The Flag of Freedom (25 page)

‘Bit skinny,' Nathan told the dragoman begrudgingly. ‘Ask her how much.'

They embarked upon another round of negotiations. Normally Nathan would not have jeopardised the dignity of his office in such a manner, but with the purser, the steward, and even the cook ashore with Imlay, he had no other option if he wished to purchase a private stock of supplies while he still had the chance. Since leaving Gibraltar he had been dependent upon Imlay's hospitality, for it had been impossible to obtain anything from the Rock in its present state of siege, and he had a natural reluctance to partake of the supplies of salt beef, pork, pease and oatmeal that were issued to the hands. Imlay had characteristically laid in a sufficient stock of delicacies for himself while at Lisbon, but Nathan was equally loath
to rely upon his charity for the duration of the voyage. For the same reason he had declined to accept Imlay's offer of remuneration at the inflated rate he was offering the rest of the crew, preferring to maintain his dignity as a frigate captain in the King's Navy on a paltry 11 pounds and 4 shillings a month.

Fortunately, General O'Hara had very generously advanced him the back pay due to him while he was a guest in the Governor's prison and he had departed Gibraltar with seventy-five golden sovereigns jingling in his purse and a pocketful of loose change. He could afford the odd chicken.

The dragoman was addressing him. ‘She say do the Effendi want it dead or alive?'

Nathan considered. A live chicken was preferable. Then he did not have to consume it in the next day or two, and while it remained alive it might even contrive to lay a few eggs. But there was no designated Jemmy Ducks aboard the
Swallow
who could be relied upon to look after any live animals that were aboard, and if the hen disappeared into the maws of the ship he would never see it again; he would have to keep it in his own quarters. His dignity had suffered a great many setbacks in the past few months, but he did not think he could tolerate a live hen running about the Captain's cabin, and Imlay might have words to say on the subject, besides.

‘Dead,' he said, with reluctance.

He watched as the woman wrung its neck and accepted the offering with distaste before summoning one of the more reliable of the ship's boys to take it down to his quarters. The dragoman asked him if there was anything
else he would like, accompanying this suggestion with a significant wink. In fact, there was a great deal that Nathan would have liked, all of it edible, but he was weary of the effort required to obtain it. With a little luck the purser would have purchased a sufficient number of sheep, goats and bullocks during his foray in Algiers for them all to dine off fresh meat for the next day or two. After that, it was figs with everything.

He looked out across the still waters towards the port, about the distance of a long cannon shot off the
Swallow
's starboard bow. Behind the ramparts of its enclosing walls, the domes and minarets gleamed in the late-afternoon sun. Other details were lost in a shimmering haze of heat.

Algiers. For all his service in the Med, this was Nathan's first visit to the port. But with Spain in the French camp and most of Italy lost, it had become an important source of supply for the British fleet, and all officers were under strict instructions not to give offence to the Pasha-Dey, Baba Hussein. And the Pasha-Dey had duly supplied them with most of what they required, at rates that made his former occupation of piracy redundant.

But Imlay seemed to have no shortage of funds, for once. He had promised to supply the ship not only with fresh meat but also with the additional crew members Nathan required. Quite how remained a mystery. Doubtless there was the usual quota of unemployed seamen in the port, but they would almost certainly be Arab by race and Moslem by religion. Nathan had nothing against either as seamen or as people, but he was not sure how his Genoese and Portuguese crew members would take to them, their countrymen having suffered rather more than
most over the years from the raids of the Algerine Corsairs. Nor was he at all sure that he could count on their loyalty if they were required to fight their fellow Moslems in the service of Yusuf Karamanli.

Imlay had simply told him ‘not to worry'.

He had been ashore for most of the day now, visiting the American Consul Mr Barlow – an acquaintance of his days in Paris. Barlow had helped to arrange the peace treaty between Algeria and the United States in ‘95. As a result of which, for a payment of about half a million dollars a year, American shipping was preserved from the raids of the Algerine corsairs, and the
Swallow
could, with impunity, sail into Algerine waters. Imlay had been characteristically cagey about Barlow's role in the present dispute with the Pasha of Tripoli, but it seemed reasonable to suppose he was advising Imlay how to make a similar arrangement.

