Authors: William C. Hammond
“I am honored to sail with such men on such a mission,” Wadsworth said with a resolution and finality that closed the door to further discussion on the topic. Left unspoken was what Richard Somers had said in the officers' meeting the previous evening: that he would blow up
Intrepid
himself if that meant keeping five tons of precious gunpowder out of enemy hands. Nor was surrender a possibility. Somers had made it clear that he preferred death a hundred times over to the humiliation of
capture and enslavement, and he assumed that every man of honor felt the same.
At 7:30, with the thin cloak of dusk yielding gradually to the thicker mantle of night, Henry Wadsworth shook hands with Jamie Cutler and Ralph Izard at
Constitution's
larboard entry port. Aft of them, Stephen Decatur and Isaac Hull stood side-by-side on the quarterdeck alongside Edward Preble watching the ship's cutter row Richard Somers, Joseph Israel, and five of the handpicked sailors over to
Intrepid,
lying at anchor two hundred yards off. Lt. Charles Stewart was already aboard
Syren,
and Lt. John Smith aboard
Vixen.
It occurred to Jamie Cutler that Somers, Decatur, and Stewart had passed an evening similar to that of the three midshipmen, one deck up from them in the wardroom.
“Good luck, Henry,” Jamie said to Wadsworth as the midshipman made ready to step down into the pinnace. Five volunteers awaited him there, four at the oars, one at the tiller. “Your mother insists you be back aboard and tucked in no later than midnight.”
Wadsworth grinned. “Then I mustn't give her cause for alarm or anger. But before I retire tonight, I plan on sharing a bottle with you two.”
“You're on, as long as it's from your store of wine. It's of a higher quality than ours.”
“Godspeed, Henry,” Izard said, squeezing his friend's arm.
Wadsworth did an about-face, grabbed the hempen handholds on each side of the steps, gave his shipmates a brief nod, and climbed down into the pinnace. After he had picked his way astern and was settled in the stern sheets, the starboard oarsmen pushed off, the oars dipped, and the little boat started gliding away from
Constitution.
Wadsworth turned once to look back. When he lifted his hat and waved it in the air, those watching him on the flagship waved back.
“Godspeed, Henry,” Izard repeated quietly, as if bestowing a benediction.
At 8:00, the start of the first watch,
Intrepid
raised a jib forward and the lateen sail on her mainmast, slipped her anchor cable, and shaped a course for the Western Passage. As if ordained by Providence, the moon that night was in its first phase. The dazzling canopy of stars shining in the cloudless sky provided barely enough light to see what lay ahead, and scarcely enough for a sentry posted ashore to distinguish much more than the dark outline of a Mediterranean-rigged vessel approaching the Western Passage. The northeasterly breeze, which had held steady for much of the day, allowed
Intrepid
to sail southward on a broad reach, her fastest point of sail. Tonight, however, she was sailing under mainsail and
jib only, to slow her progress and to allow lookouts and sounders in the bow to safely guide her through the narrow passage. Trailing far behind, the brig of war
Syren
and the schooner
Vixen
kept pace under double-reefed canvas. Somers' ship
Nautilus,
under the temporary command of Lt. George Washington Reed, ventured on ahead. As instructed, Reed hove to a hundred yards short of the reefs.
Shortly after 9:00
Intrepid
approached the Western Passage. All eyes in the squadron were riveted on her, though those standing on the weather deck of
Constitution,
resting at anchor five miles out, could see very little at that distance. Jamie Cutler strode aft to near the raised skylight on the quarterdeck where Captain Preble had gathered with his three commissioned officers and the ship's master. He touched his hat and stood quietly awaiting recognition.
“Yes, Mr. Cutler?” Preble asked.
“Sir,” Jamie said, “Mr. Izard and I request permission to climb to the maintop. I am officially on watch duty, so Iâ”
“Permission granted, Mr. Cutler. Tonight, the entire ship's company is on watch duty.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Jamie slung the lanyard of his glass over his shoulder and climbed up the ratlines, through the lubber's hole, to the semicircular platform at the maintop. He gave Izard a hand up, and together they searched to southward. Not satisfied with the view, Izard pointed upward to the horizontal cross-timbers that spread the narrower shrouds leading up to the juncture of the topmast and topgallant mast.
