For Love of Country (18 page)

As
Falcon
approached Penon in the relative cool of early morning, Richard stood by Agreen at the tiller. He held his breath, forcing himself to concentrate on the schooner's course and to act as if the fort's massive cannons, about to come to bear at point-blank range, were of minor consequence.
Falcon
's crew took their cue from the officers, though no one, including Richard, could resist a glance at the two-tiered alabaster fortress looming off to starboard. Above it, at the pinnacle of a towering, slender, unadorned turret, an enormous green flag bearing a long white crescent stirred lazily to life in the awakening breeze. Below, on the parapets, turbaned soldiers in white with a red sash slanted across their chests kept vigil among rows of massive black cannon, the bore of
each barrel as wide and menacing as the largest guns on a Royal Navy First Rate.

“We're through,” Agreen said casually once they had sailed beyond the threat of instant annihilation. “Where to, Captain?”

Richard slowly let out his breath as he surveyed the inner harbor with a spyglass. It was a fine anchorage, the many islands at its approach and its two breakwaters providing shelter against foul weather coming from any direction. What vessels he could see lay quietly at their moorings, and they made for an eclectic collection. Anchored within the shadow of the fort was a flotilla of narrow-beamed xebecs, most with three lateen-rigged masts, the two largest carrying a square sail on the foremast. Nearby were three other vessels of distinctive pedigree: an old-fashioned Portuguese caravel with a high poop deck; three highprowed galleys equipped with oars and a single mast that appeared to be built along the lines of an ancient Viking raider; and an odd-looking three-masted polacca, a local merchant vessel, with lateen rigs on her foremast and mizzen framing a square rig on her mainmast. He searched about, to no avail, for the barque that had pursued them two days before. Nor did he find
Eagle,
although that came as no surprise. She had either been sold off, he speculated, or presented as a gift to bin Osman's overlord in Constantinople.

Richard pointed toward a stone jetty jutting out into the harbor from shore. “Might as well go all the way in,” he said. “There's deep water in there, and I see no advantage in anchoring out here. There's no easy escape from this place, should it come to that.”

“Can't argue with you there,” Agreen replied. In a louder, more authoritative voice: “Stations to drop anchor! Trim the sheets there! Stand by to douse the jib!”

As the schooner glided in toward the jetty, Richard walked forward with his spyglass. He focused the lens as he swept the glass up and down, right and left, taking in a city set slightly back from the harbor and encased within a ten-foot-high wall that followed the contours of the outermost structures in remarkably straight lines. The two outer walls, to the north and south, ran up a gentle slope of hills and slanted inward toward each other without actually meeting at an apex to form a triangle. Instead, the top of the triangle appeared to be lopped off, with the two sides connected north to south by a much shorter wall. Algiers thus appeared as a giant trapezoid facing eastward. Within those walls, Jeremy had informed him, lived more than fifty thousand people.

At first glance the city seemed remarkably clean, almost blindingly white, the stark stone of its multistoried, flat-roofed buildings reflecting the rays of the early morning sunlight so fiercely that he had to shield his eyes from the glare. Since the walled city lay upon the slope of the hill, it was easy to pick out individual buildings. Certainly he had no trouble identifying the most imposing structure of all, situated a quarter of the way up the trapezoid. Built centuries ago as a fortress for the ages, it rose a majestic one hundred feet into the air amid a complex of stately buildings and a grand mosque surmounted by an enormous white cupola. Towering over the mosque, and attached to the side of its Moorish-arched entryway, was a single, thin minaret with what looked like a whaling ship's crow's nest attached to it three-quarters of the way up. Richard collapsed the spyglass, thinking that Jeremy had not exaggerated when he described the magnificence of the royal palace known locally as the Qasbah.

“You have your work cut out for you,” he said crisply to Chatfield, who was standing by the fife rail at the foremast, absent-mindedly flaking out a topmast sheet as he took in the sights. “I suggest you get to it.”

Chatfield looped the coiled rope over a belaying pin. “Aye, Captain,” he said.

