“So it’s true then,” Cuvier finally said.
“By Lucifer, the mirror cuts like a cannon ball,” Fulton added.
“Rather than test their infernal machine on a derelict they aimed it at an innocent merchantman, crew still aboard,” I guessed. “It must have gone up like a torch and then drifted out to sea. Look at the helmsman there, welded to the wheel. He died where he stood.”
“This is utterly barbaric,” Smith said. “There’s nothing more painful than to die by fire.”
“So our timing will be critical,” Fulton said. “We must sail my submarine in under cover of darkness, dive, propel ourselves into the harbor, make the rescue, and then retreat underwater to Sterett’s schooner offshore. If the sun rises and we haven’t destroyed the mirror of Archimedes, the Enterprise will ignite like this ship and we’ll all burn, drown, or be enslaved again. Gentlemen, we must assault the most impregnable harbor in the Mediterranean, slip by a cabal of determined fanatics, disable their most closely guarded weapon, rescue a woman and child from the central harem of the ruler’s palace, and slip out like a fish.”
“Jolly good!” said Smith, infused with that mad English enthusiasm that has given them an empire. “I’m for paying that Dungeon Master back, I am.”
“Or we can just sneak about, doing our best,” I amended. I’m all for valor, but cautious about suicide. “My experience is it’s easier not to shake the nest when going for the honey. I’ve had the sailors help in making us some makeshift Muslim garb for disguise.”
“You’re a clever sort, aren’t you, Ethan? But a regular Lion of Acre if it comes down to a fight, correct?”
“Certainly.” I blinked, wishing I still had my longrifle.
“Our small numbers must be our advantage,” Smith went on. “The Barbary scum won’t be expecting an attack from a handful of men, emerging out of nowhere. Little Pierre here may be able to slip into places or unlock gates the rest of us couldn’t hope to.”
“Who are you calling little, Monsieur Beefeater?”
“It is the littlest men who have the greatest hearts. Look at David versus Goliath. Look at the Little Corporal, now first consul of France. We are each blessed in our own way, and must use our skills to advantage.”
“Well put,” Cuvier said. “Ethan, with his head for women, can head for the harem. His voyageur friend can help free helpless prisoners. Smith with his blasting expertise can make a sortie toward the mirror. Fulton will steer and I’ll crank to create chaos in the harbor. Surprise, confusion, and darkness will be our allies, and revenge and disruption our goal!”
He seemed quite the bloodthirsty buccaneer for a biologist, but then the French do have élan. “You agree we have a chance, then?” I clarified. If I was going to lead my friends on a rescue mission of my old paramour and illegitimate son, I wanted success to at least be possible.
“Oh no. But patriotism, love, and your own folly, Ethan, dictate that we must try.”
We hoisted Nautilus off the American schooner’s deck with block and tackle and lowered it over the side. It rocked in the waves like an ungainly copper log, banging against the wooden hull. The vessel seemed about as seaworthy as the bearskin coracle we’d fashioned on the American frontier, and three times less buoyant. But it didn’t immediately sink, and Fulton was brisk as a bunny as he organized our war party.
“The voyageur will man the rudder because it’s tightest in the rear,” he said. “Then Gage to keep him company and crank the propeller when it’s time. Smith and Cuvier will counterbalance in the bow. I’ll stand in the tower to con the boat and shout directions to Pierre. We’ll sail to the harbor mouth, dive, and creep. Now: Do any of you have a problem with claustrophobia in a dark metal cylinder heaving up and down in a restless sea?”
We all raised our hands.
“Well, bring along some cards then, Gage. To a new way of warfare!” We all took a slug of grog, the only way to get up the courage to drop into the contraption, and then climbed down to the submarine’s flat, slippery deck. We pushed up the mast and fitted its boom, extended the bowsprit, and turned our metal coffin into a little sailboat. The mainsail was peculiar, a rigid fan-shape like the arm of a windmill. Its color, like that of the jib, was brown.
“The narrow shape is more easily lashed down when we dive,” Fulton explained.
“I’ll sail in close tomorrow morning to pick you up,” Sterett called as we cast off. “You must destroy their weapon! You saw what happened to the Spanish ship.”
“If you don’t find us,” said Fulton as he waved good-bye, “then save yourself.”
And off we went to Tripoli, sighting the gray coast of Africa just as the sun went down. I was pleasantly surprised that not only didn’t we founder, but that the submarine actually sailed on the surface like a smart little fishing smack, more buoyant than I expected. Its tube-like shape gave it a tendency to roll, but it had a fine bow for going into the seas and a rudder sufficient to set our direction. The problem was that we were confined to the stovepipe that made up the interior of the craft. While it had a flat floor, it was still like voyaging in a sewer pipe. The only daylight came from the open hatch and thick glass windows in the little tower where Fulton perched to navigate. The boat corkscrewed in the waves, and the motion soon had Smith vomiting, the smell of which added to our own nausea. For a Brit, he seemed to have an aversion to all things watery and nautical.
Pierre considered our situation and, as always, offered his opinion. “While I am happy to go along with you because you are a complete idiot without the great Pierre,” he announced, “it seems you have made the usual ill choices, donkey.”
“I’m just trying my best.”
“First, I’ve pointed out to the crazy American inventor there that metal does not float. Yes, we are somehow bobbing, but I hope this craft does not leak like a canoe because there is no pine pitch to repair it and it will plummet to the bottom in a very short time.”
“It might be better for morale not to speculate on such a possibility,” I said.
“Second, you have thrown in with savants, whom I told you in Canada have very little practical use. I have noticed these here seem to carry a great deal of useless information about rocks and extinct animals, but very little expertise in assaulting a fortified pirate city.”
“‘A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one,’ Ben Franklin used to say. Just to give you the point, Pierre, if it will shut you up.”
“Third, I see no cannon or rockets aboard, or even your old rifle and tomahawk.”
“I’ve been reduced to borrowing American naval boarding arms, a pistol and cutlass. And we have some of Fulton’s mines, or what he calls torpedoes.”
“Fourth, you are to proceed, if I understand the plan correctly, to a guarded harem to rescue a female friend who happens to be the mother of your child, suggesting not a lot of foresight into that matter, either. Harems, I am informed, are full of women, and there is no group more difficult to govern or direct. Cattle you can corral and buffalo you can stampede, but women? It is like making a file of cats.”
And he sat back, his argument at last made.
“But it seems,” I said agreeably, “that I’ve rectified my bad planning by enlisting my old friend Pierre Radisson. Not only can he point out my faults, but I’m certain he’ll find solutions for all the difficulties he just listed. No one knows better than Pierre the evil character of the enemies we’re up against, and no one is happier riding in a copper sarcophagus to seek revenge against the very woman, Aurora Somerset, who shot him in the back.”