A Call to Arms Read online

  “Good Lord,” he observed in a loud voice with a slice of humor in it, “are you men ever a sight for sore eyes!” Despite their misery and anxiety the volunteers responded with a low rumble of laughter, in part because Decatur himself posed such a sight. His curly black hair was matted down in clumps, and his long sideburns had dovetailed with an unshaven jawbone. The baggy pants, brightly colored vest, and turban-like hat he was wearing reinforced the impression of an Old Testament prophet.

  “Right, lads,” he went on more seriously when the rumbling had run its course, “here’s where we are. We’re going to man the pumps and clean up this stinking mess. And I want you all to eat and drink what you can. If we exhaust our provisions, we’ll resupply from Syren, who, praise God, lies within sight. You may go topside to take the air and to wash and dry your clothes, but only in groups of five. By my reckoning, the storm drove us about two hundred miles from Tripoli. I’ll know for certain after the noon sighting. It will take us a while to get back there even if these quartering winds remain fair. But until our hull touches Philadelphia’s, it’s imperative that we maintain the appearance of a local Maltese tradesman manned by a small crew. The success of our mission depends on our pulling off this ruse. You understand? The storm hasn’t fogged your memory?”

  Men chuckled, shook their heads. Decatur went on: “I leave it to you midshipmen to determine who mans the pumps, who goes topside and when, and who has deck-cleaning duty. I have ordered the galley fire lit, so you should have warm food in your bellies before too long. Whatever is served, I want you to eat it. I order you to eat it. We must get back our strength, lads. Hot work lies ahead for us.”

  DURING THE EARLY AFTERNOON of February 16, according to plan, Syren dropped out of sight astern of Intrepid. Although Syren had never sailed along the coast of Tripoli—and therefore was not likely to be recognized—she too had been disguised to look like a local trading vessel. Her topgallant mast had been sent down, her gun ports closed and painted over, and quarter-cloths had been raised to conceal the nettings on the bulwarks and barricade of her quarterdeck. Nevertheless, the arrival of two unidentified vessels approaching Tripoli Harbor together might arouse suspicion. So Decatur had ordered Lieutenant Stewart to keep his distance until nightfall, when he would approach Intrepid, lie to, and send over boats with additional volunteers.

  Ahead, in the far distance, Decatur could see Point Tagiura jutting out to the east of the city. In the farther distance he could barely make out, through a spyglass, the crests of white water breaking against the seaward edges of Kaliuscia and Ra’s az Zur reefs—the long chains of partially submerged rocks that protected the harbor both from fierce winter gales and from unwary intruders. Salvador Catalano, a native of Palmero who had navigated these waters dozens of times in the employ of Richard Farquhar—and who, coincidentally, had been in Tripoli the day Philadelphia was captured—stood beside Stephen Decatur on Intrepid’s foredeck. With the Sicilian acting as pilot, Decatur hugged the coast south of the two chains of rocks that lay close under the guns of English Fort, a freestanding bastion located a mile to the east of the city walls. An alternative harbor entry, Catalano had explained, was through the oft-used Western Passage, a narrow but deep waterway snaking through the rocks and shoals near the opposite end of the harbor up by the Molehead Battery. But Decatur deemed this and other possible entryways too dangerous to attempt at night even if the moon were full, which tonight it was not.

  Decatur checked his watch: 5:15. He looked astern and searched for Syren. No sign of her yet. He glanced aloft at a strip of cloth attached to the signal halyard and chewed his lower lip. The telltale indicated that the wind held fast and steady from the east, too strong by half for his liking. He passed word for James Lawrence, his first lieutenant in Enterprise and his first officer in Intrepid.

  “We need some sort of drogue, Jim,” he said, forgoing naval discipline in using a first-name address, “anything that will slow her down. We can’t stand off and on. That would be too obvious. Toss out a line and tie on ladders, extra spars, timbers, whatever you can find.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Lawrence said, adding with a grin, “Might I suggest some lubberly attention to the sails?”

  Decatur nodded. “A capital notion.”

  With what amounted to a sea anchor checking her speed and her sails luffing at their leeches, Intrepid appeared just as Decatur wanted her to appear to anyone observing her from shore: a Maltese merchant vessel struggling to make harbor before nightfall. High on the signal halyard, at its apex, fluttered the British ensign.

