"For Naples, and I'd thought to go through the Strait of Messina."
"Between Scylla and Charybdis? For no doubt you know, being a knowledgeable man, that these were the classical names for the rocks and whirlpools."
"Yes, sir, I did know it."
Sir Godwine's expression changed slightly, "They were a rightful source of terror in those days," he went on. "Their ships were such bad sailers. But the current's strong this time of year, and you'd not like to meet a Barbary frigate in those narrow waters, and we've none of ours about to chase 'em off. Although it's the longer sail by at least a day and more likely two, you'd do well to take the safe route by way of Marsala."
"Have you frigates on that side, Cap'n Tarlton?" For Captain Phillips had forgotten his guest's title.
"We're keeping a close watch for Frenchies from Cape Bon clear to the Aegadian Isles. Good night, Captain Phillips, Mr. Whitman, and the profitable voyage you deserve."
With that, he went overside. Cap'n Phillips wished for a piper to do him the proper honors. I was too stunned to want anything, even to take him and kill him as Sophia had said. I felt dimly that one of us should do it before too late—Captain Phillips or I, not Sophia or I —but that made no sense in my own mind and it faded away.
"Mr. Whitman, ye'd best turn in and rest that leg," the captain told me. "Ye've used it hard today."
"Aye, sir, I will, and thank you."
Presently I found myself in bed, only to worry about my clothes. When I got out to see about them, I found I had put them away with the usual care. It seemed that Sophia's wraith came to me, not to remind me of ecstasies so short time past, but able to come because of them—because for a while we had been one flesh and spirit, and the bond had not yet dissolved; and her business here was to bid me remember some other event and incident of the past few days, things heard and seen of great import yet, but they meandered through my mind without connection, and soon gave way to confused dreams.
I slept as heavily as though soaked with drink. In the morning I asked Captain Phillips's permission to adjust our compasses, an exacting task that took my full attention. When we weighed about noon, I had the watch, my long-awaited first command dear to my dreams; and after the captain had taken us out of the harbor, as was his custom, he went to his cabin and left the deck to me.
The keeping of a northwest course in a northeast wind took lively enough sailing to occupy my mind and to hold the hands' attention. They were a cheerful lot this afternoon, glad to have me back, pleasurably anticipating the cool sweet wine and the warm sweet girls of Naples; but when one of them fixed his eyes upon my face, his own was inclined to fall; which was proof to me that I did not look aright. I did not know how to remedy it, but would do so as soon as possible. Meanwhile I blessed the ship and every soul aboard.
So time passed until at sunrise of the third day we raised the Aegadian Isles on the west coast of Sicily. These were the scene of one of the great naval battles of the world, Captain Phillips told us—the Roman admiral Catullus's victory over the Carthaginians, ending the First Punic War. Having sailed wide of the eastern capes with tlie wind in the northeast, we would round Marettimo, the outermost island, now it had shifted north: I was as sure of that as though I could look into Captain Phillips's head. From thence we must take a north'ard tack into the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Marettimo was rugged and thinly peopled. The morning being fine and bright, the men off watch lined the starboard rail to see what they could see. We were about to clear her—the view beyond her northern end was opening—when Enoch Sutler, whose small, hard body was always eaten up with curiosity, made a wondering remark.
"Where are all them Dago smacks that was out here fishing the last time we passed this way?"
"I reckon the fish have pulled out for some other bank," Sam Hopkins answered.
A few seconds thereafter someone raised a cry. We need not look at the cryer and ask the cause: all of us saw it plain. Out from the headland, a small, fast frigate with lateen sails scudded before the wind. Because of her speed and the swiftly widening vista, she came instantly, it seemed, into full view. In the same instant, we knew her purpose. Before we could check our way, we would be broadside to her.
She did not wait till then for her first salvo from her bow guns. These were heavy guns that she had bought with the blackmail and ransom money paid by England, France, and United States; and the black-bearded crews manned them well, used to training them on little merchantmen for loot and the glory of Allah. She did not aim to sink us. There would be no profit in that. She aimed to disable us so we would strike our colors to save life.
Men do not cry out in agony of soul, no matter how sudden and extreme. If, as Mussulmen relate, Mohammed revels in Paradise to hear a Christian wail, none had tickled his ears yet. In an awful silence we saw our foremast shot away, the jibs fall, the main topmast broken off and fouled, and the jiggers down. The shock stopped every man in his tracks, arrested every sound. Then, for one instant, our hearts stilled in our throats and our ears gaped in travail to hear Captain Phillips's command.
If it were, "Mr. Hedric, strike our colors," we would have seen the sense of it, for why throw away life to save breaking hearts? Instead his deep voice brought other tidings to us. It rang over the deck. "Helmsman, hard her over and fall away. Mr. Hedric, clear the fallen gear from the bow guns, and blanket your magazines and fill your fire buckets. Mr. Whitman, man your starboard guns, but wait till she's nigh broadside on us and make every shot count. Men, stand by your flag and your ship."
I saw the flush on the faces around me and felt the same fire in my heart; then we were occupied, speaking little, at our various tasks. The pirate saw we could not fly or maneuver, so she was in no haste to give us a broadside or to run down and grapple on us, for either action would expose her to costly fire. I could now undertake one small, delicate, but fateful operation. It pertained to the captain's orders to make every shot count. The pirate's lateen rigging of short masts and long yards would be hard to cut down with our little salvos, and we could not hope to sink her except by a lucky ball to her magazines or many broadsides at her waterline, almost too much to hope of any providence as long as we were disabled and she was not. But while we were yet fully manned—while the pirate, hoping for a free victory and bettering her position every moment, still held back her shattering broadside, there was one great counting possible to one well-sped ball.
"Strike your colors or we'll sink you," a renegade Englishman or Yankee, common enough on the Barbary pirates, shouted down the wind.
But I, the gunner's mate of the Vindictive, made other reply. At our best bow gun, a long, carefully cast nine-pounder, stood Andrew Folger. He had not only the keenest ears aboard, but the sharpest and truest eyes, and no hand I knew was steadier than his. My next best gunners, Storky Wilmot and Edward Piper, waited by our starboard battery with matches in their hands. Our vessel's bow swung into the wind as we fell away; the pirate's stern came into clearer view.
"When you've got your aim, fire."
Andrew was the first to bring match to touchhole; a few seconds later the midship-guns roared out. A piece of wood flew over the pirate's quarter-deck at the first report, but not until after the second did we have the answer we craved—a high-pitched howl from someone, I guessed the helmsman—thin and strange upon the wind, and then a yell of fury from the crew. No doubt the pirate would not answer her helm. It might be a rudder chain had been cut, but far more likely her rudder posts had been shot away. She could not play with us like a wolf with a hamstrung stag. Until she fixed a jury rudder, she could not run us down and grapple us.