Richard’s fury over the injustice and savagery of these deaths was bubbling up like hot lava from its core and in danger of spilling over. He paced back and forth until he was able to calm his nerves somewhat. More minutes ticked by.
“There is something else I must ask,” he said, his hardened gaze taking in both men. “You say that other ships’ crews were brought here, but then were sold off elsewhere. Why has Eagle’s crew been kept intact here in Algiers? Why haven’t you all been sold as slaves?”
Caleb nodded. “It’s a question we’ve asked ourselves, Richard, more than once. I’ve already given you one reason: Captain Dickerson. But we’re convinced there are other reasons. As near as we can tell, it was back in February that bin Osman was informed of your sailing here with ransom money. That was when they stopped transferring prisoners from Algiers.”
Richard did the calculations. Four months was the correct time frame. In early February Alexander Hamilton had informed the Cutler family that Congress had officially notified the court of Dey Mohammed bin Osman of Falcon’s pending visit. But the proceedings that morning seemed to indicate that bin Osman was expecting the Americans to be bringing almost twice the amount of money they had actually brought with them. Who had given the dey that impression? And why?
He put those questions to Caleb. Dickerson replied. “Kercy, is my bet,” he said, an assertion that did not surprise Richard. What Eagle’s captain said next did surprise him: “Though it could just as well have been the British consul. I don’t trust Logie any more than I trust Kercy, I don’t care how many gifts of food and coin he gives us. It’s blood money, to my mind.”
“What are you saying, Mr. Dickerson?’ Richard asked. “That the British are also involved in this . . . ?” He wasn’t quite sure what he meant by “this.”
“I’m sorry to say they are, Mr. Cutler,” Dickerson said. He gave Richard a look of pure disgust. “So are the Spanish. So are the Dutch and Swedes and Danes. So are the Portuguese. But our primary suspects are the British and French, for a good reason.”
“Which is?”
Dickerson shrugged. “As the two strongest maritime powers in Europe, they have the most to lose.”
“From what? American competition?”
“Precisely. The way I see it, Mr. Cutler, all Europe is conspiring against us. To protect their trade routes, you understand. America is a threat to them. Not a military threat; God knows, the Kingdom of Naples could overrun us in a month. No, the threat they see is the size and range of our commerce. And our claim to free trade. That claim has their merchants up in arms. The truth is, Mr. Cutler, America stands alone. Europeans mean to cripple us economically, and they are getting all the help they need from the four Barbary States. This much I’ve learned from my privileges here: the treachery of these people knows no bounds. Europeans are using Arabs and Arabs are using Europeans in a combined effort to prey on our country. We’re the world’s whippingboy, and without a navy to protect our trade, there’s not much we can do about it.”
“That’s a serious accusation, Mr. Dickerson,” Richard said. “If I understand you correctly, you are accusing the Barbary rulers of acting in concert with the British and French against America’s commercial interests.”
“You understand me correctly, Mr. Cutler. Mind you, there are no formal alliances involved. That would be too obvious. But the alliances are real enough, mark my words. Of course, I can’t prove any of this. It’s just what my bones are telling me.”
Over the years the Cutlers had learned to rely on what Dickerson’s bones told him. There was good reason why Thomas Cutler had given him command of Eagle.
“Is there any evidence you can offer? Anything I can pass on?”
“No, I’m afraid not. And what good would it do if I could? America is powerless to do anything to stop these abominations. In any event, my evidence is what I see with my eyes and hear with my ears. I have heard that Queen Maria of Portugal has persuaded Whitehall to deny Royal Navy escorts to American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean. And I know for certain that Kercy and Logie have urged bin Osman to seize American ships. I have heard this said in what little Arabic I understand and in what questions I’ve had answered.
“There’s more,” he continued. “We believe the two consuls have supplied the dey with specific information on the whereabouts of American ships in the Mediterranean—information gained from their own country’s warships out on patrol. I am convinced that is how Eagle came to be seized.”
