Swords From the Sea (72 page)

"What right?"

"He felt-" the New Englander hesitated, glancing at the other offi- cers-"an obligation to do it. I cannot reveal the nature of the obligation, except that Paul wished to render aid to his brother, an officer unfortunately captive in Tripoli, and facing a Court of Inquiry."

Out of his hurried words she grasped that something had drawn Paul along the coast, not thinking of her or of himself, to the blood-stained ravine.

"He reminded me," Eaton went on quickly, "before leaving, of a certain promise he had made you, mademoiselle-of a passage on one of our vessels. And I am sure that Master Commandant Hull will be able to afford you shelter on the Argus." To the elder officer he said briefly. "Mademoiselle D'Aliermont, who has been a material help to us on the march."

The American commandant had nice eyes and an assured manner.

"If we can be of service to Mademoiselle-" He left it at that. If he was surprised at meeting a waif of a woman, he did not show it. Yet he waited for Eaton to give him a direct instruction.

"You can, Hull. She'll be safer on the brig, whatever happens."

Marie recognized the ship, anchored beyond the schooner, as the one on which she had longed to embark at Alexandria. And here, on a beach of Barbary, they offered to take her out to the brig.

With half a curtsy, she smiled up at them. "Thank you, General Eaton-and you, Commandant." Then, hesitating, she asked: "The army-it will go on to Derna?"

Eaton's head, shaggy with uncut hair, thrust forward. "I shall endeavor to do so, mademoiselle."

Stubbornly he spoke, more to the naval officers than to her. Listening to the low talk of the three, Marie realized that Eaton's plans had been shattered.

The Argus had brought him the stores of food and some money, but not the reinforcement of the hundred American Marines he counted on, or the field guns he had promised to Selim's cannoneers. Not a musket or a cannonball or one bullet to be landed at Bomba.

Nothing of the kind had been issued to Hull at the Syracuse base. Even O'Bannon and his squad were expected to rejoin the ship.

Hull could not act against his orders. In issuing those orders, his superiors at Syracuse and Washington evidently believed that the hot-headed New Englander had gone too far and would fail.

"They sleep in their beds," Eaton stammered; "they sit at desks, hear gossip, read scandal in their daily journals ... How can they know what it means to be a human being in Africa-"

His mutterings were silenced by news that sent a stab of fear into the girl. Leitensdorfer and Selim appeared with the pair of Bedouins who had followed the trail of the horses. They had taken a prisoner-one of the Tripolitans who had remained behind to observe the movements of the strange American force.

The prisoner had revealed-Eugene did not explain how he had been persuaded to talk-that the Bey of Tripoli had sent an army to Derna. "Its strength might be five hundred or a thousand. It was hurrying to reach the Derna seaport before the Americans could appear. Perhaps in two days, the prisoner believed, this relief army would reach the city.

"Do you believe that?" Eaton demanded.

"Selim believes," Eugene nodded heavily. "[a, it is so."

Sensing the New Englander's incredulity, he hesitated. "I tell you why, messieurs. By the mountain Eisch we had a tale about a Lindwurm-a dragon that came out of its cave to seize and devour sheep and good people. So! No one pursued this dragon into its cave. All the people certainly were afraid of the dragon, because it roared and made fire in the entrance of the cave. Now there was one younker, a boy with a small spear. Alone of the people, he thought about the dragon, and once when it was away, this younker ran into the cave and waited for it there with his spear." Rubbing the polished bowl of his pipe, he added: "In the cave the dragon was afraid of the boy."

The Tyrolese nodded thoughtfully. "That dragon of the tale is like the Barbary corsairs. So long as it hid in the cave and made flame, it was safe-is it not so? These Barbary-yolk shelter themselves in their ports, deep in the land. Now if you also come into the land and into the port of Derna, then Tripoli will be afraid-also Tunis and Algiers. Ja, I think they have sent the army to drive you away, into the sea."

Yet Eugene did not chuckle as usual at his own story. He seemed unwilling to say what was in his mind.

Isaac Hull asked quietly, "Will Hamet and his Arabs go on with you, General Eaton?"

