FORTY-THREE

THE RAIN SLACKED AT LAST AND RASCAL AND MARY OF DUNDEE TACKED against the light westerly all night and it was the first dog the next day when the two ships at last glided into the shadow of Gibraltar. Rascal’s decks had been holystoned back to their usual whiteness and the dead crew and janissaries had all been given a decent, though Christian, burial at dawn. It was all Fallon knew how to do and if the janissaries didn’t like it they could complain all they wanted.

There was a pall over the ship, a dreadful something beyond melancholy, palpable and sad and fearful. Little Eddy had become the ship’s favorite, and now he was gone, taken for a slave, and the crew feared they knew what kind of slave.

Little Eddy’s kidnapping had raised the stakes, raised them to the moon, and every man vowed to do whatever was necessary to get him back. Fallon considered re-visiting Elliott to ask for help, but just as quickly re-considered, for it would do no good. Elliott would not be leaving the safety of Gibraltar if he could help it.

Aja anchored Mary near Rascal and Fallon decided to send him ashore to enquire about an American representative in Gibraltar. The ship and cargo could be sold and the proceeds sent to the captain and crews’ families, for Fallon wanted none of it. He was now after bigger game.

After his own ship was secure Fallon retreated to his cabin to think through the situation. He was wracked with anxiety and fear himself, but he needed to consider what options he had. The more he thought about it, however, he couldn’t think of one. At least, not a good one.

So, a dinner. Somber and grim.

“I think we all know we have to go to Algiers, no matter what it takes,” Fallon began after a sip of wine. “Now more than ever.” He was addressing Beauty, Barclay, and Aja in his cabin over lamb stew and vegetables, the dinner barely touched. Poor Visser was below decks recovering from his wound which, Colquist confirmed, had gone right to the bone.

“The French masquerade might have been a good one but now it won’t work,” said Fallon. “Zabana knows we’re British. And if we go near the harbor and he’s there who knows what will happen. Great Britain’s treaty with the dey is obviously rubbish. Two hundred guns could shoot us to splinters very quickly.”

“Goddammit,” was all that Beauty could say. And everyone nodded, yes, Goddammit.

No one had anything else to say as the dishes were cleared and the pudding was brought out to sit patiently on the sideboard.

Fallon ordered more wine on the chance that it would spur conversation and ideas and take the stale air of desperation out of the cabin. He also laid out a chart from Gibraltar to Algeria and began studying it. The coastline of Algeria was indented here and there with natural harbors protected from all but northerlies. But the coastline was shallow, hence the xebecs and galleys favored in this part of the world.

Aja had been looking at the chart closely, watching Fallon’s finger trace the coastline between Tangier and Tunis. It was almost perfectly designed as a hunting ground for pirates, with an endless succession of small bays and coves. He excused himself for a moment and left the cabin and Beauty rose to stand at the open gallery windows. The air coming into the cabin was dry and hot, the breeze coming from an unseen desert many miles away. Gibraltar was bustling with late afternoon activity as cargoes were loaded and unloaded and the hoys and luggers sailed in and out of the anchored ships delivering passengers, supplies, crews, and captains.

A brief intake of air, perhaps a gasp from Barclay, and Beauty turned around and Fallon looked up. For Aja had returned to the cabin dressed in a white, flowing caftan with a swirl of cloth on his head like a turban. He stood before the group barefooted and unsmiling, but his eyes danced.

No one said anything at first. They all just stared at Aja. Fallon stared, as well, for what he was seeing was a plan to get Little Eddy and Wilhelm Visser out of Algeria.

At that moment Little Eddy was chained in Serpent’s hold, exhausted from crying and calling for help. A rat had scurried past his feet in the darkness and terrified him and he had drawn his legs up as far as the chain would allow to form a human ball.

Two decks above him Zabana paced his cabin in cold fury. His janis-sary contingent was totally decimated, the American merchantman had escaped, and all he had to show for it was a few Christian men and a boy in the holds where a hundred slaves should have been. Zabana wanted to hurt the boy because he had come from the British ship, or even torture and kill him in blind anger but even one slave was worth something, and a boy would be worth more than something to the right bidder.

He had forgotten all about Rogers and Hasim and turned his attention to the British schooner which had thwarted his plan to take the American merchantman. That was the real problem, not any failure of his own. Why was she here in the Mediterranean?

He would see the British captain who had mauled his ship and killed so many of his men beg for mercy before his cart. But there would be no mercy. He would cut off a limb at a time, then castrate him, before finally cutting off his head.

He would order his men to work day and night to repair his flagship and he must replace the slaves and janissaries he had lost to the British broadside. Then he would set off again, hunting, particularly for a certain ship.

He came out of his revenge induced reverie with a start, for first he would have to see Mustapha Pasha and report on his failure to take the American packet because of the intercession of the British schooner.

He did not expect the interview to go well.

The plan was coming together now in Fallon’s mind and his finger stabbed at the chart as the little group in his cabin tried to see what he was seeing. Algeria lay on the southern side of the Mediterranean, with the port city of Algiers some little way beyond the Strait itself. There were indentations in the coastline aplenty, particularly past Tipasa, an ancient city several days’ walk from Algiers.

“Beauty,” said Fallon, a new determination in his voice, “I want you to land Aja and me here, just past Tipasa.” He pointed to a small cove on the chart. It was shallow but the ship’s gig should have no trouble landing there. “Aja is an African, to all accounts, and I am his Christian slave, head down, weary, dejected. We should be able to make our way to Algiers in two days or so. Meanwhile, Beauty, return here to Gibraltar. Give us two weeks, then sail back to pick us up at the same spot. We’ll find O’Brien or the British consul or somebody who can tell us how to get Little Eddy and Wilhelm Visser back.” And he said it in such a way that everyone in the cabin knew he would not be taking no for an answer.

“And if you’re not there, Nico?” asked Beauty. “What then?”

Fallon looked at the chart of the harbor. The fortifications. The mole. And he remembered Sir William’s words: no one ever knows with these fellows.

“In that case, I think you’ll be getting a ransom note unless I am very much mistaken.”

That brought everyone up short, but they could see that Fallon was committed to the idea now and, really, what else could they do? The thought of Little Eddy being sold in a slave market was more than any of them could bear and it brought a certain urgency to the room. It was not lost on any of them that they now felt what Caleb Visser had felt all along.

That night Fallon lay on the stern cushions with a glass of wine and thought of everything that could go wrong with his plan. Once ashore, he and Aja would be on their own and would have to make the most of any situation they faced. He had no fear for Aja’s quick wit and could trust him to act decisively.

The problem, of course, was that Aja couldn’t speak Arabic or whatever the language was that Muslims on the Barbary Coast spoke. He might look the part of a Muslim but he couldn’t speak the part. Fallon would have to rely on lingua franca if it came to speaking. He decided they would both carry a dirk and a pistol under their robes in case there was a misunderstanding they couldn’t mumble their way out of.