Iron Ships, Iron Men

by Christopher Nicole

  *

  It would have been quite easy, Rod soon realised, to do as she wished, and remain in Long Island, on the McGann farm, forever. They had to be about the most genuine people he had ever met, genuine in their gratitude for the help he had tried to give Jerry, apparently unaware, or uncaring, that he would have done the same for any sea captain in trouble, and that, in the event, he had not actually helped Jerry at all. But Jerry, as the latest in the line of sea captains of which the family was so proud, and around whom they had built their entire lives, was like some symbol of the family unity, its past and their future, to them all — and what a feeling of security, Rod thought, must it provide to belong to such a clan.

  But the McGanns were also genuine in their friendship, their desire to help him in turn. They never questioned anything about him or his background — that he was a friend of Jerry’s, and that he had met, and been approved by, Father, who even from a distance of several hundred miles remained totally the head of the family, was sufficient for them.

  Nor were they in the least ‘genteel’ in their approach to his problems.

  ‘Jerry said in his letter you could do with employment until you find your feet,’ Ambrose remarked on the morning after his arrival. ‘Know anything about farming?’

  ‘A little. I’m from the West Country.’

  ‘What west country?’

  ‘Somerset, actually. It’s a county in England. We lived in a farming community.’

  ‘Then you could be a great help around here. The wages are a dollar a week and all found.’

  At a dollar a week, paying back the McGanns for his passage money was going to take a couple of years, Rod calculated.

  Ambrose grinned, reading the uncertainty in his face. ‘That’s just until you get a berth afloat. I know you seafaring men. You’ll never settle down ashore.’

  ‘I’m grateful for the offer,’ Rod agreed. ‘Just tell me what to do.’

  There was a great deal to be done, not because the farm was in any way badly managed, or decrepit, but simply because the McGanns and the Palmers believed in working from dawn until dusk, and an extra pair of hands was merely an excuse to clear more land. Nor did they collapse in exhaustion when the day’s labour was finished, but would sit on the porch drinking corn whisky, reminiscing, and singing songs until well into the evening. While even on Sundays, after attending church, Ambrose and his sister would invariably man the family lugger and put out into Long Island Sound, fishing, or just enjoying the sailing. They usually invited Rod to accompany them, and to his amazement Grandmother Felicity often came too. ‘Toby taught me to sail on this Sound,’ she told him. ‘Those were happy days.’

  Never had he felt more instantly a part of any family, even if he knew that he could never truly be one of them, in their clannishness, in their strongly held opinions — and their stance on slavery was only one of a number of points of view they regarded as immutable. Religion was another, and Rod felt it necessary to conceal the fact that his father had been an Anglican vicar; the McGanns were staunch Roman Catholics. Most of all, he found himself unable fully to partake in what almost amounted to ancestor worship, which the family as a whole practised. On every anniversary, every birthday, every possible excuse, it seemed, led by Grandmother Felicity, they assembled in their private cemetery, before the headstones marking the graves of Harry McGann and his wife Elizabeth, Toby McGann, Toby and Felicity’s two children apart from Captain Stephen, who had died young, and the child that Stephen and Caroline had lost. There were also graves for Harry McGann’s Irish mother and his younger brother; his sister, Rod understood, was buried in the Palmer cemetery across the way. There was nothing unwholesome or superstitious in this continued reverence for the past. It was simply an awareness that it was the duty of every living member of the family never to fall below the high standards set by the dead. As Rod had glimpsed in Norfolk, it was an awesome responsibility for someone like Jerry McGann to carry. For him it would be an impossible task.

  But one which, unless he were very careful, might be imposed upon him, he understood. He had a growing suspicion that his benefactors would have liked to make him a member of their family legally as well as through ties of gratitude; obviously finding a husband for Meg McGann was going to prove a difficult matter. But Rod knew he could never love a girl who was two inches taller than himself, and every bit as strong, and who was by far the most bucolic member of this extremely homespun and bucolic family. In fact, he had never loved anyone in his life before, in a passionate sense, mainly because he had always been too busy with his career in the Navy, and he certainly was not in the mood for loving now. Thus he realised that his idyll, which had been most necessary to restore some of his self-confidence, could not possibly last much longer, and decided to bring the matter to a head when, early in November, Captain Stephen came home on furlough, and greeted him as if he had known him all his life.

  Because Captain Stephen had disappointing news, as he confided after supper when he took Rod aside. ‘We’ve been doing everything we can,’ he said. ‘The fact is, though, getting you a commission in the United States Navy is going to take a deal of time. More maybe than Jerry or I realised. I’ve even spoken with Frank Buchanan and all but no luck there either.’

  ‘Who is Frank Buchanan?’ Rod asked.

  ‘Well, he’s commanding the Washington Navy Yard right this minute, and I suppose you could say he is our most senior serving officer ... we don’t have admirals in this man’s navy, you see. We appoint a commodore when there’s a squadron needed, but the basic rank is captain.’

  ‘I see,’ Rod said, once again totally mystified by the lengths to which democracy had been carried in this remarkable republic.

  ‘But as I was saying,’ Stephen McGann went on, ‘there’s no way he can jump you in before all the young midshipmen busily qualifying ... and you sure don’t want to go back to sea as a midshipman, or before the mast, I’d reckon.’

  ‘Well,’ Rod said. ‘I’d ship before the mast if thereis nothing better. I’ve a debt to pay.’