The only thing that Nathan was sure of was that there would be something in it for Imlay at the end of the day.

He took off his hat and wiped a handkerchief over his sweating brow. As this was a private command, he had dispensed with the King's uniform for the duration of the voyage, but even in a cotton shirt and ducks he was still sweltering in the heat and there was not the slightest of breezes to alleviate his discomfort. If it was this warm in late April, he could only hope that he was not forced to linger off the Barbary Coast through the height of the summer. Though the heat, he anticipated, would be the least of his worries.

He gazed with displeasure along the crowded upper
deck of the
Swallow
. Not only was it littered with baskets and bundles of produce – the result of the seamen's negotiations – but diverse articles of apparel hung from washing lines erected between the mainmast and the foremast. The seamen them selves, or at least those who were not having a better time below decks, also hung about, in various stages of undress, taking the sun or otherwise amusing themselves. It would likely have been much the same aboard a King's ship in similar circumstances, but Nathan felt strangely discomforted. There was something different about it from the usual disorder of a washday aboard the
Unicorn
, say, or any other ship-of-war in the King's Navy. Perhaps because there were so few blue jackets and, more to the point, no red ones. No comforting Marine sentry at the con, turning the glass, or at the belfry ringing the bell, or guarding the entrance to his cabin with a loaded musket. And no master-at-arms keeping a wary eye on the sly peccadilloes of the crew. Nathan had been in the Navy since he was thirteen years old, and that sense of discipline, that sense of order, had insinuated itself into his mind to such an extent that when it was not there he felt a distinct sense of unease, almost of offence. Before his present assignment he would have said that he had a natural inclination to unorthodoxy. Now he was not so sure. He felt like a pirate captain – or Captain Bligh in the South Seas tending the simmering crucible of mutiny until it boiled over – and he did not like it.

A cry from the maintop, where Tully had set a watch, alerted him to the approach of another flotilla of small boats from the shore. He thought at first that they were more bum boats and was bracing himself for the invasion
when he saw they were led by the ship's launch, which had set off that morning with Imlay and his following. Hopefully, this was bringing them back, for Nathan was anxious for news. He recovered his Dolland glass from where he had hid it in the binnacle, safe from thieving hands, and focused it on the approaching vessel.

Sure enough, there was Imlay, and seated with him in the stern were two gentlemen Nathan had not seen before. One of them wore Arab dress, of no mean substance, from what Nathan could see at this distance, and nor was the man who wore it. He was not quite of Belli's girth but not far short of it. The other man wore a tricorne hat and a blue uniform coat with a smattering of gold lace, so was either a naval officer or a consular official. He was not Joel Barlow, though, whom Nathan had met briefly when he himself was in Paris.

Nathan looked beyond them to the other boats in the flotilla and saw with some anticipation, but also a degree of foreboding, that two of them contained a number of live animals. There were at least half a dozen bullocks and a considerable flock of sheep – or goats, it was hard to tell at this distance – which would have to be accommodated on the
Swallow
's crowded decks. The other boats seemed to be full of men.

He saw Tully already heading towards him, his face creased with concern.

‘Yes, Martin, see if you can clear the decks, will you,' Nathan instructed him, suppressing a twinge of conscience, for this would be no mean feat with the men at Tully's disposal, ‘and get rid of this lot.' He waved a dismissive hand at the fleet of bumboats. ‘And we had better rig a
tackle from the yards to haul the cattle aboard – and a pen to keep them in, until they are slaughtered.'

The next few hours were likely to be fraught, if his previous experience of loading live bullocks was anything to go by, but at least they would have a decent steak to look forward to when they sat down to dinner instead of salt beef and pork.

‘Captain Turner, may I present to you His Royal Highness Prince Ahmed of Tripoli. Prince Ahmed, this is my very good friend, Captain Nathaniel Turner.'

