The Sea and the Sand

by Christopher Nicole

‘So I had better detach you.’ Decatur went on. ‘It is, of course, entirely irregular to employ the captain of a ship on such a mission. However, I consider it necessary in this instance. It is essential that I obtain adequate information as to the Algerian defences and dispositions, and you are the only member of this squadron, apart from myself, who has fluency in Arabic. I must therefore ask you to accept this extremely dangerous mission, Lieutenant McGann, in the full knowledge that you may well be risking your life.’

  Toby smiled at him. ‘I accept, of course, sir.’

  ‘Then I shall enter it in the log. Now, tell me what you will need. How much time, first?’

  ‘I will have to be set ashore some distance from the city, and make my way into it as part of the normal comings and goings out of the desert. This will present no problem; I have walked across a desert before.’

  ‘With six hundred men at your back.’ Toby grinned. ‘Sometimes I wished there hadn’t been.’ Although, he thought, he would give a great deal to have William Eaton at his side on this occasion. ‘Besides, that will give my beard time to grow, so that I will look like an Arab.’

  ‘With those eyes? And that height? My God, that height.’

  ‘No one in Algiers has ever seen me before.’

  ‘Idris has.’

  ‘When Idris and I come face to face, Stephen, my mission will have been accomplished.’

  Decatur shook his head. ‘I cannot allow you to consider this mission entirely in terms of suicide. If Felicity is alive, will that help her? I doubt you have thought it through at all, in fact. Well, listen to me very carefully, because these are orders. First, you will remain with the squadron for the next month, in command of Eagle, and taking part in our normal exercises.’

  Toby stared at him open-mouthed. ‘Month? But …’

  ‘After the first week you will cease going ashore, no matter where we happen to be. This will give your beard time to grow properly. Then I will have you set ashore on the African coast, a good distance from Algiers, as you say, and I will allow you one week to enter the city. Now, what are your plans for when you are actually there? How do you propose to gain access to Mohammed ben Idris’s house, much less his harem?’

  ‘Well … I have not formed a plan,’ Toby confessed. ‘I cannot, until I see what the circumstances are.’

  Decatur sighed. ‘That is no way to plan a campaign, Toby, if one intends to win it. I can tell you exactly what the circumstances will be. There will be a great many closed doors and barred windows and armed guards, and an entirely hostile people at your back. There is no way that you can hope to enter Idris’s house without a considerable diversion. Therefore listen. You will be set ashore on the night of 24 May. You will reach Algiers by the morning of 31 May. There you will remain as inconspicuous as you can …’ He gave another sigh. ‘You, inconspicuous! But we must hope that there are such things as large Moors from time to time.

  ‘You may reconnoitre the ground, but you will do nothing until 1 June. On the morning of 1 June I will make a preliminary bombardment of the harbour. That is when you will make your move, and gain access to the house. Having given them something to think about, I will issue my demands. Whether these are immediately accepted or not, I intend to enter the harbour the next day and force the surrender of the city. I will also reclaim you, and Felicity, if she is alive. All you have to do, having found her, is to stay alive until the next morning. You have my permission to reveal all of my plans to your captors, if you are taken, to use them, indeed, as a threat, because it will be a threat that will be faithfully implemented. But of course you will use your wits as well as threats to prevent Idris from fleeing the city, together with his women. And together with you, if you are his captive by then.

  ‘I do not pretend that it is a very good plan, but it is the best I can offer you if we are to have the slightest hope of regaining Felicity. As for vengeance, Toby, if she is dead, and you discover this, which should not be difficult, I charge you to remain concealed until I take the city. We will get Idris, never fear. But there can be no point in sacrificing your own life uselessly. Have you anything to add to that?’