Richard’s thoughts, as Dickerson spoke, went to Jeremy Hardcastle. He could not believe that Katherine’s brother had anything to do with such duplicity and treachery. Whitehall, yes; Parliament, maybe; but not Jeremy. That was unthinkable.
“And,” Dickerson went on, “the consuls have advised bin Osman that America is a fruit ripe for the picking—a rich country easily able to afford whatever tributes the dey might decree. Bin Osman knows nothing about America, Mr. Cutler. He relies on his ministers and foreign consuls to supply him with information, and he tends to accept whatever he’s told. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that what he’s told is what he wants to hear.”
The door to the spartan chamber opened. A Muslim guard entered. He pounded the haft of his spear on the floor and held up five fingers, then another five. Ten minutes. After the door banged shut, Caleb gave his brother a somber look.
“Richard, there’s something else—something that may be worse than anything we’ve discussed so far. I pray to God I’m wrong, but I think it possible that bin Osman set terms today that he knew you could not accept.”
“Why would he do that, Caleb?” Richard asked warily, as though he was about to be offered the final piece of a puzzle and feared what fitting it in would show. “What would he gain?”
Dickerson said, when Caleb hesitated, “The ransom money you have in your hold, Mr. Cutler. He can take it without having to release a single prisoner.”
A shadow passed over Richard’s face. The same thought had occurred to him that afternoon in his cabin. “I have diplomatic immunity,” he said, sounding unconvincing even to himself.
“In theory you do. But only in theory. And only as long as you remain in Algiers. I hardly dare say it, Mr. Cutler, but at this very moment you and your crew may be in greater danger than any of us here in this prison.”
Richard nodded slowly. He could not argue.
“You’re sailing tonight, Richard?” Caleb asked.
“Yes,” Richard replied.
“For home?”
“For France. I’m to report to Captain Jones in Paris. He has been appointed to lead a delegation to Barbary to negotiate the release of American prisoners and to establish terms of peace with the Barbary States.”
“Are you a part of that delegation?
“Not to my knowledge.”
“What will you tell Captain Jones when you see him?”
“I will tell him everything I’ve learned about Algiers during the past two days, including what you just told me. There must be something in all this that will help him in negotiations.”
“When is his delegation due to arrive in Algiers?”
“I don’t know,” Richard had to admit. “It hasn’t been decided. Our new Constitution is being approved by the individual states. Massachusetts ratified it in February. Maryland ratified it in April. That leaves only two more states to make it official. Next February we will elect a president, and you know as well as I that it will be General Washington. He has publicly stated that if he is elected, the release of American sailors held in North Africa will be a top priority of his administration.”
“In another year or two, then,” Caleb said, unable to prevent frustration and misery from creeping into his voice.
“As soon as humanly possible,” Richard vowed.
Dickerson intervened. “We understand, Mr. Cutler. We realize that you are doing all you can. Your coming here has given us hope, no matter how the negotiations may have turned out. We’ll make it.
You have my word on it, sir. We’ll make it.”
Caleb had a more personal perspective. “Richard,” he said, “be careful. Not just in France. Be careful leaving Algiers.”
That Caleb, a prisoner in this sweltering, stinking, godforsaken hole of a city for nearly two years, could worry about him at a time like this would have entirely broken Richard were it not for Captain Dickerson walking over to offer his hand.
“Godspeed, Mr. Cutler,” he said.
Richard gripped the firm, leathery hand. “Godspeed to you as well, Mr. Dickerson,” he said, his voice a study in anguish, “and to the men. Tell them not to lose faith. Tell them their families are being well taken care of. Tell them their country is doing everything possible to get them released.”
“I’ll tell them,” Dickerson promised.
As Richard turned to his brother one last time, the door reopened and this time both Muslim guards trooped in. Somehow, from somewhere, Richard had to find the heart to say good-bye and the spine to walk away.
Caleb made it easier for him. He formed a fist with his right hand and brought it up over his left breast, the way he had done in younger days when mimicking the Roman general Fabius Maximus. “Strength and honor, Richard,” he said, not melodramatically as he had done when play-acting as a child, but with a wry smile at the corners of his mouth and a twinkle in his eyes.
