A Call to Arms Page 22

  Decatur summoned a weak smile. “Under the circumstances, Mr. Cutler, no apology is required.” He made to rise. “Help me up, please. I’m feeling a lot better.”

  On his feet and gripping the starboard gunwale for balance, Decatur, with Jamie beside him, surveyed the arena of battle, a series of close-action boarding engagements stretching perhaps a quarter-mile along the outer edge of the two reefs. The Tripolitan batteries ashore posed no threat for now. Their cannon were mounted too high to bring to bear. A quick scan of the harbor confirmed that at least one cruiser, a galliot judging by her two-masted rig, was preparing to make sail and join the fray.

  “Look, sir,” Jamie said in delight.

  Decatur looked in the direction Jamie was pointing. Preble had also noted the enemy cruiser’s intention. Enterprise and Argus were sailing on a course of interception.

  Decatur swung his gaze back to the battle at hand. It was nearing a successful conclusion, notwithstanding the odds against them. Lieutenant Trippe in gunboat 6 had captured not one but two enemy vessels, each mounting a bright, brass, 24-pounder howitzer. Another enemy boat, seemingly without a crew, was drifting away from gunboat 5 toward the rocks beneath the Molehead Battery. Suddenly that boat exploded in a flash of yellow-orange flame.

  “Lieutenant Bainbridge must have set a charge on her before cutting her loose,” Jamie commented.

  “Well done,” Decatur said softly. In a much louder voice, with his hands cupped at his mouth, he shouted out at the bashaw’s castle, “I hope you are watching your brother in action, William!” He was calling to William Bainbridge, Philadelphia’s captain, held prisoner in that castle.

  Decatur swung his glass over to where his own brother was exchanging fierce musket and blunderbuss fire with the second enemy gunboat in line. He held his breath as he watched the enemy gunboat under attack being reinforced by the Tripolitan boat third in line, its crew jumping from one boat to the other until they had joined forces with their comrades and were preparing to board gunboat 2. Suddenly, the 24-pounder on the American gunboat spewed orange flame and white sparks. A steel fist of grapeshot punched across the decks of both enemy vessels, killing or maiming everyone in its path, taking the lifeblood and the fight out of the enemy. The handful of Arabs left standing threw down their weapons as their captain, another burly slab of a man with a wide face and short-cropped black beard, ordered the flag of Tripoli hauled down.

  “Well, that’s that,” Stephen Decatur commented.

  To the east, behind them, the galliot that had boldly beaten out around the eastern edge of the reefs had come under fire. A well-aimed shot hurled from one of the two American warships had slammed into the galliot’s mainmast, tearing out a sizable chunk of wood. Crippled, her mainmast teetering, the galliot turned and limped back into the harbor without having fired a shot.

  On the western side of the mole, Lieutenant Somers in gunboat 1, having failed in his effort to sail upwind to join the battle before the reefs, came off the wind to southward toward five enemy gunboats that had come around the mole to attack him. The Molehead Battery did not join fire; mortar shells continued to streak in and explode near the fort and inside the city. One shell fell directly in front of the five enemy gunboats. Its backwash surged over them, capsizing the lead vessel, heavily laden with enemy personnel, and swamping the second. As the three remaining enemy gunboats struggled in the confusion of roiled waters, Lieutenant Somers gave them a healthy dose of grapeshot followed by a dose of canister shot. Somers came off the wind and beat northward toward Vixen, which was sailing in fast to the rescue.

  “Well, Mr. Cutler,” Decatur said as he surveyed what was left to survey, “it seems we have won the day. Assuming, of course, we can figure out how to get back to the squadron!”

  “Captain,” Jamie gasped. Something he had seen through his glass made his blood run cold and his intestines twist. “Captain!” he shouted in a voice thick with despair.

  Decatur focused his glass on gunboat 2. The enemy gunboat had surrendered, yes, but its captain and remaining crew had leapt aboard another Tripolitan gunboat and were making sail toward the Western Passage a hundred yards away. He scoured the deck of gunboat 2 with the glass. “Where’s James?” he demanded.

  “He’s been shot, sir,” Jamie said softly.

  “Shot?”

  “Yes, sir. He was boarding the Tripolitan to take her as a prize when her captain, the one who surrendered, shot him in the head.”

