Corsair

The shot would have dropped a normal man to the deck before he had time to blink, but the giant kept coming. Henry had just an instant to raise his sword as the scimitar swiped at him again. His blade saved him from having his arm cut off, but the stu

The pirate must have sensed his opponent was spent by the way Lafayette just stood there, as if accepting the inevitable. The pirate raised his Saracen sword and started to swing, his body anticipating the resistance of the blade cutting through flesh and bone. Then the American leapt aside. The Arab was too committed to check his swing or to notice the smoke coiling from the back of the ca

There were thick hemp lines designed to retard the force of the recoil and keep the gun from careening across the deck, but they still let the ca

Henry took a second to peer out the gunport. The eighteen-pound ca

“Two with one shot. Not bad, mon ami Henri, not bad at all.” It was John Jackson, the big bosun.

“If Captain Decatur asks, it was one of these rotters who fired the gun, eh?”

“That’s what I saw, Mr. Lafayette.”

The ca

“Let’s get to work.”

The men returned to the starboard side of the ship where crew-mates aboard the Intrepid were standing by, ready to start passing combustibles up to the raiding party. Followed by Jackson and six others burdened with kegs of black powder, Henry Lafayette descended a ladder, passing crews’ quarters where hammocks still hung from the rafters but all other gear had been scavenged. They dropped lower still, to the orlop deck, the lowest on the frigate, and entered one of the ship’s holds. Most of the naval stores had been taken, but enough remained for the men to start burning the frigate.

They worked quickly. Henry decided where they would lay their fuses, and when they were set he lit them with his oil lamp. The flames grew quickly, much quicker than any of them had anticipated. In an instant, the hold filled with reeking smoke. They started back up, holding their sleeves over their mouths so they could breathe. The ceiling above them suddenly burst into flames with a roar like a ca

They reached a ladder, and Henry turned, urging his men upward. “Go, go, go, damn you, or we’re going to die down here.”

He followed Jackson’s ponderous rump as a jet of fire raced down the corridor. Henry rammed his shoulder into Jackson’s backside and heaved with everything he had. The two emerged from the hatch, rolling to the side, as a volcanic eruption of flame bellowed up from the hold, hit the ceiling, and spread like an unholy canopy.

They were in a sea of fire. The walls, deck, and ceiling were sheathed in flames, while the smoke was so thick that tears streamed from Henry’s eyes. Ru

A small explosion shook the Philadelphia, knocking Henry into John Jackson.

“Let’s go, lad.”

They clambered out one of the ports. Men on the Intrepid were there to help them settle in on the small ketch. Crewmen slapped Henry’s back several times. He thought they were congratulating him on a job well done, but in fact they were putting out the smoldering cloth of his native shirt.

Above them on the rail, Stephen Decatur stood with one boot up on the bulwark.

“Captain,” Lafayette shouted, “lower decks are clear.”

“Very good, Lieutenant.” He waited for a couple of his men to climb down ropes and then descended to his ship.

The Philadelphia was engulfed in fire. Flames shot from her gunports and were starting to climb her rigging. Soon, the heat would be intense enough to cook off the powder charges in her ca

The forward line holding the ketch to the frigate was cast off easily enough, but the stern line jammed. Henry pushed men aside and drew his sword. The rope was nearly an inch thick, and his blade, dulled by combat, still sliced it clean with one blow.

With the fire consuming so much air, the ketch couldn’t fill her sails, and the jib was dangerously close to tangling with the Philadelphia ’s burning rigging. The men used oars to try to force their vessel away from the floating pyre, but as soon as they pushed free the conflagration drew them back in again.

Bits of burning sail from the frigate’s mainmast fell like confetti. One sailor’s hair caught fire.

“Henry,” Decatur bellowed, “unship the boat and tow us free.”

“Aye, aye.”

Henry, Jackson, and four others lowered the dinghy. With a line secured to the Intrepid’s bow, they pulled away from the ketch. When the rope came taut, they heaved against the oars, straining to gain inches. When they pulled the paddles from the water for another stroke, half the distance they had gained was lost to the fire-born wind.

“Pull, you sons of dogs,” Henry shouted. “Pull!”

And they did. Heaving against the sixty-four deadweight tons of their ship and the powerful suction of the fire, they fought stubbornly. The men hauled on the oars until the vertebrae crackled in their backs and veins bulged from their necks. They pulled their ship and crew away from the Philadelphia until Decatur could get sails up her mainmast and fill them with the slight breeze now blowing in from the desert.

There was a sudden bloom of light high up on the castle wall. A moment later came the concussive roar of a ca

Aboard the Intrepid, men ma

For twenty tense minutes, the men pulled while, around them, shot after shot hit the water. One ball passed through the Intrepid’s topgallant sail, but other than that the ship wasn’t struck. The small-arms fire died away first, and then they were beyond the reach of the Bashaw’s ca