Where’s that?”
“Stolen by a blasted French thief and torturer named Najac,” I said.
“If I’d joined the French, what the devil am I doing in rags, wounded, burned, bobbing in a boat with a Muslim camel driver and without a weapon?” I was angry. “If I’d gone to the French, why am I not sipping t h e
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claret in Napoleon’s tent right now? Aye, let’s sort the truth. Call those rascal seamen up right now. . . .”
“Little Tom lost his arm and has been sent home,” Smith said.
Despite my indignation, the news gave me pause. To lose a limb was a sentence of poverty. “Big Ned has been assigned ashore, with much of the
Perhaps you can discuss it with him there. We’ve got a stew of stout men to hold off Bonaparte, a mix of Turks, Mamelukes, mercenaries, rascals, and English bulldogs. We’ve even got a French royalist artillery officer who’s joined our side, Louis-Edmond Phelipeaux. He’s strengthening the fortifications.”
“You’re allied with a Frenchman, and you’re questioning me?”
“He helped arrange my escape from Templar Prison in Paris and is as faithful a comrade as you could wish for. Curious how men choose up sides in a dangerous time, isn’t it?” He looked at me closely. “Potts and Tentwhistle dead, Tom crippled, nothing gained, yet here you are. Jericho says he thought you dead or deserted as well.”
“You’ve talked to Jericho, too?”
“He’s in Acre, with his sister.”
Well, there was glad news. I’d been distracted by my own problems, but I felt a flush of relief of hearing that Miriam was safe for the moment. I wondered if she still had my seraphim. I took a breath.
“Sir Sidney, I’m done with the French, I can assure you. Hung me upside down over a snake pit, they did.”
“By God, the barbarians! Didn’t tell them anything, did you?”
“Of course not,” I lied. “But they told me something, and I can prove my loyalty with it.” It was time to play my trump.
“Told you what?”
“That Bonaparte’s siege artillery is coming by water, and with luck we can capture it all before his troops reach Acre.”
“Really? Well, that would change things, wouldn’t it?” Smith beamed. “Find me those guns, Gage, and I
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hand them out by the basket load, and you can bet I’ll spare one if you’re telling the truth. For once.”
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Of course it rained, dampening our chances of spying the French flotilla, and then fog moved in, lowering visibility even more.
The murk soon had the English thinking I was a double agent again, as if I controlled the weather. But if we had difficulty finding the French, they had a worse time evading us. Fog was their enemy, too.
So the French stumbled upon us on the morning of March 18
when Captain Standelet tried to round Cape Carmel and enter the huge bay bounded by Haifa at the south and Acre at the north. Three boats, including that of Standelet, escaped. Six more did not, however, and siege guns, which fire a twenty-four-pound ball, were trussed in their holds. In a single blow, we’d captured Napoleon’s most potent weapon. With a morning’s work I was proclaimed bulwark of Acre, fox of Jaffa, and watchman of the deep. I got a jeweled medal, too, the Sultan’s Order of the Lion, which Smith then bought back to cover my payment to Mohammad, plus a few coins besides. “If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher’s stone,” he lectured. “I’ve been reading your Franklin.” And so I came to the old Crusader city. Our route by water was paralleled on land by columns of smoke marking the advance of Napoleon’s troops. Reports had come of a steady string of skirmishes between his regiments and the Muslims of the interior, but it was at Acre that the contest would be decided.
The city is on a peninsula that juts into the Mediterranean at the north end of the Bay of Carmel, and thus is two-thirds surrounded by sea. The peninsula extends southwest from the mainland, and its harbor is formed by a breakwater. Acre is smaller than Jerusalem, its sea and land walls less than a mile and a half in circumference, but is more prosperous and about as populous. By the time I arrived the French were already sealing off the city from the landward side, flapping tricolors marking the arc of their camps.
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Acre is a lovely city in normal times, its seawalls bounded by aqua-marine reefs and its land walls bordered by green fields. An ancient aqueduct, no longer in use, led from its moat to the French lines.
The great copper green dome of its central mosque, coupled with a needle-like minaret, punctuate a charming skyline of tile, towers, and awnings. Upper stories arch over twisting streets. Markets shaded by bright awnings fill the main thoroughfares. The port smells of salt, fresh fish, and spices. There are three major inn-and-warehouse complexes for maritime visitors, the Khan el-Omdan, the Khan el-Efranj, and the Khan a-Shawarda. Balancing this prettiness is the ruler’s palace on the northern wall, a grim Crusader block with a round tower at each corner,