Richard brought a fist over his own heart. “Strength and honor, Caleb,” he said in reply, relieved beyond measure that Caleb had grown into a man capable of smiling at his situation no matter how deep the abyss of despair.
Richard turned and departed the chamber, to await Dr. Brooke outside and then to make all haste to leave Algiers.
Ten
At Sea, 100 Miles North of Algiers, September 1788
THE DWINDLING LIGHT OF dusk revealed nothing untoward maneuvering upon the waters of the Maghrib, at least nothing that two lookouts perched high above in the crosstrees could detect. Richard decided to call them back down to the deck for the night. The moon in its first phase was but an arched yellow sliver—how fitting, he thought, that on this of all nights the moon should mirror the crescent on the Algerian flag—and the light it cast was too feeble for Peter Chatfield and Matt Cates to put to much use.
“Tremaine, take the tiller,” he said, indicating to Micah Lamont that he would be relieved from duty once Richard had confirmed the schooner’s course, speed, and standing orders. “To review, I want four men on watch throughout the night,” he told Lamont. Mr. Crabtree has the first watch. I’ll take the second. You have the third watch, with Tremaine at the helm. Before sunrise I want all hands on deck and Chatfield and Cates back up in the crosstrees.”
“Understood, Captain,” Lamont said. He yielded the tiller to Nate Tremaine. “I have already informed the crew.”
“Good. Now please pass word for Tom Gardner to come aft.”
“Aye, Captain. Will there be anything else, sir?”
“Nothing else, Mr. Lamont. Go below and get some rest. I’ll send word if I need you.”
A moment later the ruddy-jowled, powerfully limbed seaman who served as senior gun captain lumbered toward the after deck. “You sent for me, Captain?”
“Yes, Gardner. Are the guns primed and loaded?”
It was a rhetorical question. While Falcon was still within the Bay of Algiers, Richard had ordered the six guns released from their breeching ropes and loaded—with grapeshot in two, chain-shot in the third, both sides. At the same time he had ordered extra shot and flannel bags of powder brought up from the hold and stored in specially designed racks built in along the mid-deck section between the guns. There too, wrapped loosely in spare canvas like some dreadful sea creature dragged up from the depths, lay the three four-foot-long projectiles that Richard Dale had secured for the ship’s arsenal before it left Boston.
“Loaded and run out as ordered, sir.”
“Good. Now, as I have informed Mr. Lamont, tonight we shall post three two-hour watches. Pratt has the first watch, Blakely the second. I want you on deck for the third. Before dawn, at the start of the fourth watch, I want every member of the crew on deck. At that time, if need be, I shall take personal command of the guns. Understood?”
“Understood, Captain.” Gardner snapped a salute, a hard-to-break old habit that reflected his service as senior gunnery officer aboard the 32-gun Continental Navy frigate Raleigh. “You may depend on me.”
Richard returned the salute. “I always have, Gardner.”
With Gardner gone, Richard strode a few steps aft to larboard, toward Agreen, who was leaning against the taffrail peering southward across the dark sea. Increase Hobart and Isaac Howland had taken lookout positions, one on each side of the schooner abaft the mainmast; two other seamen stood watch afore the forward chain-wales.
Richard and Agreen stood side by side in silence, alert for any unusual sound out there in the gloom: words shouted in Arabic or, above them in the rigging, a sudden flutter of sail that could indicate either a shift in wind or—less likely, considering who had the helm—the schooner veering too far into the wind. Falcon was sailing due north on a beam reach, a moderate easterly breeze square on her starboard beam. Richard had specified in the night’s sailing instructions that she would remain on this tack for another six hours. They would then come off the wind on a course that would take them through the Strait of Gibraltar, along the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, and northward past Lisbon toward the Bay of Biscay and the French port of Lorient.
“I have the deck, Richard,” Agreen said at length. “I suggest you follow the advice you gave Lamont and go below.”
