“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.”
He considered, and nodded. “All this is true. So. I will put my mind to keeping you out of trouble, donkey, and doing so before the sun rises too high. I do have a question for Monsieur Fulton, however.”
“Yes, Monsieur Radisson?”
“Locked as we are in a cramped chamber, and unable to emerge without drowning, just how do you propose to sink an enemy vessel?”
“Ah. It is quite clever, if I do say so myself. On board are three copper bombs, each containing one hundred pounds of black powder and a gun lock to set them off. Protruding from my turret is a spear like a narwhal’s horn, its butt end coming inside through a stuffing box, as you can see. Oakum packing around the shaft keeps leakage to a few drips. Now: We creep under the bottom of an enemy ship and twist the shaft by hand to drill it into the enemy’s bottom. Near its pointed end is an eye, threaded with a lanyard that also comes back to the tower here. After the ‘horn’ is screwed into the victim’s hull, we back off, pulling the lanyard. At the rope’s other end is tied a copper mine. As the lanyard threads through the eye of the narwhal horn, the mine, or torpedo, is pulled with it until it is jammed fast against the enemy ship. Then a jerk of the lanyard sets off the gun lock and the explosion. By that time we have backed sufficiently away to survive the concussion.”
Pierre looked dubious. “And if the torpedo goes off prematurely? Or the horn doesn’t stick? Or the enemy hears us fumbling about underwater?”
“Then we are probably sunk ourselves,” the inventor said. “It is fearfully important to get things right. I’m sure we can all muster the proper intensity.”
“Certainly we have motive for doing so,” the Frenchman agreed.
Fulton turned back to look out his tower. “I see the evening lights of Tripoli. A little to starboard, Frenchman.”
“Do you think they might see us?” Cuvier called up.
“Our sails are small and dark and our hull barely above the water,” Fulton said. “We can tack close before submerging.”
So we neared the port. While Tripoli is on Africa’s northern coast, its bay faces northeast, formed by a protective spit, islands, and reefs. The westernmost entrance is a gap in the reef just two hundred yards wide. We sailed close enough that we could hear the breakers and Fulton could judge our position by their creamy white. Then the inventor had Pierre rudder us into the wind while he popped up through the hatch to swiftly drop and lash the sails and mast. Then he came down, closed and locked the hatch, and turned a handle. There was a hiss and gurgle as buoyancy tanks filled.
“Archimedes himself discovered the principle of displacement that suggests how a boat may be made to sink or rise,” Fulton said.
“Fish use the same principle in their swim bladders,” Cuvier said.
“And humans sleep in a feather bed,” I put in.
It grew even darker, so we lit a candle. “We are now below the surface, gentlemen, and about to make history with an undersea naval attack.”
“Without being able to see where we’re going?” Pierre amended.
“Yes, we are somewhat blind. My compass is illuminated with bioluminescent fox fire, an innovation first suggested by Franklin for the American Revolution’s
It was humid and close inside the submarine. Pierre and I were soon sweating as we cranked away.
“How long can we stay down without any air?” the voyageur asked, panting.
“With this crowding, three hours,” Fulton said. “But I brought a copper container from Toulon pumped full of two hundred atmospheres, which was suggested to me by the chemist Berthollet. If released it should give us oxygen for three hours more. If the candle begins to gutter, we’ll know we need more air.”
There was no sensation of progress. Occasionally Fulton, peering at his compass, would call a slight course correction. Once we heard a scraping on the starboard side, as we grazed a harbor reef, and we steered away. Finally the inventor told us to rest and he began pumping a lever that emptied water from the ballast tanks. The faintest glow came from the tower windows as they cleared the surface of the water.
He waited a moment for the water to sheet away and then turned in all directions, looking about. Then he