Nathan removed his hat and executed a polite bow whilst striving to conceal his bewilderment. The Prince inclined his head graciously. He was a small, plump gentleman of between thirty and forty with a surprisingly pale complexion, a wisp of blond beard – and sad, rather protuberant blue eyes.

‘Brother of Yusuf Pasha,' hissed Imlay in his ear as the dragoman translated his introduction for the benefit of their distinguished visitor. But before Nathan could begin to assimilate this intelligence or its portent, the next man had stepped up to the mark.

‘And this is Mr James Cathcart, formerly of the USS
Confederacy
and more latterly adviser to the Dey of Algiers.'

‘The USS
Confederacy
?' Nathan repeated, permitting a little of his bemusement to show, though in fact the name vaguely rang a bell.

‘Thirty-six-gun frigate,' replied Cathcart genially. ‘Late of the Continental Navy. Forced to strike to the
Roebuck
and the
Orpheus
off Cape François. I was one of her
officers, sir – a midshipman, to be precise – and found myself obliged to spend the next three years on a British prison hulk in the Medway. And I don't mind telling you, sir, all things considered, I had rather be a slave to the Mohammetans.'

Certainly they seemed to have fed him better, Nathan reflected, for he was run considerably to fat. Nathan wondered if he had been castrated, for he had something of the look of a eunuch, though his voice did not seem overly affected by the trauma.

‘Ah, yes. Very good,' Nathan murmured blandly. Despite the broad smile on Cathcart's face, he detected a degree of antipathy in his eyes. Clearly, he still harboured some resent ment at his treatment by the British authorities, and though Nathan had no personal experience of a prison hulk he had heard enough of conditions aboard them to understand why. He had a distant recollection of the action off Cape François – either he had read about it in his youth or his father had spoken of it. The frigate had been taken into the British Navy and renamed the
Confederate
.

None of which explained what Cathcart was doing here, or how he had come to be adviser to the Dey of Algiers.

But questions of this nature would have to wait upon events. He had visiting royalty to entertain. Fortunately Imlay had brought Qualtrough back with him and Nathan instructed him to prepare some refreshments in the cabin. ‘But no alcohol,' he managed to convey in a terse undertone before the steward went below. Qualtrough gave him a look that might have been described as scathing.

Nathan introduced Prince Ahmed to his officers who had all, somehow or other, managed to put their uniform coats on, though otherwise their appearance left a great deal to be desired. The Prince's retinue was altogether more impressive. There were about ten of them, all in flowing robes with a plethora of jewellery and weapons. The rest of the men who had come aboard appeared to be either servants or seamen, many of them Arab but many not. They had also brought a quantity of baggage with them and they stood about the deck, taking stock of their surroundings while the crew of the
Swallow
took stock of them. All in all, Nathan reckoned, there must have been about fifty of them. And out of the corner of his eye, he saw the first bullock swinging up above the level of the deck, its eyes rolling wildly.

‘Perhaps,' he said to Imlay, ‘we should go below.' He caught Tully's eye and permitted himself the ghost of a smile. ‘Carry on, Mr Tully.'

Gradually, in the course of the next half-hour, things became a little clearer.

Ahmed Karamanli Pasha-zade was the second son of the former Pasha of Tripoli, but he had fled the country shortly after the present Pasha had murdered their elder brother, doubtless being anxious to avoid the same fate. Since when he had been in exile, first in Tunis and then Algiers. Now apparently, he was planning to return to Tripoli aboard the
Swallow
, with a view to regaining his lost inheritance.

Several supplementary questions occurred to Nathan at this point, not least the problem of where he was going to accom modate the gentleman and his large retinue in the
increasingly crowded lower deck of the
Swallow
. He put this at the head of a long and growing list which he planned to present to Imlay at the first opportunity.

In the meantime, Cathcart was more than happy to fill Nathan in on some of the blanks in his own history. He had been born in County Westmeath, in Ireland, he said, and emigrated to the American colonies at the tender age of twelve – just in time to join the Revolution.

‘And how did you contrive to become a prisoner of the Algerines?' Nathan asked him, mainly to divert him from his experiences while in British custody.