Preble stood over his general overview map of the Mediterranean. He was in Syracuse, because that was where the Sicilians had bivouacked their gunboats and bomb scows to fit out. His own base of operations he had planned for Malta, which was more than two hundred miles closer to his enemy than he was. American ships had never been hindered there, but the warmth of the greeting that American ships received in any British colonies seemed to depend on the individual eccentricity or temper of the local authority. It made ensconcing themselves in a friendly port, like Syracuse, seem preferable to a neutral port that might turn on them.
“Mr. Johnson!” Preble called loudly, and at once his clerk entered from his office.
“Send out a dispatch to all consulates, naval stations, and ships that henceforward all squadron communications will be directed to this place, and all ships will consider this their home port while in the Mediterranean.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Where is Mr. Putnam?”
“He had the morning watch, sir. I believe he is resting.”
“Send him in to me, if you please.”
Johnson’s knock on Bliven’s cabin door produced no answer, but Bliven heard the knock from the chaplain’s cabin, where he had been having coffee with Reverend Henninger, and came out into the wardroom.
“The commodore wishes to see you, Mr. Putnam.”
“Excuse me, Reverend. I’ll return if I can.”
“A good bargain. If you return I gain your company. If you don’t, I gain your coffee.”
Bliven knocked on the frame of the open door. “Commodore?”
“Mr. Putnam, come in. I am stewing over some matters. If you look across the harbor, you see what I take to be our gunboats and bomb scows. I want you to go over there and learn how long they think it will take to have them ready to sail. Then I want you to recommend some method that we can keep up that fitting out, but also free us to get to hell out there and fight a little. My responsibilities to fleet operation require the bulk of our time here, but this is the best fighting ship in the Mediterranean and I can’t keep her bottled up in Syracuse. I could oversee the work here from a damned fishing ketch.”
His jealousy was intensified two days later, when Bainbridge brought in the Philadelphia. Preble watched her enter. His own Constitution was half a class heavier and more powerful, but Philadelphia’s matchless lines made her in his mind the most beautiful ship afloat. She let go her anchor a hundred yards off the Constitution’s starboard beam, and it seemed like Bainbridge had a boat down and on his way over before the chains stopped running. In Preble’s sea cabin they saluted and shook hands quickly, and the commodore motioned him to a chair.
“Well, Captain, what have you been up to these two months?”
“My report, Commodore.” He handed over a thick fold of paper. “I have operated agreeably to your orders of September thirteenth, convoying American commerce, staying in any port no longer than twenty-four hours.”
“Very well.” Preble nodded. “Very well. But now it is time to carry the fight to Tripoli itself. Look across the bay there. Sicily is providing us with a large augmentation of firepower, enough to attack the city and end their nonsense. You, Mr. Bainbridge, will have the honor of being our first caller there. I am sending you out in consort with the Vixen, to operate a close blockade of their port.”
“Excellent,” enthused Bainbridge. “Capital.”
“Now, those are damned tricky waters. You know well there are shoals near the coast, and reefs offshore, and only a narrow slot between them to get into the harbor. You keep the Philadelphia in deep water, let the Vixen flush out the targets that try to snug in where you can’t go. Don’t do it all yourself.”
“No, sir, I understand.”
“I will be down there in a few weeks with the Constitution, probably with Argus and Nautilus. Maybe five ships in his harbor might lead old Yusuf Karamanlis to his senses, where two ships did not.”
Bainbridge smiled with confidence. “Sir, I cannot confess to any sense of optimism on that score, but I am looking forward to the next few months. It will be an honor to operate in tandem with you.”
“Well, go load up everything you need. The Sicilians have been proving themselves to be allies in every sense. Then Godspeed and good hunting to you.”
