The Barbary Pirates (38 page)

“I can imagine,” the inventor said.

“Every once in a while, however, he would perform sorcery. Like this.”

“
Nautilus
worked, Ethan,” Fulton said with tired pride. “I can go back to Paris and tell Bonaparte it succeeded. We sank two ships.”

“No, you can’t. Napoleon won’t let you implicate France in an attack on Tripoli and jeopardize safe passage of its shipping. He has troubles enough. Besides, the submarine is gone. You don’t have anything to prove it with.”

“I have you, as eyewitness!”

“I will say what I saw, but how likely is he to believe me, Ethan Gage?”

The inventor looked crestfallen.

“Come, let’s kick after the others and swim out to
Enterprise
. I see they’re lowering boats.”

As we slowly swam toward rescue, Fulton began to cheer up, displaying the dogged persistence of all successful inventors. “My steamboat idea he’ll like better,” he said as he kicked. “I’m sure he’ll be won over by the next demonstration. And someday there will be fleets and fleets of submarines.”

“Stick to your panoramic pictures, Robert. People like to be somewhere other than where they are.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The pirates had had enough for the day, and did not try to pursue us
.
Nor did we have the naval firepower to duel Tripoli’s batteries. Sterett set course for Malta and the American squadron. From there, my companions could catch ships to whatever destination they chose.

It turned out that Fulton was cheerier about my necessary destruction of his
Nautilus
than I expected, once he thought about it. He had every hope this first experiment would allow him to construct a second, and was already drawing sketches. “Imagine a dozen men cranking or, even better, a steam engine that operates underwater! Imagine living under the sea!”

“Wasn’t it rather dark and wet?”

“Imagine floating over the canyons of the deep, and swimming with giant fishes!”

I smiled indulgently. “Will anyone believe, Robert, that five men—only two of them American—successfully attacked Tripoli?”

“Of course they will believe it! I will tell them! We can show, we have…” He looked about as if proof of his exploit was at hand.

“Not a weapon, not a prize, not a prisoner,” I said. “Just be aware that men like Bonaparte hear many tales from men seeking favor, and learn to be skeptical.”

“You’ll back me up, Gage! We’ll be partners, earning huge bounties from sinking ships of war!”

“The world is at peace, Robert. Look at the Englishman Smith and Frenchman Cuvier over there, getting on like old friends as they talk about rocks and bones. Why would Napoleon ever go to war with Britain again?”

“My steamboat, then. You have to help me in that convincing way you have, Ethan.”

“I told Madame Marguerite in Paris that I was going to write a book.”

“Then write one about our adventure!”

“Maybe I shall. And mostly tell the truth.”

I visited with Cuvier. “And what’s next for you, Georges?”

“Extinct animals instead of live pirates. It is a fine adventure exploring the Mediterranean, but I think I’ve had enough holiday for now, and prefer quiet bones. I’m also a bookish man, and supposed to reform education. Then there are all these interesting ideas about the origins of life! We found time at Thira, Ethan, depths and depths of time. And those pretty rooms down that tunnel: Was that Atlantis, or an arm of it? Who first invented the mirror? Was the idea bequeathed by mysterious ancestors, like your Thoth and Thor? I’ll have to sift the records of antiquity. You’ve given me a hobby for the next several years.”

“My pleasure. And you, William?”

“I think I’ve seen enough of the human world, too, and will return to England to continue my geologic mapping. Rocks don’t shoot back. Such work could help others think about the mysteries of the earth. Scientific luminaries have ignored me, Ethan, but this little adventure of ours has given me confidence—confidence and persistence. When I see that even Ethan Gage can win at the end of things, I think that I might too!”

“Don’t let the snobs discourage you, William. They know you’re smarter than they are, and are afraid of you.”

“I’m going to win them over,” he vowed. “I’m going to map the earth, and they are going to invite me into their Society!”

Pierre said he missed Canada. “There are too few trees in Africa, and too many people in France. I’ve decided I want to see more of the North Country before I grow old, Ethan. I want to paddle all the way to the Pacific.”

“I met a man named Clark who had the idea to do the same thing. And he was friends with Lewis, the secretary Jefferson wants to send that way.”