“I’m enjoying the night air, Agee. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll remain topside for a while.”
“Always glad for your company.” Agreen stretched out his arms to loosen tense muscles. “Think I’ll take a gander ’round the deck, maybe check the guns while I’m at it. I’ll be back quicker than a rooster chasin’ a hen in heat,” he added cheerfully.
As Agreen walked slowly forward, pausing to have a word with Increase Hobart, Richard glanced southward for the hundredth time since sunset. He could see little beyond the few feet of white wake bubbling out from the rudder, but that didn’t matter. He had a premonition that they were not sailing alone this night, a premonition that nagged at him in whispers of warning from Caleb and Captain Dickerson. Perhaps they were wrong, he defied the whispers. Perhaps they had misread the situation. Perhaps Agreen and Lamont shared his premonition simply because they were taking their cue from their captain. Was not the dey aware that Richard was to meet with Captain Jones, a man on a mission that would expedite payments of ransom and tribute to bin Osman and other Barbary rulers? Why would he attempt to thwart that mission? What would be the incentive? Down whatever path such reasoning led, however, it always ended at the same pitiless blockade. It was not only what the dey had to gain by taking Falcon, which was a king’s ransom. It was also what he had to lose, which was nothing.
His thoughts went inevitably to Caleb, to Dickerson and Eagle’s crew, to the treasure undelivered in his hold, to his sons Will and Jamie and his daughter Diana, to so many people: Katherine, her brothers, and especially her father, who finally was beginning to think well of him—every member of his own family and others, lifelong friends and neighbors among them, those families of his employ who had relied on him to prevail in Algiers, to bring their men home. Rage bubbled through his veins; he felt his hands coil into fists. He had always been taught to play by the rules: the rules of law—English law—that his country had adopted. Those rules had been inculcated in him since he was barely old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong, when Will was alive and able to explain such things to him. The righteous will always win out in the end, Parson Gay had thundered from his pulpit in Hingham; good will prevail over evil, his father had assured him; never hate your enemies, his Uncle William had counseled, for hate clouds your mind and your ability to respond effectively. Wel
l, Richard thought, I am here to tell you, Uncle, that I do hate my enemies. God is my witness, I hate them for what they have done to my friends, my country, my blood. Jeremy was right: Algiers is nothing more than a den of thieves with no laws or rules other than those ordained by a petty dictator surrounded by sycophants and cutthroats. But think on it, his inner regions taunted him, think on it. Is Algiers really so different from other states? Had not his brother been executed under English law, specifically the Twenty-second Article of War decreed by Whitehall? How was justice served in that travesty? Where was the “winning out” there? What “good” existed in any of this? The temptation to pound his fist on the taffrail and scream out to the Almighty was proving irresistible. It was tempered only by a sympathetic hand placed on his shoulder and a voice, equally sympathetic, inquiring, “Captain, are you all right?”
The question jolted him. He glanced to his left where Lawrence Brooke was staring at him with an expression fraught with worry.
“I apologize, Doctor,” Richard managed. “What did you say?”
“I asked if you are all right, Captain. It doesn’t take a physician to see that you are deeply troubled. May I ask, is it your brother?”
Richard pushed back his long hair with both hands, gently massaged a throb in the old wound high on his forehead. “Yes,” he allowed. “Caleb and his mates and a host of other people you don’t know. It appears their faith in me has been misplaced.”
Brooke’s response was a look of disbelief. “Captain,” he chastised, “that is one of the most unfair statements I have ever heard. What are you thinking? That you failed in Algiers?”
Richard let silence be his answer.
“Then you are wrong,” Brooke went on. “Dead wrong. Impossible demands were placed on you in Algiers; still you did everything you could for those men. Your brother realizes that. So do his shipmates. It’s what they told me when I examined them in prison. No one blames you for what happened, so why blame yourself? It defies logic, Mr. Cutler. Our visit to Algiers has inspired hope. Not just among Eagle’s crew but in every American held captive in North Africa. These men need such hope to survive.”
For Love of Country Page 17