• • •
AS NOVEMBER NEARED ITS MIDDLE, Preble could stand sitting in Syracuse no longer. New York and John Adams were actively patrolling and convoying merchantmen; the Philadelphia and the Vixen were off Tripoli. The preparation of his ancillary vessels was well in hand. If ever there was a time when an extra show of force might turn the trick on the bashaw of Tripoli without further violence, this might be it.
He ordered the Constitution to make ready to sail, escorted by Argus and Nautilus. They sortied on November 12, and two days later were hailed at sea. “This is His Majesty’s frigate Amazon, Captain Mountjoy. Are you the Constitution?”
“We are,” boomed Preble in response. “Edward Preble, commodore.”
“It is my duty to relay to you. Have you heard about the Philadelphia?”
“Heard what? We have no news.”
“I am sorry to tell you the Philadelphia has run aground at Tripoli. She has been captured; Captain Bainbridge and his crew are held prisoner. The Berbers have remounted her as a gun platform.”
It was Sam Bandy who was standing the watch. “If that is a joke,” Preble grumbled to him, “it’s in damned poor taste.”
“Are you sure?” Preble called back to the Amazon.
“I am sorry, the information is confirmed. There are dispatches for you in Malta. Good luck to you.” The Amazon plowed ahead on her course, leaving Preble in shock. He wanted to return to Syracuse, round up all his ships, and attack in fury. But he could not. Philadelphia in Tripolitan hands must be neutralized before thinking of any kind of attack.
“Mr. Bandy, maintain your course for Tripoli. We will find the Vixen and get to the bottom of this.”
They raised Tripoli the following midday. Vixen was nowhere to be seen, but through his glass Preble certainly made out the silhouette of the Philadelphia. “God, it’s true.” He turned away sickly, handing his glass to Bliven. He raised it to his own eye, and beheld in the magnified circle the Philadelphia’s clean, raked lines, seeming in perfect order except maimed by the presence of a stump where her foremast should have been, the red and yellow stripes of Tripoli fluttering above the captive Stars and Stripes. All her eighteens and twenty-fours were rolled out, expecting to repel an American attack.
Bliven stared at her long and unblinking. So this was what defeat felt like, and he did not care for it. At least it was defeat with the prospect of vengeance, and he felt the instinct for a fight rise within him.
“Mr. Bandy,” said Preble quietly.
“Sir?”
“Mr. Putnam will take the wheel. Get below, find a chart, set us a course for Malta. Perhaps we can learn something definite there.”
“Right away, sir.”
When he returned they set their course, north by east, four hundred miles to Malta, and Bliven realized that he must live a while with the bitter taste of disaster unrighted.
What they found at the American consulate in Valletta was a report from Bainbridge, written from his captivity. He had sent the Vixen to Lampedusa on information that there was a Tripolitan there she could capture. Nine days after she sped off, Bainbridge saw a lateen sail racing west, skimming the coast, obviously running his blockade. Bainbridge made all sail, including stuns’ls, and pursued her for two hours, eventually close enough to fire her bow chasers, but his quarry pulled away. Deep in Tripoli harbor, Bainbridge put about and began tacking his way back. He had studied the chart and believed he was safely back in deep water, when they were thrown off their feet as the ship shuddered to a dead stop.
Within moments they could see
Tripolitan gunboats, trapped in port for weeks, begin making sail, now that they had the beast caged and wounded. Before they could get to him Bainbridge tried everything to lighten his bow and get moving again. The stiff wind was from the east, so he backed sail. Still not moving, he cut loose all three bow anchors, and still not moving, and seeing Tripoli’s gunboat fleet bearing down on him, he began rolling his guns over the side, and when that did not lighten him enough, he set men to chopping down the foremast and heaving that over the side—anything to lighten the bow. He kept his after guns to hammer out a battle with the gunboats, but once it became obvious that the Tripolitans could simply maneuver to where he could not shoot at him and pound him to pieces, he did something that is the nightmare of any American naval commander: He surrendered.