  Dusk was settling over the Barbary Coast as Intrepid sailed within a mile of the eastern end of the chain of rocks. Ahead, to larboard, loomed English Fort, its menacing black cannon protruding through embrasures. It was yet too early to attempt entry; the plan was to wait for dark and for Syren. Again Decatur scoured the waters astern. Again he saw empty water. Where was she? Yet another glance aloft at the telltale confirmed that the wind was moderating, as it often did this time of day, and was now blowing in increasingly sporadic directions, as if trying to find its proper direction. Soon they would face the opposite of the problem they had encountered several hours earlier.

  “Mr. Cutler?” he said to the young midshipman stationed nearby, one of six crewmembers on deck. Like everyone else, he was dressed in the garb of a local sailor.

  “Captain?”

  “Mr. Cutler, we shall anchor here temporarily. Keep the anchor rode short, just enough to hold her. Cut loose the drogue and have the sweeps brought up. And I’ll have our cutter called out and towed astern. We’ll have need of it should we lose this wind altogether.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jamie said. He did not salute. Captain Decatur had long since extinguished all visible signs of naval discipline aboard the ship.

  Minutes ticked by into a quarter-hour, then a half-hour, then an hour. Decatur repeatedly checked his watch and peered eastward, the growing darkness gradually obscuring his vision. Time had run out. Decatur had to make a decision. He could no longer remain where he was. Abort or continue the mission? He sensed the tension sprouting along the weather deck, and it took all his discipline as a naval commander to keep his own anxiety in check.

  “Mr. Morris,” he said to the midshipman from Enterprise, “we can delay no further. We shall weigh anchor and proceed on our own.”

  Charles Morris, acting as boatswain, issued the orders necessary to raise the anchor and set the sails.

  Decatur took command of the tiller and summoned Salvatore Catalano to his side. Together they set Intrepid on a course south by west, their landmark the lights flickering within English Fort. It took thirty minutes in an increasingly fickle wind to sail within two cable lengths of the fort; from there Intrepid assumed a more westerly course, shadowing the low, sandy coastline of Tripoli, careful to keep the dangerous rocks and shoals well off to starboard. Ahead, to larboard, loomed the bashaw’s castle, a massive stone edifice that anchored the northeastern corner of the fortress’ seaward wall. Following Catalano’s counsel, Decatur kept the castle between two and three points to larboard, following a course that would bring them on a direct line to Philadelphia. They could not yet see the frigate. She lay a mile or so ahead. So they relied on dead reckoning, their new beacons the lights flickering within the bashaw’s castle, which they approached in the eerie glow of a crescent moon.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, Intrepid ghosted along with a dying wind at her back. It was approaching 11:00 when Philadelphia’s profile began to take shape. Four lanterns burned aboard her: one forward near the bow, one at the stern, and one on each side amidships. Decatur scanned the shoreline, settling his gaze on the city wall not six hundred feet away at the water’s edge. He saw nothing to arouse concern. He saw no one at all, in fact, either on the walls or aboard the vessels of the Tripolitan Navy clustered together at anchor just east of French Fort, a structure similar to English Fort located at the western perimeter of the city’s defenses. Philadelphia stood alone, clos
er to the rocks and shoals than to the city, a deformed and ignored belle of the ball.

  Decatur signaled to James Cutler and Charles Morris to start bringing the volunteers from the hold onto the weather deck. Sailors and Marines crept up through the hatchways and lay prone, wriggling and snaking to make room for others, their presence hidden by the sharply rising bulwarks, against which lay eight long wooden sweeps on each side of the deck. Each man carried with him a three-inch piece of sperm candle, its wick soaked in turpentine, along with a tomahawk, dagger, or cutlass. Each of the squad leaders brandished a sword and had a brace of pistols tucked out of sight. Decatur had insisted that pistols be used only as a last resort. The weapon of choice this night was the silent double-edged blade.

  As Intrepid approached Philadelphia, she was hailed from the frigate. “Take the tiller, Mr. Izard,” Decatur said to the midshipman, “and keep her off as best you can.” He walked forward to join Catalano at the bow. Decatur nodded at him. The Sicilian cupped his hands at his mouth.