Richard walked aft. “Mr. Lamont,” he directed the mate, “you may call the men to breakfast. Please ask Whiton to send up a pot of coffee for Mr. Crabtree and me.”

“Right away, sir,” Lamont said.

Richard joined Agreen at the taffrail, as caught up as his crew by the strange and exotic landscape that stretched out before them. Together they watched the palm-rimmed city stirring to life within its walls, and even more so outside them, amid a sea of white tents so numerous that they seemed to be laying siege to Algiers. Caravans, Richard speculated, preparing to set off into the great sandy wilderness of the Sahara Desert. Here and there they saw camels loping lazily among thickets of date palms and fruit orchards, and they were close enough to hear the distant Arabic of men engaged in morning routines. Richard's eyes swung back to the base of the city, to the wall directly ahead at the end of the man-made mole where a huge rectangular entryway with a triangular roof gave access into the city. Camel drivers were leading in a troop of the single-humped beasts; on either side of the gate, attached to the outer rampart high up near an esplanade on top of the seaward-facing city wall, were five structures that looked like giant black meat hooks.
Richard dared not speculate on what those evil-looking monstrosities might be used for.

“Coffee, sir,” a voice announced from behind. “Whiton asked me to bring it up. He's serving breakfast to the men.”

Richard turned to see Isaac Howland holding a pot of coffee in one hand and the ears of two cups in the other. “Thank you, Howland,” he said absently. “Leave the coffee on deck.”

“Aye, Captain,” Howland said. He dropped to one knee and put down the two cups. “Allow me to pour a cup for you and Mr. Crabtree.”

He was in the midst of doing that when suddenly, from all about the city, there came a piercing shriek of trumpets—a cacophony followed moments later by the high-pitched, doleful-sounding wails of men. So unexpected and piercing was the auricular onslaught that Howland jerked upward, upsetting the cups and spilling coffee on the deck.

“Jesus Christ in heaven!” Agreen cried out as the din abated. “What in hellfire was that ruckus all about at this early hour?”

Richard had his spyglass trained ashore. “It's the Muslim call to prayer,” he said, squinting through the lens. “Get used to it. You'll be hearing it several times a day.”

“Can't wait,” Agreen groused as Algiers went quiet. Both inside and outside the walls, men had dropped to their knees and were bending far forward toward the rising sun like so many Druids at ancient Stonehenge. “Hell of a thing, makin' people pray,” he added. “An' makin''em bang their heads on the ground t' do it!”

“Maybe.” Richard continued to squint through the lens. “Just be careful who you say that to, Agee. Men have lost their heads here for lesser blasphemy.” He handed over the spyglass and pointed ashore to where the mole connected to the mainland. “Have a look at that long building over there. The one whose roof you can see the other side of the wall, down by the gate. What do you make of it?”

Agreen adjusted the focus. “Army barracks?”

“That's what I thought at first. But you'd more likely find army barracks inside the forts. My hunch? It's a prison. Caleb could be sitting in there as we speak.”

Agreen nodded grimly. “Think Caleb knows we're here?” he asked, more to make conversation than to learn the answer. He had asked that question before.

Richard replied as he had before. “That depends on what the dey wants Caleb to know, Agee.”

“Think
anyone
knows we're here?” Agreen asked, searching about the shore and the other vessels at anchor for some sign acknowledging their presence.

Richard took a sip of lukewarm coffee. “They know, Agee. They know. All we can do now is wait.”

 

WAIT THEY DID, until well past noon, when the searing heat became so oppressive that even a brisk easterly breeze skimming off the Mediterranean could do little to mitigate the effects of the brutal desert sun. The crew was on deck, most of them lounging beneath spare canvas sunshades strung horizontally from the foremast to the mainmast shrouds, eight feet up from the deck to permit the free circulation of air beneath them. At least topside there was a breeze. Belowdecks, conditions were as insufferable as the wait. The sun was on its downward arc and the hard black tar on the standing rigging was beginning to lose its texture when finally they spotted a slender little boat with a high, curved prow coming toward them from the jetty. Six men worked the oars, one seated in back of the other. In the sternsheets, beside the coxswain, sat a man of European descent—a Frenchman judging by the gold-on-white Bourbon flag fluttering from the boat's stern.

