Swords From the Sea (47 page)

Putting her aside, Hassan rose and entered the adjoining compartment where a turbaned janizary stood guard by an iron lantern. Around the bulkheads here were ranged sandalwood chests and rattan boxes piled one upon the other. A heap of weapons lay in one corner, although the hilts of the scimitars and tulwars were set with precious stones, and the scabbards inlaid with gold and silver.

This was the treasure of Hassan-fruit of the Algiers pashalik and years of plundering. Wiser than most in his day, Hassan had gathered together the personal fortune of a wazir of the throne, and had concealed his wealth from the jealous eyes of the officials in Constantinople. Thus he could be open-handed with his followers who worshiped him the more for it, and he could sleep easily of nights, for his gold was in the cabin beside him. So it happened that he passed most of his time on the swiftsailing galley.

Now, while the janizary knelt, face to the deck-not to see the unveiled face of the slave girl who had followed Hassan into the cabin-the pasha unlocked a chest and drew out at random a sandalwood casket. This he gave to Kalil, who pressed it to her forehead before opening it.

With a murmur of delight she lifted to the light a chain of flawless, matched rubies.

"Behold, Kalil," Hassan complimented her, "the gift is fitting; for thou art a precious thing, without flaw. Abide then on the galley till thou art rested."

"Nay, my lord," she laughed, eyes aglow at his praise. "I will betake me to Kherson and spread the tidings of thine attack.

"See, my lord," she cried, knowing another way to please him. "This chain is an omen. Red as the fire in these stones will be the infidel decks, when thou hast set foot upon them."

The following day, the shrewd Algerian did not neglect to give to the Bashkirs presents twice as costly as they had hoped for.

And when they turned their horses toward the steppe, they rode with news for the tribes. They had heard of the first victory of Hassan, over the Russian flotilla commanded by a Prussian prince, when the Turks drove Nassau's ships into the estuary.

They had seen picked companies of janizaries and musketeers from the forts going aboard the vessels of the Moslem squadron, giving them double strength in men.

They had seen a hundred agas and as many rein assemble in council under the awning on Hassan's great three-decker, to which he towed with them in a barge from the galley. A thousand throats had greeted them:

"Salaam, el ghazi-Hassan, bahadur, salaam!"

Three others of the squadron were as large as the flagship, and the tribesmen had counted sixteen frigates, and more than a hundred smaller craft. These, mounting heavy guns, were to take the Russians in flank while the fireships were sent into the enemy, and Hassan's squadron with its reinforcements from the fort was to close with the Russians and board them.

As soon as the wind came astern, Hassan had sworn that he would advance. And the Bashkirs knew that he would keep his word.

Chapter IV

The piece of gold that will buy a bale of silk in the bazaar will not buy a bullet outside the walls.

-Arab Proverb

It is the way of men in the ranks the world over to give nicknames to their commanding officers. The Don Cossacks and the Zaporoghians had christened the general of their division Batko Suvarof-Little Father Suvarof.

Whereas Prince Potemkin, commander of the forces of the empire, was known to them as "One Eye."

After a dozen victorious campaigns in Asia the Cossacks had no illusions about their leaders. They knew that Suvarof had won the victories and Potemkin had taken credit for them; so they said, one to another, that Potemkin was blind in his soul. And they were quite ready to follow Suvarof into the seven gates of a Mohammedan hell.

Potemkin, whatever the folk in Petersburg a thousand miles away might think, was not a soldier. He was a gigantic child of fortune, favorite of the beautiful empress; for through Catherine he ruled Russia and its millions of souls. His was the privilege of life and death, the thumb of a Caesar, the whispered word of a Mogul.

Yet, withal, he was jealous of praise. He had conquered the old empire of the Tatar khans, the Crimea and the steppe of Asia, the Caucasus Mountains, and the uplands of Persia. Now that the sultan of the Turks had proclaimed a holy war against the Christians, he devised a particularly bold move.

With the army he would strike south and east, take Otchakof-the naval base of the Turks-and move on Constantinople. In the last years the empress had ordered construction of some twenty frigates in Dnieper. With these he would destroy Hassan's fleet, and blockade the Bosporus.