  “Ahoy,” he called out in Arabic. “We have come from Malta to load cattle for the British garrison there. We lost our anchor in the storm. We request permission to make fast to your vessel until morning.”

  Intrepid’s crew, both those visible and those hidden from view, tensed while they waited for a reply. Intrepid lay all but adrift twenty yards astern of the frigate on her lee side. The wind had nearly vanished. Her sheets were hauled in tight, their sails useless. Then, a cry from the frigate: “Who is your crew?”

  “Three English, four Italians. I am Sicilian. My name is Salvatore Catalano. You may know of me. I have been trading in Tripoli for years.”

  A second pause, then: “Permission granted. We will send over a boat with a line.”

  “Thank you. We will also send our boat with a line.”

  Decatur held his breath for two, six, ten seconds. When the Arabs neither questioned nor challenged that last statement, he exhaled slowly, turned around, and walked aft. The cutter was drawn up amidships, and four oarsmen and a coxswain dropped down onto the thwarts.

  As the two ship’s boats—the launch from Philadelphia and the cutter from Intrepid—approached each other, Catalano, standing arms akimbo at the bow of the ketch, continued to complain loudly about the storm, how they were blown off course, the nuisance of losing their anchor, anything that might distract those aboard Philadelphia and the approaching launch. No one in the frigate offered a reply. Decatur prayed that Catalano’s monotonous chatter was lulling the enemy into apathy. It might just buy them a precious minute or two.

  The two ship’s boats met halfway across, each dragging a line secured to its mother ship. The coxswain in the cutter motioned to those in the launch to toss over a heaving line. When someone complied, an American sailor in the cutter grabbed the heavy knot at the bitter end and tied the two lines together in a sheet bend. The boats signaled the mother ships that all was ready. Sailors in both ships heaved on the line, which popped out of the water and grew taut. Slowly, hand over hand, they shortened the distance between Philadelphia and Intrepid. The sailors and Marines lying facedown aboard the ketch gripped their weapons.

  Suddenly, a Tripolitan sailor watching the approach of Intrepid saw something he didn’t like. “Americans!” he shouted. “Americans are aboard!”

  The captain of the Tripolitan guard ordered a halt to the proceedings and demanded to know if the ketch carried any Americans as crew.

  “Certainly not,” Catalano shouted back indignantly in Arabic. “This is a Maltese trader with only English and Italians aboard.”

  The Tripolitan captain believed him and ordered Intrepid to be hauled in closer. The whistle-blower, however, remained adamant.

  “They are Americans!” he shouted again, this time almost pleading. “They are Americans, I swear it!”

  Whether it was the man’s certainty or because his own suspicions had been aroused, the captain of the guard ordered the line cut. Only a few feet of water separated the two vessels.

  Catalano, his self-confidence rattled, yelled aft to Decatur, “Board, Captain! Board now!”

  Decatur drew his sword and held it high in the air. “Belay that!” he roared. “Obey no order but mine!”

  As a Tripolitan sailor raised an ax to slash the towrope, the Americans heaved on the rope one final time, propelling Intrepid forward just as the line was severed. Izard swung the tiller over to bring the starboard hull of the ketch gently alongside the larboard hull of the frigate.

  Decatur leapt up onto Intrepid’s elevated bulwarks and from there onto the frigate’s mizzen chain-plates. “Board!” he commanded. As he made to jump down, his foot slipped and Midn. Charles Morris sprang past him, the first to set foot on Philadelphia’s quarterdeck.

  Decatur and the volunteers followed close on Morris’ heels while the oarsmen in the cutter quickly overpowered the Arabs in the launch and rowed hard for Philadelphia. Four men carried lighted lanterns in double bags joined by a strap passing over one shoulder and connecting under the other arm—leaving both hands free to fight enemies who, stunned by the wave of Americans scrambling over the frigate’s larboard railing, had backed up in defensive positions across the deck. Several of them jumped overboard. Others, attempting a rally, called on Allah and charged the Americans, their short, scimitar-like swords held high. One muscular Arab came directly at Jamie Cutler, in the front line of attack, and slashed down violently with his sword. Jamie raised his own sword to defend, but too late. The savage blow knocked the weapon from Jamie’s hand and sent it slithering across the deck. Jamie groped for his pistol, but the Arab was too quick for him. He lunged in with his fist, striking Jamie on the jaw and knocking him backward and down. The Arab raised his sword high for the kill, his dark eyes flashing hatred.