“I'm right behind you,” Jamie said.
When they had secured themselves in the rope network attached to the crosstrees, the two midshipmen trained their glasses on the tiny lights flickering along the walls of Tripoli and within the bashaw's castle.
Jamie took out his waistcoat watch and held it up close: 9:25. He put the watch back in the fold of his waistcoat. “See anything?” he asked Izard. “They should be through the passage by now.”
“Nothing,” Izard said.
Seconds ticked by and became minutes. Still nothing.
“Any moment now, Ralph,” Jamie said, peering intently though his glass. He could as much hear as feel his heart thumping. “Any moment now . . .”
Two warning shots erupted from a shore battery, and then, suddenly, there came a shock of light so intense, even five miles away, that it temporarily blinded those watching. There was no yellow in the fire, only
a dazzling white that for several eerie moments lit up the vast menacing contours of Fortress Tripoli in the background and, in the foreground, the tiny silhouette of the schooner
Nautilus
hove to before the reefs. The flash of flame was quickly followed by a blast so deafening that sailors aboard
Constitution
instinctively ducked and clapped their hands over their ears.
“Jamie, what in God's name?” Izard was pointing in stupefaction at a sight Jamie's mind could hardly take in: a giant rocket-like structure rose from the deck of
Intrepid
and shot high into the sky, trailing a fireball of flames from hell itself. The rocket hesitated at its apex, turned on its side, and came crashing down in a burning heap into the harbor waters as shells streaked and zigzagged through the air like a fiendish July Fourth celebration gone mad.
“I believe that was her mainmast,” Jamie said quietly.
Moments of shocked silence followed the explosion. It was as though heaven and earth stood stock still, watching, waiting, stunned to their very cores by the dazzling display of violence. Then cheers resounded through the squadron.
“They've done it, Jamie!” Izard exulted. “They've done it!”
Jamie peered through the glass. “Do you see the flare, Ralph? The blue flare? They're supposed to fire a blue flare.”
He was referring to the prearranged signal from Captain Somers to the squadron that
Intrepid
's crew were aboard the two small boats and had made it back through the Western Passage.
Izard shook his head. “No, but what of it? More than likely they haven't made it through the reefs yet. Give Captain Somers another minute or two.”
Jamie strained to see anything that might provide some sort of clue. He saw nothing to comfort him beyond two lanterns perched high on each of
Nautilus'
two masts, raised as beacons to the oncoming boats. Tripolitans ashore had noted those beacons as well. Cannon blasts shattered the eerie silence as
Nautilus
came under heavy fire from all along the enemy battlements. She stood firm, waiting for the thirteen Americans.
“I can't see much anymore,” Izard commented minutes later. Waves of anxiety were beginning to wash over the two midshipmen. By any man's calculation, more than enough time had elapsed since the explosion for the pinnace and cutter to have reached
Nautilus,
and for
Nautilus
to be beating back to the flagship. But the sporadic light provided by enemy cannon fire showed
Nautilus
still hove to like a sitting duck. “Let's get back down on deck. Maybe Captain Preble has heard something.”
What Preble might have heard, Jamie could not fathom. Nonetheless, he grabbed hold of a backstay, wrapped his legs around it, and quickly descended, hand under hand, to the deck. Izard followed close behind.
“Anything to report, Mr. Cutler?” Preble asked when Jamie approached the quarterdeck. Preble's voice was calm, although even the feeble light of the deck lanterns showed the intense strain on his face.
“Only that
Nautilus
remains on station, sir,” Jamie replied.
Preble nodded in acknowledgment. “I have ordered our guns fired at ten-minute intervals, and a rocket launched every ten minutes, until everyone is safely back aboard.”
“Understood, sir.”