  ‘To add? That is a splendid plan. But … a month? I cannot abandon Felicity for another month. She has already been in Moorish hands for some two weeks. Now you propose another five? My God …’

  ‘Toby,’ Decatur said severely, ‘above all else you must use your head, and keep your head, in this affair, and at all times think with absolute clarity, beginning now. If Idris meant to murder Felicity, then she is dead, and you have nothing left to you but vengeance. That, as I say, is timeless. If he did not mean to murder her, then she is still alive, and will remain so, no matter how miserable her condition. But she has been a captive of the Moors before, and survived. I understand that it must make your blood boil, as it does mine, to imagine what those devils may be doing to her. But she has survived it before. Thus you must believe that she will do so again. To take any foolish and careless chances could be to lose her forever. I have not chosen a month merely to give your beard time to grow. It is necessary to approach this whole business with finesse as much as force. You may be certain that Idris, and his master Yusuf Ali, are both well aware that a large American squadron has put into this harbour. They will now be poised for battle. And while I have no doubt we will win that battle, it would be at great cost. I intend first of all to lull them into a false sense of security. This squadron will behave exactly as did Barron’s, back in 1802.

  ‘We will put to sea, after a leisurely stay here in Gibraltar, during which I will negotiate with the Spanish government for a more suitable base, and we will demonstrate off Algiers, and mount a distant blockade, and fire a few shots from time to time, doing nothing more than that. We will also reconnoitre and, where possible, chart the passages into the port.

  ‘But all of this will have been done before, outside Tripoli, to no result. Therefore Idris will believe that we are no more serious about prosecuting this matter than we were then. Who knows, he may even present us with a ransom demand. But on the first day of June, regardless, I intend to commence the campaign, and complete it, too. By then I have no doubt that the immediate state of preparedness in Algiers will have been ended, and our sudden urgency be the more surprising to them, and therefore terrifying. But Toby, whether or not you regain Felicity, I expect you to be alive when I enter Algiers.’

  ‘I will certainly try to be so,’ Toby promised him.

  ‘Then be sure I will have you back, or I will truly lay that town in ruins, and you may tell Idris that, if you feel the need.’ He stood up and held out his hand. ‘When the time comes, hand over the command of Eagle, temporarily, to Mowat.’

  Toby squeezed the offered fingers. ‘Stephen, you are the truest friend a man could wish. And if there is any censure in this affair …’

  Decatur grinned. ‘Oh, there will be, Toby. There will be. But censure will be nothing when I have taken Algiers. You see, I am not taking any chances. There is no way that Congress can find out what I am about and send to relieve me of my command before the end of May.’

  Toby nodded. It was obvious that it simply did not occur to his friend that he could possibly fail to take Algiers, if he put his mind to it — even if Algiers was much larger, and more strongly defended, than Tripoli. But Decatur probably possessed more resolution, added to courage, added, most importantly, to canny thoughtfulness, than even Edward Preble.

  Therefore he must possess at least a share of all those qualities, and reveal them, too. ‘I will see you in Algiers at the beginning of June,’ he promised, saluted, and left the cabin.

  Mowat was almost reduced to tears when he learned that his captain was being detached for special duties. ‘But what shall I do, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘You will do exactly what I would have done, had I been here,’ Toby said. ‘And you will handle the ship as if I were standing at your shoulder.’

  But he felt like tears himself. All of his life he had had one ov
erwhelming ambition, that of captaining a ship of the United States Navy into battle. And now once again he was passing up that opportunity. Simply because it was not meant to be. Simply because he was a man in love with the most splendid woman who had ever lived, and who was now fighting for her life. Or already dead. But neither could affect his resolution now, and his determination to settle with Idris.

  He obeyed Decatur and prepared carefully for his expedition. He was actually less concerned about his complexion than his friend. After his years of exposure to the wind and sun his skin was hardly lighter than that of many of the Berber tribesmen who inhabited the African coastal areas. He could do nothing about his eyes, but there were even Berbers with blue eyes, throwbacks to the nameless ancestors of their race. His size was the most difficult problem, but the Algerians knew nothing of him, and he had to believe that there were occasionally outsize Arabs. He would dress as an Arab, and carry only an Arab weapon, a large, curved dagger. He intended to use his wits before his strength; when the time came to use his strength, he had no doubt he would be able to secure something more suitable.