  “Jesus Christ!” What Decatur observed through the lens of his glass confirmed the horrible truth of Jamie’s words. Midn. Octavius Paige, second in command, was supervising the gunboat’s crew as they hauled the limp body of James Decatur from the water.

  Stephen Decatur collapsed his glass with a snap. He pointed at the fleeing enemy gunboat. “Cut that bastard off!” he bellowed. “Cut him off! Bring up the goddamn sweeps and set every shred of canvas we have! I’ll pursue that whore’s son through the gates of hell if I have to. I will avenge my brother!”

  Out at sea, Constitution hoisted the signal for “Cover the boats.” As the squadron stood in close to unleash its guns at a cluster of Tripolitan gunboats emerging through the Western Passage, gunboat 4 took off in hot pursuit of the enemy boat fleeing toward that passage. Batteries ashore returned fire. Plumes of white water shot into the air and rained down on the American gunboat while round shot and bar-shot screamed and whined back and forth overhead like some ghastly battle between prehistoric birds. One shot, of friend or foe, lashed the sea to larboard of gunboat 4 and a massive column of seawater soaked the deck with spray, its backwash carrying the boat forward in its clutch like a sled out of control on a steep, slippery hill and threatening to bring it down pell-mell against the larboard quarter of the fleeing enemy boat.

  “Brace for impact!” Decatur shouted.

  Jamie seized hold of the larboard gunwale and spread his legs. “Let fly the sheets!” he cried. “Stand by to heave grappling hooks!”

  The helmsman wrenched the tiller to windward. Sailors heaved small grappling hooks at the fast-approaching enemy vessel. Others released the sheets, spilling the wind from the lateen sail. Then everyone hung on to something for dear life. Seconds later there was a blinding crash.

  “Board!” Decatur cried the instant the two gunboats were lashed fast together.

  Decatur leapt aboard the enemy boat and swiped his sword against the mainsheet, severing the rope and rendering the sail impotent, taking the way off the vessel. Ahead, in the passage, Tripolitan gunboats were buckling under the withering broadsides of the American squadron coming at them in line-of-battle array. Constitution was in the van; Vixen, Syren, Argus, Nautilus, and Enterprise followed in her wake. Overhead, two mortar shells shrieked unholy terror as they streaked down over the walls of Tripoli. One shell exploded inside the city.

  Decatur had no trouble identifying the enemy captain. He crouched amidships, a scimitar in his left hand and a raised pistol in his right. Decatur dropped to the deck a split second before the man fired, and the shot hit a Marine directly behind him. The Arab threw his pistol at Decatur, missed, and then charged him, his scimitar raised for battle.

  Outnumbered three to one, the Americans fought like demons, taking their cue from their commanding officer, who, possessed by fiery rage, had sliced open two Arabs with his sword before taking on the Tripolitan captain. Steel blades lunged and parried, lunged and parried, Decatur seeking to find and control the flow of the fight, to seize advantage of a sudden opening. Finally he found it. As the Arab took hold of his sword with both hands and raised his arms for one great defining swing of the blade, Decatur lunged in and stabbed him in the stomach. Thrusting his weight forward, he drove the blade in deeper, burying it almost to the haft. The Arab’s scimitar slid from his grip. For several moments he stared down at his red-soaked shirt, then lifted dimming eyes to stare at Decatur, his mouth opening as if to ask a question, before he slumped over, dead. Decatur withdrew his sword and wiped the bloody
blade on the Arab’s baggy trousers.

  “You fight like a woman!” he spat down at him.

  “The boat is ours, Captain,” Jamie Cutler informed him. “The enemy has surrendered.”

  Decatur blinked. “You’re wounded, Mr. Cutler.” He took Jamie’s right arm in both his hands and examined a deep gash oozing blood.

  “It’s just a scratch, sir.”

  “It’s rather more than a scratch,” Decatur said. He called to a sailor standing by. “See to Mr. Cutler. Do not leave his side until he is back aboard Constitution and in the care of Dr. Wells.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the sailor said.

  Decatur glared darkly at the Arab sailors who had dropped their weapons on the deck and now stood with heads bowed, avoiding the sight of their butchered commander, fearful, no doubt, of what the wild-eyed American commander might have in store for them.

  “Tie them up,” Decatur snarled. “Tie up every God-cursed one of them and get them out of my sight!” He turned away and glanced northward to where an armada of launches, gigs, and barges was fast approaching the American gunboats to help get them and their prizes out of harm’s way.