They waited. And they waitedâthroughout the long night until dawn broke to reveal an overcast sky and a somber, lifeless sea. Quirky breezes wafted in from the east. Even in the light of day,
Constitution's
guns and rockets continued to go off like clockwork. At two bells in the forenoon watch, Preble ordered the guns silenced and the signal hoisted: “
Nautilus,
join company as soon as possible.”
When the schooner had pulled close to
Constitution
and was feathering into the wind, Edward Preble hailed her captain. “Captain Reed, have you sustained damage?” he shouted through a speaking trumpet. “And what can you tell us of
Intrepid
?”
Reed raised a trumpet from the larboard railing of the schooner. “No serious damage sustained, sir,” he reported. Before answering the second question, he paused and lowered his trumpet a moment, then raised it again to his lips.
“We followed
Intrepid
until two or three minutes before the explosion, sir,” he shouted over. His words then came out ever more cautiously, ever more sporadically, as though he were loath to utter them. “We thought she had reached her target . . . but . . . alas . . . she had not. From what we observed this morning . . . there has been little damage . . . either to Tripoli or to its boats. And sir . . . it is my sad duty to report . . . that Captain Somers and every member of his crew . . . have vanished.”
“Repeat that, Lieutenant. And speak up, man!
Vanished,
you say?”
“Yes, sir,” Reed replied more distinctly. “Vanished. I'm sorry, sir, but there is no other way to put it. I have seen no sign of any of the crew or either of the two boats. And sir, we never did notice the after cabin set ablaze.”
“So, what you are telling me, Mr. Reed, is that the crew of
Intrepid
has either perished or been taken prisoner.”
“Yes, sir. We . . . I fear so, sir.”
“Dear God. Henry . . .” Izard whispered to himself, staring blankly at the spot where
Intrepid
had exploded. Jamie put a hand on his shoulder, as much to console himself as his friend. Both midshipmen realized, as well as anyone, that no American sailor had been taken alive after that cataclysmic explosion. Jamie felt tears well in his eyes.
“Very well, Mr. Reed,” Preble shouted through the trumpet. “Please advise Mr. Smith and Mr. Stewart that they may rejoin the squadron. You may continue to stand off and on the reefs, but stay well out of range of the shore batteries. We shall have no further casualties this day.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
It was, ironically, that very afternoon, as the squadron struggled to come to terms with an almost incomprehensible loss, that the topgallants of USS
President
and USS
Constellation
were sighted bearing down from the north. The Mediterranean campaign of Commo. Edward Preble, once so full of promise, had come to an end.
O
FF AND ON SINCE LAST
July
Portsmouth
had patrolled the Gulf of Sidra on an approximate line of latitude between the port of Surt on its western shore and the larger port of Benghazi two hundred miles to the east. Although blockade duty was rarely the first choice of a naval commander, Richard Cutler appreciated the vital role it played in this war. The American frigate had chased down three heavily armed Tripolitan cruisers since coming on station, sinking one and reducing another to matchwood. And she had captured or destroyed a number of enemy merchant vessels and turned away, under threat of seizure, merchant vessels and fishing boats of neighboring states seeking to resupply the besieged capital city. It was no secret that food supplies in Tripoli were wearing thin, along with the patience of its citizens. Military men on both sides understood that empty stomachs of a restless public were as much a threat to Yusuf Karamanli as the guns of a naval squadron.
When relieved of duty in the gulf,
Portsmouth
sailed to Alexandria, where Richard Cutler and his commissioned officers met with Hamet Karamanli. Their task was to monitor, for the benefit of Commo. Samuel Barron in Syracuse, the recruitment efforts for Hamet's self-described Allah's Legion. Richard remained unimpressed by the army and its officers. And even by its commander. However decent and principled a man the dethroned bashaw might be, Richard entertained serious reservations about his ability to lead men into battle, particularly the two Egyptian
sheiks who were fielding the bulk of the Arab cavalryâat America's expense. The soldiers under them appeared slovenly and undisciplined as they roamed about the makeshift desert campsite dressed in flowing white robes.