  For a week he, like everyone else, enjoyed the limited fleshpots of Gibraltar, allowing himself to be seen and known to be there, with apparently not a care in the world; undoubtedly Idris would have spies in the British seaport. That he had already stopped shaving was not at first noticeable, and then put down as American slovenliness, at least by the British.

  True to Decatur’s strategy, the squadron then put to sea and demonstrated off the Algerian coast, approaching within sight of the city, and even seizing two Algerians incautious enough to venture out. Then the squadron, leaving two vessels on guard, sailed away to their new base in Majorca, Spain remaining neutral in the resumed war between France and almost all of the rest of Europe, and therefore most suitable for a visiting, and also neutral — as regards Europe — squadron, which soon lay securely at anchor in the vast Bay of Palma. But here Toby never went ashore, as his beard was now sprouting well, and his men were sworn to strict secrecy.

  It was at times almost unbearable to sit in his cabin or pace the deck of the schooner, wondering what was happening to Felicity, wondering if they had not been entirely wrong, and where she might have been alive a week ago, Idris would have grown weary of her and cut off her head by now; dreaming of her, wondering why this fate had hung over them for so long, remembering all the gloriously happy days they had spent together on Long Island and promising himself that those days would come again — and all but going mad. Because he wondered, too, about the children. He had given Carruthers a letter to take home to his mother and father, and they would know by now what had happened. How miserable they must be, three thousand miles away from any chance at rescue.

  He counted the minutes and the hours, welcomed every sunset and every sunrise, remained on deck all day wearing only drawers to burn his skin even browner. And the days did pass. From Majorca patrols were regularly conducted to Algiers, and on returning from one of these patrols, the Eagle at last put into a deserted cove some fifty miles east of the city.

  Here, at the dead of night, Toby and Mowat shook hands, the crew whispered their ‘Godspeeds’, and Toby was rowed ashore, wearing his disguise. The beach was backed by low cliffs. He waded through the surf, his haik held about his knees and his sandals in his hand, and made his way inland. By the time he had reached the top of the cliffs both boat and schooner had disappeared.

  He had decided that his best course was to pass himself off as a pilgrim, and had equipped himself with a stout staff to back up his dagger, and another stick from the end of which he suspended the bag with his immediate food supplies. These were sufficient for no more than forty-eight hours, but long before that had elapsed he had reached the coastal road, and fallen in with a caravan on its way from Tunis to Algiers. Here he was welcomed by the camel master.

  ‘From Cairo?’ that worthy remarked, eyeing Toby’s bulk. ‘That is a long journey, friend.’

  ‘I am a journeyer,’ Toby told him. ‘My life is composed of journeyings.’

  ‘To what end?’

  ‘How may a man know the end of his journeying until he reaches it?’ Toby enquired gravely.

  The camel master considered this, and decided it was unanswerable riddle. But he was prepared to obey the law of the desert, especially when Toby offered him some of the dinars taken from the two captured corsairs, and welcomed the big man into his caravan and gave him food and water to drink, inviting him to accompany them on their way. He had gained a foothold, Toby told himself, and more important, he had been accepted by these people as one of themselves. He considered that an important victory.

  The camel master was a garrulous, friendly man, who confided that he operated regularly between Tunis and Algiers, and had in fact been in the latter city only two months before. It occurred to Toby that he would hardly discover a better source of information. ‘Then tell me, friend,’ he asked as they plodded their way along the coast road. ‘How goes the war?’

  ‘You wish to fight for the Dey?’ the Arab observed. ‘This is the true reason for your journeying to Algiers.’ He glanced at Toby’s bulk, as he regularly did, clearly unable to believe it was but one man in there. ‘Anyone can see you are a warrior.’

  ‘I seek a star to follow,’ Toby confessed.

  ‘Yusuf Ali?’ The camel master was surprised.