He saw himself another crusader, marching on the walls of Constantinople. He would be master of the Black Sea, stronghold of Islam for more than a thousand years.

So that spring, fifty thousand men moved south and east, following the course of the great Dnieper.

Through the Cossack country they went, and that of the Tatar tribes. From the steppe they entered a desert country.

Potemkin had to leave strong detachments to guard his communications. The stores of food were beginning to dwindle, and they had none too much powder. He had not foreseen all this.

They pushed on, down a narrowing strip of land between the river Boug and the Dnieper, and came to a halt, perforce. Here the Dnieper ran into a long estuary, called the Liman, and ahead of them was the Boug curving into the Liman.

Otchakof lay at the narrow mouth of the Liman across the Boug, and Hassan's flotilla of smaller vessels patrolled the two-mile stretch of water.

Meanwhile came rumors of the invasion of Hungary on their flank by another Turkish army, and stories of unrest among the Mohammedan tribes in their rear.

Potemkin had not made allowance for the spread of the jehad-the holy war-to the tribes. The position of his army was critical and no reinforcements were arriving from the north. He was indifferent to the lack of meat, because wild duck and partridges were shot for his table; his wines were cooled in ice brought from five hundred miles away at the cost of men's lives.

"If the men growl for meat," he said irritably to Colonel Popoff, his chief of staff, "let them take fish out of the Dnieper."

Nevertheless, he decided to hold a conference with his officers. He had just completed a rambling wooden palace in Kherson, seventy miles from the front. A dozen regiments had worked in shifts to build it in the waste of sand overlooking the river. In this, his headquarters, he gave a fete. Women had been brought from Kid to make it lively, and Potemkin ordered that they be attired as natives of the races he had conquered: Poles, Circassians, Georgians, and Tatars.

When the crowds around the faro tables and the musicians were greatest, Potemkin appeared for the first time. He entered the brilliant assemblage of his court, dressed to gratify a new whim-in a monk's coarse robe and sandals. At midnight Popoff announced that the council would be held, and ushered the general officers into a room where breakfast was spread-a breakfast of game and hot, spiced wines-and in the center of the table a map of the Liman was held in place by gold candlesticks.

Potemkin, with the lives of fifty thousand men hanging in the balance, could not resist playing the actor-harlequin on a stage set for death.

He listened moodily to the debate among his officers, who were not agreed. Benningsen was for abandoning their position on the Liman as too dangerous. Kutusof -who twenty years later halted Napoleon and the Grand Army at Borodino-maintained that it would be disastrous to retreat before the Moslems.

The Prince de Ligne, a noted diplomat, was all for holding fast where they were until the fleet, now under command of Vice-Admiral John Paul Jones, could drive Hassan out of the Liman and blockade the city from the sea.

Potemkin asked his favorite, the Prussian Prince Nassau-Siegen, for an opinion, since he was the only officer present from the fleet. The other officers looked at him curiously, for Nassau had expected to be given the command of the fleet instead of Jones. He had the rank of rear admiral, and the flotilla of gunboats was under his orders, while Jones led the battle squadron.

"With your Highness's gracious permission," observed Nassau, "I beg to point out that the masterly and far-sighted instructions given by your Highness to Monsieur le Chevalier Jones should be carried out."

Potemkin's one eye closed and opened expectantly. He had given no orders to the new admiral, but he had an ear for flattery.

"The squadron should proceed at once to engage Hassan's fleet, as you desire," Nassau went on, weighing the effect of his words on the man in the monk's robe. "At once! The Mohammedan fleet is the radical of the operations. As soon as it is removed-"

He went on to propose various stratagems while the Prince de Ligne took snuff and Potemkin listened, frowning. The Prince-Marshal disliked giving open-and-shut orders. For one thing, he did not know how. When things went well he could take the credit, when mishaps occurred the blame was fastened on some subordinate.

"By your leave gentlemen-" de Ligne raised two slender fingers and brushed daintily at the lace of his wristband-"may a man of letters who is not of either service inquire how our admiral can be expected to defeat the Turkish squadron, which is half again more powerful than his? I understand that frigates have been brought to Otchakof from the Barbary bashaws."

"If I were in sole command-" began Nassau, his voice rising.

