THE NEXT MORNING BOTH LOIRE AND CÉLESTE MADE THEIR WAY TO THE prize agent’s dock where the ships would be valued and bought into service as Royal Navy dispatch vessels.
The Cruisers and Convoys Act had been enacted by Parliament in 1708 and it had survived, with minor modifications, to 1800. Privateers like Rascal generally operated under the same system, although Somers, being the ship’s owner, had his own variation in play. All prize money was allocated by eighths. Two-eighths went to the Somers Salt Company; two-eighths to Fallon as captain; one-eighth was divided amongst the officers and sailing master; one-eighth between the surgeon, carpenter, and gunnery captain; and the final two-eighths divided among the crew. It was a system everyone felt was equitable, particularly since Fallon was a lucky captain and prize money seemed to follow him.
When the prizes sailed away to the prize agent, Fallon was rowed to Davies’ flagship for breakfast. As usual, he was met cordially at the channel by Captain Kinis and escorted below to the great cabin, where Davies and a formal gentleman in waistcoat and shoes with gold buckles awaited him.
“Allow me to introduce Sir William Huntington-James, late of Gibraltar and the Levant,” said Davies. “Sir William, meet Captain Nicholas Fallon, late of Bermuda and points west. Gentlemen, please be seated, for I believe I smell breakfast on the way.”
Breakfast was indeed on the way and was served with all the silver dishes, goblets, and cutlery one would expect when dining with an admiral. There were fresh eggs in a cream sauce, a rasher of sausage, jams and marmalades and fresh bread and steaming coffee and Fallon ate as if he’d never seen food before.
“Nicholas,” said Davies, “Sir William has recently arrived from the Mediterranean and I thought he might give us his point of view on the situation with the Barbary states. He tells me it is unstable, shall we say. Sir William?”
Fallon looked at his unfamiliar breakfast companion carefully as he spoke. He was unremarkable, really, having a pallid complexion and graying hair and limpid eyes that didn’t often blink.
“I am employed as a trade representative, sir, and often find myself negotiating contracts for my clients in strange parts of the world. Mostly to do with shipping timber and coal. I am in Bermuda to evaluate the island’s cedar supply, as it were. But I have lately been in the Levant, as Admiral Davies said. Perhaps I can be of some small service familiarizing you with particulars of the region.”
Fallon looked at Davies, who lifted a small smile and held his gaze a moment while Sir William helped himself to more sausage. There was, in Davies’ gaze, a message and this was what it said: Sir William is not exactly who he says he is. Which to Fallon meant he was a British spy.
“Thank you, Sir William,” said Fallon. “I would be particularly interested in the harbor at Algiers and the fortifications there.” Fallon, getting right to it and testing his theory about Sir William, for there would be no reason for a businessman to have so much as an opinion about harbor defense.
Sir William looked at Fallon appraisingly, no doubt coming to the opinion that this was a fellow not to be trifled with. He got right to the point.
“It is not a large harbor, captain,” he said, “but it has a hook of land to the northwest called the Great Mole. The mole is over three hundred yards long and forms the letter J. At the tip it is well fortified, though most of the mole is only yards wide. I have counted the guns defending the city and believe there are close to 200 cannon, most 24 and 42 pounders. Ships are guided into the harbor by a pilot and made to anchor under the guns so that if there is any dispute with the dey they are, in effect, at his mercy. Since Great Britain has a treaty with the dey I don’t expect you to have a problem, but one never knows with these fellows. Lately, there have been incidents with British ships that cast doubt on Britain’s relationship with the rulers, to be sure.”
Fallon was not surprised at Sir William’s grasp of the harbor fortifications, for that was what spies were trained to do. He wondered at the man’s life, slipping in and out of cities, carrying his secrets and perhaps an identity or two, never sure of his friends. Or his enemies, come to that.
They spent the next half hour discussing specifics of wind and weather in the Mediterranean, both unstable in the extreme. As for tides, there were none, at least not to speak of, for the inlet of water from the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar was quite narrow.
Fallon’s mind memorized every detail as Sir William related it. The guns of Algiers gave him pause, of course, but he had no intention of being intimidated or putting Rascal and her crew in danger. How that was to be avoided was a good question, however.