  ‘He is an old man, I have heard,’ Toby agreed, ‘and in many ways a feeble one. Yet his deeds are legendary. And now, to fight against the Americans …’

  ‘The Americans, pouf!’ the camel master declared. ‘They are not fighting men; they do nothing more than demonstrate. As for Yusuf Ali, he has never left the safety of his palace to my knowledge. His strength is the strength of others.’

  ‘I have heard this also,’ Toby agreed. ‘Men like Mohammed ben Idris?’

  Another quick glance. ‘You know of this man?’

  ‘I have never met him,’ Toby lied, ‘but I have heard of his deeds. I know that he has fought for many of our leaders, and never been defeated. Did he not once defeat these very Americans?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ the camel master observed, somewhat sceptically. Perhaps he had heard of the battle outside Tripoli.

  ‘Would he not welcome a strong right arm?’ Toby asked.

  ‘He has many strong right arms. But one such as yours … he would welcome it.’

  ‘Then tell me of him.’

  ‘I do not know him, pilgrim,’ the camel master said. ‘He has no time for such as I. But I do know that he is a mighty warrior, and no man to be opposed. I have heard that he well rewards those who fight for him, and that his justice is swift and sure to those who have done him harm.’

  ‘That is as a warrior should be,’ Toby said piously. ‘Tell me of the woman.’

  ‘The woman?’ The camel master frowned. Toby’s heart gave a lurch. ‘Even I have heard of the woman,’ he insisted. ‘The American woman, seized by Idris. Far away in Cairo, they speak of the woman and what Idris did to her.’

  ‘The American,’ the camel master said. ‘Well, as to that, no one knows what he has done with her. I was in Algiers the day he brought her ashore. Naked she was, and her beauty was wonderous to behold. No man can ever have beheld skin so white, breasts so high, and belly so flat … and it is said that she is no longer a girl. Naked he dragged her up the hill to his palace, while the populace shouted his name and death to the Americans.’

  ‘Naked?’ Toby asked. ‘He made her walk the streets of Algiers naked?’

  ‘It was a sight to behold,’ the camel master said again, clearly savouring the memory.

  ‘I wish I had been there,’ Toby said, wondering why he did not strangle the man there and then.

  ‘You would have seen the greatness of Mohammed ben Idris,’ the camel master said.

  ‘But you do not know if she was then executed?’

  ‘That no man can say. She was taken into Idris’s palace, hard by the citadel, and never seen again.
There was a rumour that he intended to expose her again …’ The camel master sighed. ‘And then to prostitute her to any man who could command his price.’ He smiled. ‘I was tempted. To he upon such a woman would have been a memorable experience.’

  ‘And did you?’ Toby asked grimly.

  The camel master shook his head. ‘It was only a rumour. I have told you, she was never seen again. Some people said he had her flayed alive and her skin stuffed while her carcass was fed to the dogs in his yard. Others say he merely had her tied up in a sack and thrown into the sea. No one knows for sure.’

  ‘What of the man who brought her to Idris?’ Toby asked.

  The camel master frowned. His new friend seemed to know a lot about the business and to be asking a great number of questions. ‘The American man?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He has been rewarded, and now sits upon Mohammed’s right hand. It is said he fears to return to America, because of the vengeance of the white woman’s husband. It is said this husband is a monster of a man, who kills men with his bare hands.’

  ‘Can there be such a creature?’ Toby asked, hunching his shoulders and trying to appear smaller than he was.

  ‘I do not believe these things myself,’ the camel master confessed.

  ‘Neither do I,’ Toby told him. ‘I put my faith in men who are proven leaders. I will offer a prayer to Allah that this Mohammed ben Idris looks kindly upon me, and permits me to enter his service. He sounds like the man I have travelled so far to meet.’

  Felicity was still alive. Toby felt sure of it. If Idris had meant to kill her, he would certainly have had her executed in the most public manner, after exposing her as he had. Therefore he was keeping her alive for some devilish purpose of his own, or simply because he had been unable to resist possessing again that beauty which had so powerfully affected the camel master. But whatever the reason, whatever she was suffering, she would survive, as she had done in the past, as Decatur had reminded him. Felicity was alive, and he was on his way to her.