"Unfortunately," murmured de Ligne, "the situation is otherwise. Monsieur le Chevalier is admiral. May I ask, Nassau, what he is doing to help matters?"

The full lips of the Prussian smiled.

"Foi d'un gentilehomme, the merchant reverts to his trade. Paul Jones, my lord, is laboring like a peasant fitting new rigging and drilling his crews at battery practice."

"But why?" Dc Ligne knew even less than Nassau or Potemkin of ships.

"He was once a merchant, and he was born a Scottish fisherman's-"

"If you will permit me, his birth does not at present engage our attention, but his actions. Is he preparing to attack Hassan?"

"No!" Nassau almost shouted, his full face, pitted by smallpox, flushing. "He has no heart for that. He complains that he finds the squadron unseaworthy-impossible to sail against the wind-and that no charts have been made of the Liman, which is full of shoals. He said the himself must have been in command of that squadron."

Potemkin frowned, annoyed. A certain officer of his, the Brigadier Alexiano, a Greek, had been in charge of the new squadron, and was now flag captain.

"Gentlemen," observed stout Kutusof in his slow, heavy voice, "I have studied the defenses of Otchakof from the far bank of the estuary. The old line of water batteries has been strengthened. Hassan has built a strong fortress on the hill. Its guns command the channel entrance and the anchorage of Hassan's fleet."

He glanced around inquiringly.

"How is it possible for the admiral to give battle to a stronger fleet under the guns of a fort?"

Potemkin drained his glass and leaned forward.

"We have not heard the opinion of Suvarof."

At the far end of the table a slender, stoop-shouldered Russian had been sitting, hands clasped over the hilt of a sword that was shaped like a scimitar. The hilt was gold, set with diamonds and sapphires, and chased in the blade was the legend: For the conquest of Asia. This was old Suvarof's sword of honor, bestowed years since by Catherine, and he always wore it.

His chin had been rested on his hands, and in the dim light the others had not seen that he was asleep. Suvarof had led Cossacks against some Turkish spahis two days ago, and that day he had come seventy miles on horseback. He was tired and he disliked councils of war.

"Your Highness," he replied, aroused by mention of his name, and alert at once, "was pleased to ask-"

"A plan-mordieu, we must agree on a plan! "

Suvarof glanced at the clock against the wall and sighed. His pleasant and rather plain face, lined and weather-beaten, was notable for a pair of clear brown eyes.

"Plans don't amount to anything," he said after a while. "Things happen differently in a battle."

De Ligne passed his snuffbox under his nostrils with a half smile. Nassau, who had been talking for an hour, chewed his lip, remembering that Suvarof was not one of the grandees of the empire, having risen from the ranks nearly half a century ago.

"Then do you desire a retreat?" asked Potemkin, knowing that this would strike fire.

One of Suvarof's maxims was that it was better always to go after the enemy than to retire.

The old general was a man of few words. He laid his sword in its scabbard on the table in front of him, shoving the map away impatiently. Then he clasped his hands, placing one on each side of the sword. Then he looked at Potemkin.

Everyone was watching him, knowing that Suvarof's word would decide the matter.

"Your Highness, we can't go back. So we must go forward. The Boug estuary holds us." With a nod he indicated the scabbard and lifted one fist, placing it on the other. "Clear away Hassan's vessels for ten hours and my Cossacks will be across. Enough said for a soldier who knows nothing of seamanship."

"But how will Hassan's fleet be disposed of?"

"That is Jones's affair. Ask him."

Argument followed, voices were raised, and Potemkin, falling into one of his black rages, struck an officer in the face. Champagne was brought in and then vodka, and more than a few were drunk. Suvarof said nothing more, but listened without going to sleep again.

Popoff had drawn his rapier, to beat on the table, and began to make passes at the frightened servants who approached the table to pour the wine.

"A hit-a hit!" he cried triumphantly as he thrust a lackey in the calf.

Nassau, swaying in his chair, applauded.

"Go you one better, Colonel-curse me if I won't. Have in a girl to dance on the table."

"Lay you odds, Popoff," put in another, "you can't pink her in the legs."

"Done with you, kunak! Ten crowns! "