At
Falcon
's entry port, Richard, dressed in loose-fitting shirt and trousers, greeted a short, stubby man clad in finely cut clothes that nonetheless failed to conceal the natural consequences of gluttony. He emerged on deck panting from the exertion of climbing up the short rope ladder. His brow glistened with sweat.

Once aboard, the man managed to collect himself. “
Bonjour,
” he said with some flourish, bowing from the waist. “
Vous êtes
c
apitaine Cutler, n'est-ce pas
?
Je m'appelle Jean-Baptiste de Kercy. Je suis le consul de France ici à Algiers.
” He paused when Richard seemed not to comprehend, then asked, “
Vous parlez français, capitaine
?”

“No,” Richard lied. He thought it best not to reveal too quickly his fluency in French. Somehow, he sensed, this deception might work to his advantage later. “I apologize, sir. I do not speak French. Nor do any of my crew.”

Kercy cast a skeptical eye at the Americans gathered about him, as if to take their measure along with their captain's. He pulled a handkerchief from an inside pocket of his formal coat and wiped his brow.

“
Vraiment? C'est dommage. Mais, pas de quoi.
” He shifted to English, which he spoke hesitatingly and with a strong accent. “It is good
that I speak English,
non
? Monsieur Logie,
le consul d'Angleterre,
is not here. He is called to Tangiers,
alors
. So,
capitaine,
I alone have the honor to welcome you and your
compagnie
to Algiers. But that is good,
oui
? We are friends, Americans and French?”

We used to be friends, Richard thought to himself. “We are indeed, monsieur,” he said diplomatically.

“
Bon. Alors, monsieur,
the dey is informed of your arrival. He extends his
salutation, aussi
. . . also,
une invitation
for . . . uhm . . .
un rendezvous
. . . at the palace, at the Qasbah,
demain à onze heures
—ah, that would be at 11:00 tomorrow morning. The time is
acceptabl
e to you?”

Do I have a choice? Richard wondered. Aloud he said, “Quite acceptable, Monsieur de Kercy. Thank you. But I am curious: Is there not a call to prayer at noon? In which the dey must participate?”

“
Oui.
That is so.”

“Then why a rendezvous at 11:00? That gives us only an hour.”

“
Exactement, capitaine.
The dey believes this first meeting will not take long.” Kercy either did not notice Richard's raised eyebrow or chose to ignore it. “
Maintenant, capitaine,
I have the
plaisir
of extending to you another
invitation
.
S'il vous plaît,
do me the
honneur
of staying with me as my guest, in my home in Algiers.”

Richard had expected such an invitation from either the French or the British consul. Despite the unique opportunity such an invitation would provide to gather intelligence, he had already decided to decline. He would not ignore Jeremy's warning:
Trust no one.
Nor could he ignore his personal responsibility for the family fortune stored in
Falcon
's hold, to say nothing of the schooner and her crew.

“Thank you, Monsieur de Kercy. Your offer is gracious and very much appreciated. Personal reasons, however, require me to remain aboard my vessel.”

“
Mais pourquoi, monsieur
?” Kercy's voice carried a tone of incredulity mixed with hurt feelings. He raised his hands, palms up, as beads of sweat trickled from his forehead down the side of his face into his short-cropped, sorrel-colored beard. “Your ship and men are safe here. I offer you a good room, good food, and wine, up there, near the Qasbah, where you will find the heat, um, not so hot.” As if to underscore his point, he again mopped his brow. “
Aussi,
we have much to discuss, you and I. I am your friend, monsieur. I have influence here. I can help you.”

Richard bowed in diplomatic fashion. “I do not doubt that, Monsieur de Kercy. I mean no disrespect, but I must remain aboard my vessel.”

“Is it
peut-être
the company of Monsieur Logie you would prefer?” Kercy asked, with what seemed like forced humor. “Because he is English? Like your wife?”

Richard bristled with resentment at the mention of his wife. She had no place in this exchange, and he had to fight back an urge to respond from the heart.