  THE NEXT MORNING, as Constitution stood six miles off the coast, Samuel Elbert spotted a small two-masted vessel approaching the flagship from the direction of Tripoli. “Mr. Wadsworth,” the third lieutenant said to his junior duty officer, “light below and advise the captain that we have a visitor.”

  Midn. Henry Wadsworth saluted. “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Edward Preble came on deck and watched in silence as the small rig hove to a short distance from the flagship and lowered away a boat. Four oarsmen and a coxswain climbed down into the boat, followed by a burly, informally dressed man sporting a chest-length red-copper beard.

  “Shall I order boarding honors, sir?” Elbert inquired.

  “No,” was Preble’s prompt reply, and he said nothing further until the bearded man had clambered up the flagship’s built-in steps.

  The visitor looked about with an appreciative eye as he was escorted to the quarterdeck. He bowed when introduced to Edward Preble. “Bonjour, capitaine. Je m’appelle . . .” He switched to English when Preble frowned at the use of French aboard his ship. “I am Pierre Mercellise,” he said. “I am master of le vaisseau”—he pointed to starboard—“Le Ruse.”

  “An apt name, I am sure.” The irony in Preble’s reply was lost on the Frenchman, although it made Elbert smile.

  “You are a privateer,” Preble stated. He had noticed the vessel’s four guns mounted two to a side.

  “Oui, monsieur, un corsaire,” Mercellise acknowledged. “But fear not,” he added with an ingratiating smile. “I have not come to do battle with your frégate.” His smile quickly faded when Preble remained stone-faced. Earlier that morning, Preble had buried at sea six of his command, one of whom was Lt. James Decatur, and he was in no mood for frivolity.

  “Monsieur,” the Frenchman said, his tone turning deferential, “I have come to give you this.” He withdrew a sealed letter from an inside vest pocket and handed it to Preble.

  “It is from Monsieur Beaussier, l’émissaire français en Tripoli,” he explained as Preble broke the wax seal and unfolded the paper. The commodore’s brow creased and his eyes narrowed as he read down the page. When he had finished reading, he handed the letter to his first lieutenant to read, saying quietly, “More French bullshit.”

  “Il y aura une réponse?” the Frenchman asked hopefully, slipping into his native tongue after too many minutes had elapsed with Preble absorbed in thought. “Monsieur Beaussier espère très beaucoup que vous répondrez à lui.” He cleared his throat and translated. “Mr. Beaussier hopes very much that you will respond to him, capitaine.”

  “I have no response, Monsieur Mercellise,” Preble announced. “And there will be no boat tomorrow afternoon. Thank you for your time and trouble in this matter. It is appreciated. Mr. Wadsworth, please see this gentleman off. Please send with him the most seriously wounded of our prisoners.”

  Preble turned on his heel and disappeared belowdecks to his after cabin. It was not until that evening, during the 7:00 meeting, that he informed his officers of what had transpired on deck that morning.

  “Yusuf Karamanli,” Preble told them, holding high the French consul’s letter, “would apparently prefer to bury himself under the ruins of his capital city than accept humiliating terms of peace. He has sent women and children into the countryside and has vowed to keep his men at their posts day and night, to fight us to their last breath if necessary. However, if I, Commodore Preble, truly desire peace, and agree to a ransom of five hundred dollars per man for the release of Philadelphia’s crew, plus twenty thousand for making peace, plus a paltry ten thousand in annual tribute, then I am to send a boat to the Western Passage at eight bells tomorrow afternoon under a white flag of truce.” Preble ripped the letter in half. “Beaussier strongly recommends that I accept these terms on behalf of our government. They are, he claims, the same terms that Secretary Madison has authorized Tobias Lear to offer the bashaw. Oh, I should add that Monsieur Beaussier will personally guarantee the safety of those I send ashore in the boat. That is reason enough to reject this offer.”

  Preble balled up the two halves of the letter, walked over to a basket, and dropped them in. Then he turned to face his officers, his face taut with anger. “I have a different plan,” he announced. “Tripoli has seen a significant number of its gunboats destroyed or captured as a result of recent action. One of its cruisers is severely damaged. Parts of the city are still ablaze from our mortar fire, and we have inflicted considerable damage to the westward defenses. What’s more, we have thirty of the enemy as prisoners—less the four we sent ashore this morning with the Frenchman—and we have sent dozens more to the grave. Gentlemen, if one strike from our squadron has induced Mr. Karamanli to so urgently seek peace with us, might not a second strike heat things up a bit more? And make our peace terms seem more reasonable to the bashaw?”