  Jamie, barely able to focus his eyes, saw a glint of silver to his left as a blade pierced the Arab under his ribs, its sharp point and edges tearing, ripping into vital organs, penetrating ever deeper, all the way to the hilt. The Arab, eyes bulging, arched his back and his sword clattered onto the deck. He fell to his knees, blood dribbling from his mouth, and leaned forward as if in a final prayer to Allah. Seaman John Stokes withdrew his blade from the bloody heap and then, for good measure, ran it through at the base of the Arab’s neck, execution-style.

  Jamie struggled to his feet. “Thank you, Stokes,” he said numbly, his gaze stuck on the Arab’s butchered corpse. “Thank you most kindly.”

  “My honor, Mr. Cutler.” Stokes whirled around in search of new prey, crouching low, his left arm out, his sword clutched firmly in his right fist. But he found no one to accommodate him. Five Arabs lay dead on the deck. Others had leapt overboard and were either drowning or swimming for shore. Philadelphia was once again under American command.

  “Anyone injured?” Decatur shouted to the volunteers gathering around him.

  No one was.

  “Right. We must move fast, men. You know your orders. Squad leaders, transfer the combustibles from Intrepid and proceed below. We meet back here on the gun deck in five minutes. Five minutes! That is all the time you have. Roundly, now!”

  As the volunteers sprang to action, Decatur scanned the weather deck. He discovered nothing of note except on the quarterdeck, where he found the 32-pounder carronades, salvaged from the waters where Philadelphia had gone aground, loaded with powder and shot. He glanced ashore. No alarm had been raised, either within the city or aboard the Tripolitan warships anchored nearby. Likely, those Arabs who had abandoned Philadelphia had not yet made it to shore. He beseeched God for fifteen more minutes.

  When Decatur clambered below to the gun deck he confronted a sight more in keeping with a Christmas Eve church service than a desperate raid on a captured warship. Thirty Americans stood silently before him, each man holding a candle lit from one of the four lanterns. The illumination effect was beautiful, magical, ethereal. Even the bowsed-up guns seemed transformed from instruments of destruction into symbols of something sacred. Decatu
r paused just a moment to take it all in.

  “Right, lads,” he said quietly, as if unwilling to intrude upon such sanctity. “Squad leaders, repair to stations. Wait for my order.”

  “Squad One, to me,” Jamie Cutler called out. The five men assigned to him, each carrying a candle and combustibles, followed him down the forward companionway one deck below to the berthing deck. At the forward part of the ship, near the manger, they dumped paper, straw, odd scraps of wood and rope, anything and everything that would burn in a conflagration. When the combustibles were gathered in a pile, Jamie sprinkled a container of turpentine onto it and waited . . . and waited . . . until Decatur shouted down through the hatchway above.

  “Fire!”

  Jamie and the men in his squad set their candles against the pile as Decatur ran along the deck above them, shouting the order to the other squads waiting on the berthing deck. One by one, four other piles of combustibles burst into flames.

  Jamie grabbed a lantern from a sailor named Freese and hurled it into the blaze. The glass shattered, spilling sperm oil that fueled the flames to greater heights and intensity. By now they almost reached the deckhead. Thick gray smoke curled about the forecastle, a living thing seeking the blessing of oxygen. It found it, through the hatchways.

  “Everyone topside!” Jamie cried.

  When he followed his squad up the ladder, he found Decatur, Morris, Izard, and Lawrence scrambling up to the gun deck. Decatur made a quick survey. Satisfied by what he saw, he pointed upward. “There’s no more for us to do here, lads,” he shouted over the crackle and sizzle of hot burning timbers. “It’s time to shove off!”

  Decatur, bringing up the rear, was followed up the companionway by tongues of flames that hissed up to the lower shrouds, instantly setting them ablaze. Melting tar dripped onto the deck. After a wild last look about the frigate, Decatur ran past the stump of the foremast and leapt aboard Intrepid.

  “Every man accounted for?” he demanded of James Lawrence.