Instead of answering, Eaton moved away, walking with an effort. Passing Marie, he looked at her and asked her to come with him to interpret what he had to say-he knew so little Arabic, except for swearing at camelmen. They had to go around the knots of men lying asleep, their bodies cooled with water. For two months they had not had their clothes off, and now that they could rest safely under the guns of the brig and schooner they slept where they lay. Eaton muttered: "What was the name of Eugene's mountain? The Eisch? Well, Marie, the Connecticut River runs over its rapids, in verdant foliage. Aye, between elm trees."

At Hamet's shelter, he pulled himself together with his old jauntiness. The Arab chieftain lay on a robe of black felt, hot with fever. His officers sat by him without rising, their thin faces impassive. Like judges, Marie thought, in ragged robes. Eaton seated himself on a stone, heedless of the sun's glare.

"Hamet Karamanli, Pasha," he said, "I am only one man, a sentinel of an outpost."

Marie, anxious, could give his words easily, because they were simple. The Arabs did not look at her, a woman.

And Eaton astonished her. Instead of arguing, he told them of that outpost of his country as he dreamed it might be. Perhaps a fort would be built, perhaps even a haven of a port for ships to come in under the American flag.

"That flag would provide a refuge," he said. "Under its protection, refugees would be immune from arrest or capture."

Across from the island of Malta and the ancient ports of Sicily, this outpost of the New World might serve to keep commerce free from raids of the corsairs or the exactions of the Spaniards and the demands of the Emperor. Hamet, as ruler, would have the protection of the United States, as a most favored nation. If that single outpost could stand here, people would come in for its protection. In time the old evil order of the Mediterranean would change, like a plague-stricken lazarhouse, when clean air is let in from a single window.

"That is what I am fighting for," Eaton said. "Not to win a battle at Derna. I am going on, with what force I have. Will Hamet, who is my friend, accompany me?"

The sick Arab glanced at his officers and lay back in silence. As minutes passed, Eaton's words that described his dream seemed boastful; they merged into the silence of the limestone cliffs.

"Have I not come as far as this place?" Hamet asked at last, twisting the beads of his rosary in his fingers. "The American vessels are here. But the aid you expected from them is not. Without that aid it would be useless to go on against the fortifications of Derna and the army of Tripoli. Without it, I will not go on."

Eaton understood before Marie could translate. Evidently the two leaders had spoken often together of the matter. He said, "Wait," and went back to his officers.

Except for the boat crews they were the only ones awake. When Eaton had reported Hamet's decision to Hull, he turned to Eugene. "What is your advice, Colonel?"

Eugene brushed at his mustache and wagged his head.

"As military engineer, dervish, or honest Tyrolese-coffeehouse-keeper?"

Eaton's bloodshot eyes smoldered.

"This may be life or death. I asked the question of Colonel Leitensdorfer."

"Bien. As I have seen Derna, General Eaton, you also have seen it: a battery on the shore, walls with loopholes. In the Bilad-the castle, more cannon. The governor, the Bey of Derna, commands perhaps six hundred men. The rest of the population will take no part for him or for us. Make the reckoning yourself. We have lost one of seventy men. So. We have sixty-nine souls to rely upon."

Irritably Eugene shook his head. "Even if we can march the seventy miles to Derna before the other army can arrive, we must have a battery of guns to use against the walls." His plump finger stabbed at the solitary brass nine-pounder, surrounded by sleeping men. "One toy only we have. A battery we must have."

Eaton asked: "O'Bannon?"

The Kentuckian eyed the end of the cheroot he had borrowed from Hull. "Can't manage to haul anymore guns. No way. Not if we are lightin' out smart for Derna."

In the silence that followed, Isaac Hull stirred restlessly. "Forty cannon, ranging from nine to twenty-four pounders, might serve to support your advance, Colonel Leitensdorfer?" he asked.

"Gerechter Herr Gott! Is it that you do not English understand? One battery! Four guns. Not forty."

"I said forty."