  These were rhetorical questions. No one was expected to respond, and no one did.

  Twelve

  Off the City of Tripoli, September 1804

  CAPTAIN PREBLE WAS tired, cranky, and worried. He couldn’t remember his last decent night’s sleep. The bravado and swagger he had exhibited after the first attack on Tripoli had largely gone by the boards. Subsequent forays had proven to be inconclusive, including the bold attack on August 7 led by Lt. Charles Stewart. During that assault, American bomb ketches and gunboats had crept into the bay on the westward side of the mole, the same spot where Lieutenant Somers had found himself during the battle on August 3. From there, Stewart and Somers had convinced their commanding officer, they could bombard the city almost at will because the cannon in Molehead Battery and French Fort were trained out to sea, not at the bay behind them. And if vessels of the Tripolitan Navy dared to sail out and challenge the Americans, the squadron’s brigs and schooners could sweep in to engage them.

  It seemed a perfect battle plan, except for two unanticipated factors. Beneath the placid surface waters of the inner bay ran strong westbound currents and undertows that made the clumsy Sicilian gunboats difficult to maneuver. In addition, as if reading the mind of the American commodore, Yusuf Karamanli had ordered two additional batteries erected on the mole to cover the bay: one of five cannon, the other—dubbed the Vixen Battery by the Americans—of eight cannon. Both positions had been blasted out of action on August 7, but the squadron had accomplished little else of note. Most mortar shells that fell into the city, according to accounts delivered to Constitution from the French and Danish consuls, had fallen in the Jewish Quarter. The damage wrought might have some psychological value, but it had no significant military value. Worse, many of those mortar shells had failed to explode. The most probable reason for that, Preble mused, was because no American sea officer in his squadron had managed to master the requisite artillery skills. In Syracuse he had retained the services of renowned Neapolitan bomb
ardier Don Antonio Massi to instruct his officers in the art of artillery and mortar fire. But Massi’s instruction, as sound as it was in theory, was of a classroom variety lacking any sort of live combat experience. Worse still, those mortar shells that had exploded within the city and might have ignited a conflagration had fallen on buildings constructed of stone and dried mud.

  But the most distressing news of all had arrived three weeks ago on an American naval vessel. Master Commandant Isaac Chauncey, captain of the frigate John Adams, had sailed to Tripoli carrying three dispatches for Commodore Preble from Navy Secretary Robert Smith and Secretary of State James Madison. The fourth squadron was under way, Smith reported, and should be in the Mediterranean by mid-September. Capt. Samuel Barron in USS President would assume command of the squadron immediately upon his arrival in Syracuse. Although Smith praised Preble’s performance, the cold reality was that his command of the Mediterranean Squadron could now be measured in days—perhaps a week at best.

  The sands in the hourglass were running out. If Preble were to contribute in a meaningful fashion to the outcome of this war—and be judged favorably by his superiors and by history—he had to act soon. After mulling over his options, Preble decided on a strategy that no one could have anticipated, not even his squadron commanders.

  Peace negotiations with Karamanli and Foreign Secretary Dghies were dead. It galled Preble to admit that Beaussier was right, but just as the French consul had predicted, his failure to strike a crippling blow against Tripoli during the previous two months had raised both enemy morale and the price of peace. Under no conditions would Preble hazard his reputation by agreeing to pay an amount for ransom and tribute that ran contrary to both government policy and his own sense of ethics. To his mind, a military solution still provided the only viable gateway to peace with honor.

  Preble had a plan. Some people, he readily acknowledged to himself, would consider it a plan born of desperation. But few, he was equally convinced, would deem it reckless. Indeed, he had been considering this option for months. He had even written Secretary Smith about it back in March, and last week he had discussed it, in the strictest confidence, with his three commissioned officers. In his considered judgment—and in the judgment of his officers—it had a better than even chance of success. And success might end the war overnight, or at least open wide the door to negotiations for the new commodore. Either way, the credit would go to Preble and to the young men whom he had come to refer to affectionately in his log as “my boys.”