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.
Stewart could have had Jackson lashed for such an insolent comment; instead, he said, “Dock yourself a day’s pay, and hope we have more ship than you have salary.”
The wind close to shore suddenly died. The Saqr’s large triangular sails lost tension and flapped uselessly while those aboard the Intrepid remained taut. They came in astern of the pirate ship at a slight angle, so as to avoid her aft guns. At a hundred and fifty yards, three of the Saqr’s cannons fired, blowing a wall of smoke over the corsair’s flank that completely hid her from view. Two rounds went high, while the third struck the Siren’s hull but didn’t penetrate.
Stewart remained silent, closing the distance, increasing his chances of a hit with each foot gained. He saw they weren’t yet targeted by any of the other guns, so he waited until the Arab crew was running out the weapons they had just cleaned and reloaded.
“Fire as you bear!”
Four carronades went off with one throaty roar that beat in on Henry’s chest as if he’d been kicked. The bow was enveloped in smoke that whipped along the length of the Intrepid’s hull as she charged the Saqr. On the fighting tops, the Marines were busy with their muskets, picking off pirates on the Saqr’s deck who thought they were invisible behind the ship’s railings.
Two more cannons roared before anyone could see if their first salvo scored. The Saqr responded with a raking broadside that had been perfectly aimed. One ball smashed a carronade with a lit fuse, knocking the weapon on its side as it fired. That ball hit the adjacent gun crew, killing two men and maiming another. Bags of powder burned like incandescent flares. Another of the Saqr’s shots smashed the Intrepid’s mainmast, though not enough to topple it, while others ripped needle-sharp splinters from the bulwarks with enough velocity to run a man through.
“Mr. Jackson,” Stewart shouted over the sounds of battle, “take some sail off the mainmast before we lose it entirely. Mr. Lafayette, take charge up on the bow. Get those fires out and the carronades sorted.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Henry threw a quick salute and raced for the bow as musket fire from the Saqr raked the decks.
He looked over to see a fire raging on the Barbary ship. The Intrepid was giving as good as she got. He could see one figure shouting orders, not in a panicked way but with a calm that belied the situation. He wore clean white robes and had a contrasting dark beard shot through with two lines of white whiskers falling from the corners of his mouth. His nose was large and so heavily hooked it could almost touch his upper lip.
Suleiman Al-Jama must have felt the scrutiny, because he chose that moment to look across at the American ship. At a hundred yards, Henry could feel the hatred radiating off the man. A fresh blast from the guns obscured the pirate captain for a moment, and Henry had to duck as the railing behind him burst apart. When he looked again, Al-Jama was still staring.
Henry looked away.
He reached the bow and quickly organized a bucket brigade to douse the flames. The one carronade that had been hit was destroyed, but the gun next to it was in good order. Henry took command of it himself. The teenage midshipman who had been in charge of this section of guns was burned beyond recognition.
He aimed the loaded gun and touched the fuse with a length of smoldering slow match. The gun bellowed, sliding back on its guide rails in the blink of an eye. Lafayette had men swabbing the barrel before he checked the Saqr for damage. Their ball had hit next to one of the gunports, and through the hole it had blown into the wood he could see that men were down, writhing in agony.
“Reload!”
At nearly point-blank range the two ships pounded on each other like prizefighters who don’t know when to quit. It was getting darker now, but they were so close that the crews could aim using the glow of the fires that flashed and ebbed.
The weight of shot from the Saqr began to die down. The Americans were destroying her cannons one by one. And when no return fire came from the Tripolian vessel for nearly a minute, Stewart ordered the Siren in tighter.
“Boarding parties at the ready.”
Sailors took up grappling hooks to bind the two ships fast, while others passed out pikes, axes, and swords. Henry checked the priming pans of the two pistols tucked into his belt and drew his cutlass.
Pushing a swell of white water off her bow, the Siren charged the Saqr like a bull, and when the ships were a dozen feet apart the hooks were thrown. The instant the hulls smashed into each other, Henry leapt across to the other ship.
No sooner had his feet touched the deck than a series of blistering explosions raced along the length of the pirate vessel. Her cannons hadn’t been silenced at all. They had pretended to be unarmed to lure the Siren in close. Twelve guns poured their shot into the American brig, raking the line of men at her rail. Stewart had to veer off sharply. Sailors hacked at the grappling ropes in a desperate bid to get free.
Seeing his shipmates cut down like that pained Henry as if it were his own flesh torn apart. But he didn’t have time to jump back aboard before his ship had put twenty feet between herself and the pirate vessel. He was trapped on the Saqr. Musket balls from the Marines whined over his head.
The Arabs manning the Saqr’s guns hadn’t noticed him leap. The only course open to Henry was to jump into the sea and pray he was a strong enough swimmer to reach the distant shore. He started creeping for the far rail and had almost made it when a figure suddenly loomed above him.
He instinctively went on the charge before the man could fully comprehend what he was seeing. Henry pulled one of his pistols with his left hand and fired an instant before his shoulder collided with the man’s chest.
As they tumbled over the railing, he recognized the distinctive white streaks in the other man’s beard: Suleiman Al-Jama.
They hit the bath-warm water tangled together. Henry broke the surface to find Al-Jama next to him, gasping to fill his lungs. He was thrashing wildly, but oddly, too. It was then that Henry noticed the dark stain on the otherwise white robe. The ball from his pistol had hit the captain at the shoulder joint, and he couldn’t lift that arm.
Looking quickly, he saw the Saqr was already fifty feet away and was again trading broadsides with the Siren. There was no way anyone on either ship could hear Henry shouting, so he didn’t bother.
Al-Jama’s efforts to keep his head above water were growing weaker. He still couldn’t get his lungs to reinflate, and his heavy robes were dragging him under. Henry had been a strong swimmer his entire life, but it was clear the Arab was not. His head vanished below the surface for a moment, and he came up sputtering. But not once did he cry out for help.
He went under again, longer this time, and when he returned to the surface he could barely keep his lips out of the water. Henry kicked off his heavy boots and used his dirk to slice open Al-Jama’s robe. The clothing floated free, but Al-Jama wouldn’t last another minute.