Preble read this report with increasing pain in his stomach. Bainbridge’s report was the very model of the answer to the question on the lieutenant’s examination of how to get your ship off a bank. But the fact that he could recite, indeed perform, these steps mitigated nothing of his responsibility for having grounded his vessel in the first place. Preble had told him to stay the hell out of shallow water, and he didn’t do it.
Nor did it help Preble to feel better, to remember that Bainbridge was one of the few commanders who had lost a fight with the French in the Quasi-War, when he surrendered the Retaliation late in 1798. And now he had lost the Philadelphia, and his temper rose as he noted, lost her in a dangerous pursuit that he should have reserved for the Vixen and never undertaken himself. How could he have been so stupid? If he had aught to say in the matter, he would court-martial the strutting little cock.
Returning to Syracuse was a bitter duty, made the worse by fighting an opposing and nearly opposing wind. Losing a thirty-six-gun frigate to the enemy, three hundred men taken prisoner, was a calamity in itself. But there was also danger far in his rear, for there were those in the navy, those who coveted his pennant, who could make it out that he was responsible, for the commander is always responsible, even for the stupidity and disobedience of a subordinate.
Worse news awaited him back in Syracuse, a dispatch and confirmation that the Tripolitans had recovered and remounted the Philadelphia’s guns, making an assault on the city next to impossible, and in fact had refloated her. If she was seaworthy, which was still to be determined after grounding, and if they repaired her foremast, she would be a formidable opponent on the open sea, for she was built as tough as the Constitution and mounted only three guns fewer on the broadside. And even if she was lame, moored within the reefs known only to his enemy, she could check any attack on Tripoli itself. Further dispatches confirmed that Yusuf Pasha knew he had taken an advantage, for he had laughed at the Danish consul, whom the American government requested to negotiate terms for the release of Bainbridge and his crew, and laid down such terms as no nation would consent to. Now the crew of the Philadelphia were set to the most bestial slave labor and made to suffer in such a way as to taunt the United States.
With Philadelphia gone and the other frigates convoying merchant vessels, it became vital for Preble to take the Constitution back down to Tripoli and let the bashaw know that America’s eye was still on him. Two weeks before Christmas he sortied with the Enterprise under Decatur; it was a dangerous mission, for the prevailing winter winds were strong northerlies that could easily trap them on the African coast. But almost immediately upon reaching their station they had luck.
Preble sighted a small ketch with Tripolitan rigging and decided to show English colors to see what would happen. The ketch made for them right willingly, and Preble sent Decatur out to snatch her. She proved to be the Mastico, bearing a cargo of slaves for the sultan in Constantinople, as well as passengers who proved to be high-ranking courtiers, including the bashaw’s physician. Preble treated them generously, shared his table with them, making it less onerous that they were now his prisoners, and prisoners of such stature that he might be able to bargain for the release of Bainbridge and some of his crew.
Back in Syracuse, Preble certified the captured ketch as a prize of war, renamed her the United States Ship Intrepid, and began fitting her out for American service. She was only sixty feet long, but he might usably employ her as one of his gunboats.
Decatur obtained an interview with Preble and broached a plan that was at once stunning in its audacity but also made him think that Bainbridge was not the only strutting cock he had to manage. But in good manners he heard Decatur out, then leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms on his stomach. “Let me understand you.” He glowered at Decatur. “You want to take that captured ketch. You want me to give you enough men to storm and take a fully armed frigate. You propose to sail them across the Mediterranean in that sixty-foot ketch that I would not trust a day’s fishing in. You think you can sneak her at night into the enemy’s well-guarded harbor, and you expect to gull the enemy crew into letting you tie up to her, after which you will all spring on board her, kill or drive off her crew, assess whether she can be got away, and burn her if she cannot. Do I understand you?”
Decatur grinned. “Yes, sir.”