While Eaton had been absent, Isaac Hull had been studying the remnant of an expedition, strewn along the beach. At Syracuse he had been instructed to use his efforts to protect the lives of the Americans on shore, but not to risk his three small vessels in Eaton's mad enterprise. To keep safely within his orders, he should evacuate Eaton and the Marines here at the rendezvous, leaving the unknown missing man to his fate.

But under Hull's dour caution there lurked a devil of impulse. He had to strain to keep the devil properly under hatches.

"From Mantua to the Pyramids," the Tyrolese was declaiming, "I have waged war against the Emperor, and for him, but never have I seen the angels of Heaven bring up ten batteries of guns."

Hull's temper surged. "The brig Argus mounts eighteen guns, the schooner Nautilus fourteen, and the sloop Hornet eight. I think all of them can be brought into an action upon the shore."

Eugene puffed deep at his pipe, struck by the young officer's tone more than by his offer. A ship's broadside, he knew, might pound another vessel at short range but was not meant for distant targets on shore.

Looking up quickly, Eaton asked: "Can you get three or even two of those guns ashore?"

"Nautilus has a pair of wheeled carriages for two long twelves." Hull thought for a moment. "They might be got off in the cutters."

Marie could not understand what the Yankee officers meant about moving guns. The lieutenant of the schooner, with the face of a handsome schoolboy, put in his word about molding bullets for the expedition, and sewing bags into cartridges on the way to Derna. The child in the neat blue jacket, who had edged closer, listened as if to the whisper of a prayer.

But she knew they were going on with their march. In some way the ships were going to join the marcher.

His face flushed, Midshipman Mann ventured to break in on the discussion of the senior officers. "I beg leave to volunteer for this expedition."

Carefully Isaac Hull tore two blank pages from his notebook, handing one to O'Bannon and one to the boy. When a quill and ink had been produced, the two wrote out their formal requests on the pages.

"Camp 21st April r8o5," the Marine scrawled, spelling out words painfully. "Sir, Unwilling to abandon an expedition, this far conducted, I have to request your permission to continue with Mr. Eaton during his stay on land." Then he added "Or, at least until we arrive at Derna."

The midshipman penned eager phrases to explain that he was not trying to leave his service in the ship, but to contribute his services: "In general to the Interest of my Country ... I am aware that objections may be made from sentiments generally entertained as to the issue of the expedition."

With her bundle opened and a hand mirror propped beneath her, Marie Anne forced a comb through the tangle of her hair, while she scrutinized her reflection intently. She beheld peeling skin and thin chapped lips, and she wondered how she could restore even a trace of prettiness for the officers on the brig.

She tried not to look at the book that lay on the valise at her knees, because it had been Paul's. The picture in it was of a forlorn pilgrim, bending under a heavy bundle-and Paul carried a secret of sadness with him. He was injured, besides, and she knew he might die. To think about that was like pressing pain into her-foolishly.

"We have a babe in arms with us now," Farquhar's amused voice proclaimed. "A mighty midshipmite. Are all Americans under age?"

Comb in hand, she smiled up at him instinctively. Even if not as assured as Hull, the Englishman was gay.

"I'm sorry about Paul," he said. Then he noticed the comb and mirror. "How old are you, mademoiselle?"

"As old as Cleopatra."

"As lovely as Cleopatra."

Deftly he aided her in her rude toilet. Eaton was getting his command into motion again, bidding them push on to a well of good water ten miles on. Eugene was handing out rolls of silver Spanish dollars to the Arab chieftains and the Greeks-dollars borrowed from Hull-and proclaiming that the first men to reach Derna would find loot in the governor's palace.

"Faith," laughed Farquhar, "I've heard Eugene promise that before."

Slowly the girl gathered her belongings together, her head bent over them. When Farquhar bade her good-bye, explaining that he must see to the loads, she caught his hand quickly. "You have been kind. Will you let me ride your horse, for only the two days?"

Then she slipped Paul's book into her bundle, knotting it fast, telling herself that if she did not take it, it would be left behind.

"I think," said Farquhar, "we have all gone mad. Alexander the Great was the only chap who managed to lead an army across Asia. Now I know why he drank himself to death."

And he lifted his fine voice in a quick beat of a song.