In considering the claims of his different officers in leading the attack, Commodore Preble had at last determined upon Decatur and Somers. The larger vessels were to cover the advance of the gunboats, which were to do the real fighting, and these gunboats were divided into two divisions—the first under Decatur, the second under Somers. Besides the natural fitness of these two young captains for this dangerous honor, the commodore knew their perfect understanding of each other and the entire absence of jealousy between them; and with two officers acting in concert this harmony of ideas and feelings was of great value. But few officers were to be taken in the gunboats, and none of the midshipmen from the Constitution were permitted to leave her. The frigate’s situation would not be nearly so exposed as the boat divisions, yet she was the force to support them all, and would require much and skillful manœuvring. Commodore Preble, therefore, had use for all his officers. These brave young men accepted the inevitable, and only little Pickle Israel begged and pleaded unavailingly with both Somers and Decatur to take him.
“Now, Captain Decatur,” said Pickle, in a wheedling voice, finding himself in the cabin of the Nautilus with both Somers and Decatur the morning of the attack, “I’m nearly fifteen years old, sir.”
“And a great help you’d be,” cried Decatur, laughing, and much amused by Pickle’s persistence. “If a strapping great big Turk were to board us, I should at once sing out: ‘Where is Mr. Israel? Let him tackle this fellow; he’s too much for me!’”
Pickle looked very solemnly into the laughing faces of the two young captains, and then gloomily remarked:
“I’m afraid you’re joking, Captain Decatur.”
“Not at all,” answered Decatur, winking at Somers. “Didn’t that little apprentice boy, Jack Creamer, capture a whole live Tripolitan by himself the night of the destruction of the Philadelphia?”
As Jack Creamer’s claim of having captured Mahomet Rous was a joke in the whole squadron, Pickle did not feel Decatur’s remark as any encouragement. So he turned to Somers, and said earnestly:
“Well, Captain Somers, if Captain Decatur won’t let me go with him——”
“That’s very ungrateful of Decatur, too,” interrupted Somers, quite seriously, “considering the way you and Macdonough came to our assistance the night of our adventure with the brigands at Syracuse. And Macdonough is going in the boats.”