“What can you tell me of the prison, Sir William,” Fallon asked, “and the prisoners.”
“When the corsairs take white Christians at sea there is a great celebration when the ships dock. The prisoners are housed in the lower city near the quay and eventually brought to the slave market, or bedestan, where they may be sold to anyone. But if the dey wants a specific prisoner for ransom, or perhaps for his harem or personal attendant, or for manual labor for his government, such as mining stone for the breakwater, he has first rights and must meet the highest bid. Wealthy prisoners or officers are usually held for ransom and often given lighter work. Crews and ordinary seamen and passengers are sold into a life of hardship that cannot be imagined.
“Piracy is a hard business. These reis— the Arabic for captain—are excellent sailors with an obvious streak of brutality and a total ignorance or disregard for what we would call conventional morality. That is how they keep their power. And the unfortunate beneficiaries of their ways are the poor slaves they capture. These unfortunate souls are sold to a worse fate than can be imagined. I have no idea what your fisherman is doing, of course. But we should hope he is still alive, else you are on a fool’s errand, I’m afraid.”
Sir William did not say this unkindly and, in fact, Fallon knew it was a distinct possibility that the senior Visser could not bear up under hard labor.
“Where is the dey’s palace?” asked Fallon.
“The dey keeps his palace and harem and courtiers in the qasba, a fortification at the top of the hill. The palace has a commanding view of the harbor and is heavily guarded, as well. The Algerians are great believers in guns.”
“Yes, I would say so,” said Fallon, thinking that it came from being at war for centuries on end, the “eternal war” against Christians, as he’d heard it called.
But he pushed the thought from his mind and turned the conversation, instead, to questions about the dey’s corsairs.
“The dey has some 60 corsairs who are called pirates abroad but operate more like privateers, begging your pardon. They are licensed by the dey to plunder shipping and raid countries for slaves, with the dey keeping most of the money they bring at market or in ransom. The corsair ships are mostly xebecs or captured enemy ships and they carry soldiers called janissaries. They do the boarding and hand to hand fighting and all reports are they are quite good at it. Apparently, they are noisy and terrifying and utterly fearless. The corsairs are commanded by their so-called admiral, whose flagship is Serpent, a rather large xebec with many guns and oars. His name, incidentally, is Zabana. He is Turkish and French and completely ruthless. No other reis has had his success at sea, or on land, come to that. He is very powerful and perhaps feared by the dey, in some ways.”
Fallon was thoughtful as he gazed past Sir William at the sea and sky beyond the great cabin’s stern windows. The golden morning was giving away to a brighter, whiter sunshine that promised to be warm.
“Tell me, Sir William,” he said at last, “what is the language in the Mediterranean? How does an Englishman communicate?”
“Ah, that is an excellent question,” answered Sir William. “There are too many languages! Consider that the Mediterranean is sometimes called the sea in the middle of the earth and you will understand. Captain, there are over thirty kingdoms, republics, and principalities along its shores. But there is a common language, of a sort. It is lingua franca, a sort of perversion of Italian, with some Turk, Greek, Spanish, and a bit of Portuguese thrown in for spice. It is a language of many tongues, so to speak, and is spoken by sailors, brokers, traders, and slave masters all over the Mediterranean. If you speak Spanish you will be understood well enough, I assure you. I believe even the dey speaks lingua franca.”
Davies had been quiet through most of the breakfast, but as the dishes were cleared by his steward he leaned into the table and addressed himself directly to Fallon.
“Nicholas, I am at a loss as to how to advise you, or help you in any way, which causes me great distress. And I am outraged that the British government permits these deys and sultans to rule the Mediterranean and take Christians as slaves. Why, Nelson himself was quoted in the Gazette as saying that it made his blood boil that his own country, the mightiest sea power the world has ever known, should pay a tribute to sail there. A tribute! From Great Britain! Were it up to me we would bombard Algiers until the dey surrendered and then go on to Tripoli and the rest.”
“Indeed, Admiral, it may come to that one day,” said Sir William cooly. “If Great Britain refuses to pay its tribute there will be war.”
The breakfast concluded, Fallon thanked Davies and Sir William and left to return to his ship. His small ship, smaller still on a great ocean or in a far-away harbor surrounded by more cannon than he had ever seen in one place in his life.