“Well, maybe I will go with them.”

And I? There was still the sale of Louisiana to persuade Napoleon on. Beyond that there was the little matter of a woman I loved, a boy I wanted to raise, and a life I still hadn’t entirely worked out. So as we sailed for Malta I sought out my love in the bow of the
Enterprise
and we settled against a cannon, watching the dancing waves.

“Did you know that I was almost forced to marry Aurora Somerset on a pirate ship?” I told Astiza.

“Almost?”

“We were interrupted by cannon balls from Sterett. As it turns out it wouldn’t have mattered, because I’d be a widower by now. Aurora dead, you alive, and little Harry out of nowhere. It’s amazing how life works out.”

“Horus. And he’s not out of nowhere, Ethan.”

“We made him, didn’t we?” It was a little presumptuous of me to share equal credit, but by the soul of Patrick Henry, I couldn’t help but be proud. I rather liked being a father, given the spunk of my son. He might be the cleverest thing I’d ever done. “I think I want to settle down, Astiza. I want to find a place where nothing ever happens, and live there with you.”

“Nothing? How long would that last, Ethan?”

“You can teach Harry about the stars and the goddesses, and I’ll get a new rifle made and show him how to shoot. We’ll live on an island, perhaps, and let the world have at it while we watch from the beach. Wouldn’t that be the thing? I’ll weave us hammocks, and write down this story for Harry, and never get mixed up with Napoleon again. Will you stay with me now?”

I won the slightest of smiles. “It appears that’s what destiny intends. Together forever, and not a ripple in our lives.” She sounded skeptical, but women usually do when I announce my plans.

“Yes!” So I kissed her, my first chance in nearly three years, and I was relieved we hadn’t forgotten how. Then I leaned back, feeling breeze and sun as we danced across the Mediterranean. “To think I’m to be a gentleman farmer! Or course I know nothing about farming. Nor do I like grubbing in the dirt. So I’ll be a philosopher, perhaps. Or maybe we’ll hear of a treasure that is a little less exasperating. And I suppose I haven’t given my son the easiest time of it yet, so I need to learn to play with him. As well as teach, of course. I’ve a lot of wisdom to pass on.”

“I pity the boy already. And how are you going to support us for these dreams?”

“Ah, I almost forgot. While you were sensibly seizing a shield from Yussef’s throne room, I went for something a little more frivolous, kept locked away in the leopard’s cage.” I fished in my pocket and pulled out my prize. It was the emerald from Karamanli’s turban. “This will get us started. And send our child to school someday, to boot.”

“Ethan! You finally saved something.”

“I’ve got a family to save it for, now.”

“And where
is
Horus, by the way?”

“Why, he’s right…I thought he was with you. Didn’t you put him down?”

“And I thought he’d gone to find you!”

We looked at each other with consternation. Gunfire, explosions, vicious animals, desperate fights, sinking submarines—we were terrible parents.

Now we couldn’t even keep track of our only child on an eighty-foot ship.

“Harry?”

We began searching the deck, increasingly frantic. What if the tot had gone overboard? We blast our way out of Tripoli, pioneer a whole new way of warfare, and misplace the lad on our own navy’s schooner? “Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting,” Old Ben used to warn, always looking at me with particular intensity.

And finally I remembered something and took my love by the arm. “In case I forget, remind me to have Sterett marry us,” I told her. “He’s captain of the vessel, after all. That is, if you’ll have me.” My heart was hammering. Franklin said to have your eyes wide open before marriage, and half shut after.

“Of course I’ll marry you! I can’t get rid of you! But what about Horus?” She had a mother’s panic.

“I know where he is. Right where I told him to be. Come with me below.”

And indeed I found him below in the sail locker, curled fast asleep. His look was that of the angels, but he sleepily blinked as we watched him, and then looked at me.

“Hungry, Papa.”

He’d crept off to nap in the one place where I told him he’d be safe.

HISTORICAL NOTE

America’s conflict with the Barbary States simmered and boiled from 1784, when the new nation had won independence and lost the protection of the British navy, until 1815, when the United States sent naval forces against Algiers. The British navy launched another punitive attack in 1816, and the French conquered Algiers in 1830, starting the colonization of North Africa that finally ended Barbary piracy once and for all.

