Corsair

“The Intrepid’s no match for the Saqr, especially as overcrowded as we are. We’ll link up with the Siren as we planned, but rather than return to Malta in convoy I want you and the Siren to stay out here and teach Suleiman Al-Jama that the American Navy isn’t afraid of him or his ilk. Tell Captain Stewart that he is not to fail.”

Henry couldn’t keep the smile off his face. For two years, they had seen little action, with the exception of capturing the Intrepid and now burning the Philadelphia. He was excited to take the fight to the corsairs directly.

“If we can capture or kill him,” he said, “it will do wonders for our morale.”

“And severely weaken theirs.”

AN HOUR AFTER dawn, the lookout high atop the Siren’s mainmast called down, “Sail! Sail ho! Five points off the starboard beam.”

Henry Lafayette and Lieutenant Charles Stewart, the ship’s captain, had been waiting for this since sunup.

“About damned time,” Stewart said.

At just twenty-five years of age, Stewart had received his commission a month before the Navy was officially established by Congress. He had grown up with Stephen Decatur, and, like him, Stewart was a rising star in the Navy. Shipboard scuttlebutt had it that he would receive a promotion to captain before the fleet returned to the United States. He had a slender build, and a long face with wide-apart, deep-set eyes. He was a firm but fair disciplinarian, and whatever ship he served on was consistently considered lucky by its crew.

Sand in the hourglass drizzled down for ten minutes before the lookout shouted again. “She’s running parallel to the coast.”

Stewart grunted. “Bugger must suspect we’re out here, number one. He’s trying to end around us and then tack after the Intrepid.” He then addressed Bosun Jackson, who was the ship’s sailing master. “Let go all sails.”

Jackson bellowed the order up to the men hanging in the rigging, and in a perfectly choreographed flurry of activity a dozen sails unfurled off the yards and blossomed with the freshening breeze. The foremast and mainmast creaked with the strain as the two-hundred-and-forty-ton ship started carving through the Mediterranean.

Stewart glanced over the side at the white water streaming along the ship’s oak hull. He estimated their speed at ten knots, and knew they would do another five in this weather.

“She’s spotted us,” the lookout shouted. “She’s piling on more sail.”

“There isn’t a lateen-rigged ship in these waters that’s faster than us,” Henry said.

“Aye, but he draws half the water we do. If he wants, he can stay in close to shore and beyond the range of our guns.”

“When I spoke with Captain Decatur, I had the impression this Suleiman Al-Jama isn’t afraid of a fight.”

“You think he’ll come out to meet us?”

“Decatur thinks so.”

“Good.”

For the next fourteen hours, the Siren doggedly pursued the Saqr. With a greater spread of canvas, the American brig was several knots faster than Al-Jama’s raider, but the Arab captain knew these waters better than anyone. Time and again he would lure the Siren dangerously close to shoals and force her to tack off the chase in search of deeper water. The Saqr also managed to find stronger winds close to the shore, winds driven off the searing desert beyond the cliffs that towered over the coastline in unending ramparts.

The gap between the ships noticeably shrank when the sun started to set and the inshore breeze slowed.

“We’ll have him within the hour,” Stewart said, accepting a glass of tepid water from his cabin steward.

He surveyed the open gun deck. Crews were standing by their cannons, the keen edge of expectation in their eyes. Shot and powder charges were laid in and at the ready, though not too much in case a gun took a direct hit. Powder monkeys—boys as young as ten—were ready to scamper back and forth to the magazine to keep the weapons fed. Men were aloft in the rigging, ready to alter sail as the battle dictated. And pairs of Marine marksmen were making their way to the fighting tops on the foremast and mainmast. Two were brothers from Appalachia, and while no one on the crew could understand them when they spoke they both could load and shoot four times a minute and score bull’s-eyes with all four shots.

Two white plumes suddenly obscured the Saqr’s fantail, and a moment later came the boom of the shots. One ball landed fifty yards off the Intrepid’s port bow while the other landed well astern.

Stewart and Lafayette looked at each other. Henry gave voice to their mutual concern. “Her stern chasers are long guns. Double our range at the very least.”

“Mr. Jackson, come about to port ten degrees,” Stewart ordered, to throw off the Saqr’s gunners. “Standing order for a similar maneuver with every shot fired. Turn toward where the closest ball falls.”

“And your orders if we’re hit?” the big bosun asked before he could stop himself.