the distempered passions? And once uncovered, he believed the patient would be free of them.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “Nowadays we just lock madmen up in asylums, or hang them if they kill or steal. If you ask me, there are many lessons in the past that deserve a new hearing. But now look, I have kept you too long. Be off with you, I am glad to find you so well.” He reached for his stack of books and began opening them to the pages he had marked.

  Bliven refreshed his tea in the galley and squeezed the last drops from the remains of the lemon that the doctor had left on the cutting board. Lemons were similar to limes, to be sure; he could believe in their efficacy against scurvy. But poor Cutbush, he reflected, how lonely he must get for lively and educated company.

  • • •

  TANGIER LAY ON THE NORTH SHORE of Morocco, but like the ports within the Mediterranean, the harbor faced east into its bay, embraced by two long breakwaters. The wind had picked up during the night; it was still bright morning when Preble eased the Constitution into the harbor and dropped anchor. Lear knew the town, and he pointed out the Medina to their right, on the Atlantic shore, the casbah above it, the emperor’s palace to their left with a view of the bay. Through the glass Lear and then Preble spied out the diplomatic missions with their flags fluttering above them—British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Sicilian—but on peering where he knew the American mission to be, there was no flag.

  “Why don’t you fire a gun?” Lear asked. “That is the commonly understood signal to bring the consul out. Simpson should be here.”

  “Yes,” said Preble. “I agree.” He summoned Bliven, who fetched one crew. They had traveled with the guns loaded, and screwing out the wadding and coaxing out the ball would take time, so they simply fired a twelve-pounder into the emptiness of the bay, where the ball fell harmlessly. The report of the gun echoed back from the city, loud enough that they were certain it was well heard.

  After half an hour passed Lear began to frown. “This is not well,” he muttered, and repeated himself at intervals. After an hour and a half he was certain. “Something is very much amiss,” he told Preble, and gestured up at the rigging. “Can you make for Gibraltar?”

  The advancing day brought a fair wind from the south, off the desert. “Yes, we can be there this afternoon.”

  “Then let us away. Nothing good awaits us here.”

  Preble nodded grimly; Edwards had the deck. “Weigh anchor, Mr. Edwards, get us out of here, make course for Gibraltar.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  • • •

  THEY REACHED GIBRALTAR late in the afternoon, and Preble was pleased to see the Philadelphia sunning herself at anchor, and even more pleased to spy Consul Gavino on his way out to them before they reached their anchorage, and saw a gentleman in the boat with him, wearing a black tunic with a gold-corded front. They reached the Constitution at virtually the same instant as Bainbridge, in the Philadelphia’s jolly boat. Preble’s first action was to send his chef ashore with silver to round up a suitable dinner, for during their weeks at sea even the commodore’s stores had begun to wear thin, and the chef was increasingly challenged to keep a respectable table set.

  Preble received them in his great cabin, as Bainbridge introduced Gavino to the commodore, and Gavino in turn stood aside. “Commodore, may I present His Excellency, General Sir Thomas Trigge, the governor of Gibraltar.”

  “An honor, sir.” Preble saluted. “You are acquainted with Mr. Lear?”

  “Yes, very well. How are you, Mr. Lear?” They shook hands warmly.

  “Commodore,” said Lear, “let me add by way of introduction that it was General Trigge who withstood the four years’ Great Siege of Gibraltar twenty years ago, and before that he served on our own soil—and on our side, I am happy to say—in the French and Indian War.”

  “Indeed!” exclaimed Preble, and he regarded Trigge afresh. He was past sixty but looked much older, sunken and pasty but quite plump, showing the worse for his many years of cares. The only thing taut about him was his tunic, glinting with all the gold filigree of a British royal governor. “We are very honored to have you aboard, sir. Shall we be seated?”

  “Sir,” began Bainbridge, “we need to bring you abreast of the latest developments with Morocco, which are numerous as well as . . . thorny.”

  “Are we at war?” asked Preble.

  “No, sir, but close to it.”

  “What of our consul, Mr. Simpson?” asked Lear.

  Trigge lifted his glass of wine just off the table. “He is safe, but he is in arrest and under guard, albeit in his own house. If I may go on?”

  “Please.” Preble gestured openly.

  “His Majesty’s government is distressed by this turn of events, not only for the cause of peace generally, but, of more immediate moment, at this season Gibraltar relies almost entirely on Morocco for fresh foodstuffs. Now, I am sensible of the fact that you cannot allow Morocco to seize your commercial vessels, but if you then go about taking their ships in turn, the supply of our victuals must dry up. We are aware that your primary mission to Emperor Slimane is diplomatic, so if you will permit me, let me urge you to expend every effort to reach an accord with him. And if there is any service that His Majesty’s government can perform to help you in this endeavor, you may rely on our help.”

  Preble took this in quietly, realizing that this recitation must be the reason Trigge had come. “And what is this emperor’s bearing toward us at this moment?”

  Trigge measured his words. “Suspicious, almost hostile. He will say that he took your ships only because you took his, and he will question your cause for doing so.”

  “Ha!” puffed Bainbridge. “I took the Meshuda red-handed, smuggling arms into Tripoli, I don’t care whose flag she was flying. Mirboka was in piratical possession of the Celia, for God’s sake.”

  Preble held up his hand. “Wait, wait, wait. I know nothing of these events. Have you a report?”

>   “Oh, yes, sir, sorry.” Bainbridge dug inside his coat and produced a folded sheaf of papers. “Briefly, several weeks ago, Rodgers was patrolling off Tripoli in the John Adams and overhauled a ship trying to break the blockade. She proved to be the Meshuda, operating as a merchantman. You remember she had been a Tripolitan brig that Barron had bottled up in Gibraltar, then she changed flags to Morocco and we had to let her go. Her master said they were carrying provisions, but Rodgers’s inspection found a cargo of arms and ammunition. He took her as a prize to Malta. And then not a week ago I was cruising off the Cabo de Gata, and I came on the Moroccan Mirboka with an American brig, the Celia, in tow. Naturally, I announced myself, took her as a prize, and recovered the Celia. It seems our Moroccans have been very partial neutrals indeed, sir.”

  “Yes, but the emperor can disclaim knowledge of these things,” said Trigge calmly. “Sometimes in diplomacy, it is best not to keep accounts too strictly. In all friendship, I urge you to accept that the future must weigh more than the past. That keen American sense of right and wrong is well known, and respected, but you must consider what you need of the emperor: you cannot fight Tripoli unless you first make peace with him.”

  “Yes,” said Lear, “Slimane is a Moorish potentate, no less than the dey of Algiers or the bashaws of Tunis and Tripoli, perhaps a bit more haughty—he has been in power longer and killed more people to get there. But we must do what we must do, to take him off the board.”

  Preble nodded. “I understand. But for success, an effort at peace must be made from strength. Bainbridge, will you come back to Tangiers with me in the Philadelphia? Two ships will make double the impression as one.”

  Bainbridge smiled. “It’s better than that, sir. Rodgers is expected at any moment with his squadron. If you can wait for them, we should mount four or five sail, not two.”

  “A hundred and fifty guns, more or less, that should do the trick, then,” said Preble. “The more guns behind us, the friendlier we can be, eh? What do you say, Lear?”