The American war with Tripoli in present-day Libya, immortalized in the Marine Corps Hymn line “To the shores of Tripoli,” ran from 1801 to 1805, and was punctuated by victories and defeats on both sides. It ended after capture of the Tripolitan city of Derna by rebel forces aided by American Marines. Bashaw Yussef Karamanli agreed to release American prisoners and cease attacks on American shipping in return for a ransom of $60,000, an ambiguous “victory” that nonetheless marked the coming-of-age of the American navy.

And what of the daring and revolutionary 1802 submarine raid on Tripoli by the American adventurer Ethan Gage and three famous scientists—an episode missing from more conventional histories?

We do know that Georges Cuvier was one of the most prominent zoologists and paleontologists of his day. William Smith was the father of English geology, but unrecognized for his achievements until very late in life. Robert Fulton was a tireless inventor who marketed schemes to both the French and British navies, and who eventually returned home to develop the first commercial steamboat, the
Clermont
, on the Hudson River in 1807. His invention of the submarine
Nautilus
was a century ahead of its time.

Fulton came to France hoping that the revolutionary government might be open to new inventions, given the inferiority of its navy to Britain’s. American David Bushnell had developed an even more-primitive submarine, the
Turtle
, which unsuccessfully attempted to sink British ships during the Revolutionary War. Fulton expanded on Bushnell’s idea after plans for the
Turtle
were published in 1795, and proposed a submarine, or “plunging boat,” to the French on December 13, 1797. The eventual design is described in this novel.

The idea languished until Napoleon seized power in France in November of 1799. With preliminary backing, by the spring of 1800 Fulton had built a working submarine, approximately twenty feet long and six wide. It was launched July 24, and on July 29 commenced sea trials in the Seine. Further experiments followed in Le Havre in August, where Fulton managed to blow up a barrel in a test. He actually tried twice to approach two anchored English brigs, but the British had heard of the experiments and, whether by accident or from alarm, raised anchor and sailed before Fulton could get close. Experiments resumed in the summer of 1801 off Brest. There the
Nautilus
dove as deep as 25 feet, stayed submerged as long as three hours, and traveled underwater about a half mile. The vessel also sailed adequately on the surface.

Unfortunately for Fulton, a new Minister of Marine was opposed to this secretive method of war and French support ended. While history records that Fulton told the French he broke up the
Nautilus
to prevent its being copied, Ethan Gage suggests the vessel’s remains may actually be at the bottom of Tripoli’s harbor.

Fulton subsequently demonstrated a steamboat to Napoleon in the Seine on August 9, 1803, and then, frustrated at the lack of French backing, went to Britain to propose submarine and torpedo schemes to defeat a French invasion fleet.

Equally revolutionary was the mirror, or death ray, of the great Greek mathematician Archimedes. Syracuse, a Greek colony on the island of Sicily, founded in 743 B.C., became one of the major cities of the ancient world, and was eventually caught up in the titanic struggle between Rome and Carthage. It was besieged and captured by the Romans in 212 B.C. Despite the orders of the Roman general Marcellus, Archimedes was slain by a Roman soldier who did not recognize the famed mathematician.

Legend has it that Archimedes invented ingenious machines to defend his city, including an improved catapult, giant mechanical claws that could crush Roman galleys, and a mirror that could set them on fire.

The first surviving biography of Archimedes is that of Polybius, written seventy years after the inventor’s death. It does not mention the mirror. However, in the second century A.D., the historian Lucian wrote that the Greeks repelled a Roman attack with a burning glass, or mirror. This story was elaborated on by later writers, and has ignited the public’s imagination ever since.

Modern attempts to replicate the weapon include a 1973 Greek experiment in Athens that set a plywood mock-up on fire, using an array of 70 mirrors. A 2005 try by Massachusetts Institute of Technology students set a stationary target on fire, but an attempt to replicate that deed for the television show
Mythbusters
was unsuccessful. Whether a genius like Archimedes might have done better—and whether a renegade American helped rediscover just such a device in 1802—we leave to the reader’s discretion.