Preble continued to stare at him. “On the other hand, it will be at night, the ketch is rigged as a Tripolitan, and you will be disguised and have the Italian pilot doing the talking for you.” He broke his gaze and looked down at the papers on his desk. “Well, God love a man who thinks like a fighter. Philadelphia must be recaptured or destroyed; my ending this war is a near impossibility without it. It cannot be done without risk. It is likely that you and many of your men will be killed, but if you succeed, your reputation must become imperishable.”
Decatur closed his eyes and nodded. “I will not deny that has occurred to me.”
“And if you are killed, you will become a legend.”
The look on Decatur’s face was the first that showed he knew what the odds were. “I should hope so.”
“Then you shall have your chance. I will send a schooner with you to cover your withdrawal, or take on your crew if you founder on the way, which you well may.”
Not an hour after Decatur left, Preble heard a knock at the door of his sea cabin. “Enter!”
“Commodore? I am Midshipman Israel. May I have a moment?”
Preble pushed back from the papers he had been hunched over. “I know your name, Mr. Israel. Damn, do you think I am so high and removed I don’t know your name?”
“I am sorry, sir.”
“Well, what can I do for you?”
“Sir, the word is that Lieutenant Decatur is going to take a boat to Tripoli and try to recapture or burn the Philadelphia. I would like to be considered for this duty, sir.”
“Why?”
“Well, sir,” he stammered, surprised that it should require explaining. “I want to contribute something toward our victory, sir.”
“More than you can with your duties here?”
“That would seem a fair prospect, sir.”
“M-hm.” Preble rose and, clasping his hands behind his back, paced to his stern windows. He looked out across the harbor of Syrcacuse, to the workyards where his bomb scows and gunboats were being fitted out. “Well, Mr. Israel, your request is denied.”
Preble heard no acknowledgment, turned, and saw Israel standing with his head down. “Yes, you have a question?”
“May I know a reason, sir, why I am turned down?”
“Young man, commodores do not in ordinary circumstances explain their decisions to midshipmen.”
Israel seemed even more downcast. “No, sir.” He could not help thinking that it was for the same reason he had been denied both advancement and the opportunity for it for years past.
“But look there,” said Preble. “See out there, a whole squadron of gunboats and mortar boats. The king of Sicily is putting them at our disposal. But I must find a way to man them. Every one of them must have some semblance of an officer to command, and I wi
ll be cleaning out my ranks of midshipmen to fill that order. Now, Mr. Decatur is going to Tripoli to either steal a ship or start a fire, he is not going to shoot anybody. And if he must, he knows how to use guns. Your duty there would be wasted. You see?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered glumly.
“Now look here. Mr. Putnam has told me of your particular circumstances in regard to your assignments and lack of recognition. You will not find that I hold you back unjustly. In fact, if Mr. Decatur is successful, I will take this squadron and attack Tripoli myself, and you shall have command of one of the gunboats.”
Israel’s relief was tempered with embarrassment. “My thoughts about this were unjust, sir. I apologize.”
“Very well. By the way, Mr. Israel, how did you come to learn of Mr. Decatur’s pending mission?”
“From Mr. Decatur himself, sir.”
“M-hm. Where is he?”
“Gone back to the Enterprise, sir.”
“Well, find the bosun and take our jolly boat over to the Enterprise. Ask Mr. Decatur, from me, how successful he thinks his mission will be if he finds the Tripolinos waiting for him with guns loaded and trained.” Preble’s voice began to rise and he ended by shouting, “Because word of his mission leaked out because he didn’t know enough to keep his own goddam mouth shut?”
Israel had to smile. “May I relay the message in your words, sir?”
“No, be respectful, but convey my full meaning.”
“Yes, sir.” Israel saluted and left, even as Bliven entered.
“Yes, Mr. Putnam?”
“I assume that Israel wanted to go down to Tripoli with the Intrepid.”
“He did.”
“But he will not?”
“No.”
“Sir, what if I wanted to go?” Bliven shifted from foot to foot hopefully.
“I would rather you did not.”
The Shores of Tripoli Page 26