  ‘Hell, that’s not on any of our minds, son. But we’d like to see you do better. But you know ... if we can’t find you a berth, and you’re not dead set on the sea, why not make a home with us? We’d build you a house of your own. Make you a partner in the farm. Ambrose tells me you farm like it was in your blood.’ He grinned. ‘Then you could just write off that debt that’s bothering you.’

  It was certainly tempting. But then he would disappear forever into the McGann fold — it could even be described as a womb, he thought — and as he wasnot a McGann, and could never become one, even by marriage, he knew that for all their good fellowship and open-handed generosity he would be setting up a situation which would one day erupt in his face. He had to escape, and quickly — if he could do so without causing offence.

  He chose his words carefully. ‘God knows how much I owe to you, and Jerry, and everyone in this lovely place, Captain Stephen. I can never forget it, nor can I ever forget that debt. But ... I’d never really considered any other life than the sea. If it is at all possible ... remembering that you can always count on my aid, if you ever need it again. Just whistle ...’ he grinned. ‘And I’ll be there.’

  ‘I never doubted that for a moment, son,’ Stephen McGann agreed, hiding his disappointment that he was not, after all, about to gain a son-in-law. ‘But I understand how you feel. We McGanns have always been seafarers. I couldn’t think of anything worse than to know I wasn’t ever going to lose sight of land again. So we’ll find you a berth on a merchantman. You’ll have to take an examination to get a mate’s ticket, but I don’t reckon that should prove too difficult.’

  ‘I think I can manage that,’ Rod agreed.

  ‘Then we’d better go down to New York. And who knows, after you’ve served a couple of years, the Navy may look on things in a different light.’

  *

  Rod donned his best remaining suit of clothes, and bade the family farewell
. A temporary farewell, he assured them all.

  ‘Because we’re your family now as well, Rod,’ Grandmother Felicity told him, holding his hands. ‘You remember that, and come back here every furlough. There’ll always be a place for you at the table.’

  ‘Fishing won’t be the same without you,’ Meg McGann confessed, with an unusual flush to her cheeks. ‘You be sure to visit with us, you hear?’

  ‘And Jerry should be home for Christmas,’ Caroline McGann said. ‘He sure will be upset to have missed you.’

  ‘Now, Ma,’ Ambrose remonstrated. ‘You knew Rod was going to try for a place at sea, just as soon as he could.’ He shook hands. ‘You get to be a master, real quick, and come back and tell us.’

  Rod felt decidedly churlish as he rode away from the farm, like the captain well wrapped up against the cold in a borrowed greatcoat, and wearing new boots and a new beaver. It was impossible to stop himself wondering if he was not making a mistake in fleeing, and that, whatever the inwardlooking atmosphere of the farm, here was a future which, if promising no great heights to scale of either the spirit or the flesh, was nonetheless guaranteeing him that there would be no deep abysses either, such as the one into which he had so recently fallen — unless he was so mule-headed as to create them himself. But he was not yet twenty-six, and to turn his back on the sea and his chosen career at so early an age was unthinkable — any more than he could consider so completely tying himself to the McGann family, however certain he might be of their worth.

  It was late November, and the roads were icy, while as they approached the river they encountered a blizzard which had them sheltering in a lonely inn for several hours. The weather had no effect whatsoever on Stephen McGann’s spirits or his approach to life; he had to be about the most massively confident, and thus reassuring, man Rod had ever met, although it was easy to see that his sons would follow him in that happy path. ‘Maybe we’ll have to walk across the river,’ he said, and grinned as he drank his whisky. ‘I’ve always dreamed of one day walking clear across the Sound. But it ain’t happened yet.’

  In fact, the East River was not frozen, although there were enough ice floes about to make the crossing interesting. But New York itself bustled as much as ever, despite the cold and the snow in the streets. Captain McGann put up at an hotel where he was apparently well known, and given a vociferous welcome; as he was also clearly well known in New York shipping circles, from the welcome he received in each of the offices they visited. The welcome was naturally extended to his protege — but little more than that. Times were hard, most of the available berths were filled ... and a disgraced ex-Royal Navy officer was, it was easy to tell, not the sort of man most American shipowners had in mind as mates for their vessels. Two days produced no results, and Rod began to feel dispirited.

  Stephen McGann merely shrugged massive shoulders and said, ‘Well, we’ll have to try Philadelphia. And then further south, if we have to.’ He grinned. ‘We’ll wind up clear back in Norfolk. But that’s where I’m headed, anyway.’

  He had people to see for himself, in New York, and next morning Rod went out walking on his own. There was clearly no point in seeking work, as a seaman — he was hardly likely to succeed where he had failed with Captain Stephen McGann at his shoulder to recommend him — and besides, he wanted to absorb something of the sights and sounds, and characteristics, of these people amongst whom he had determined to make his future, however opaque that future might seem at the moment.

  As on his first, brief, visit to the metropolis, he was struck by the brash aggressiveness of the people, not less than by their obvious prosperity ... but he was, for a reason he could not quite name, becoming less sure that he did want to become a part of at least this community, a feeling enhanced when he turned off one of the avenues and encountered quite a crowd, who were apparently blocking the progress of an open carriage, shouting curses at its occupants. He would have turned away without delay, having no wish to involve himself in somebody else’s riot, when he observed that two of the people in the carriage were young women, and that the situation was beginning to worsen. For the white man seated in the carriage with the ladies now rose to his feet, elbowed his Negro driver aside, and seized the whip from the fellow’s hand.

  ‘Out of the way,’ the man bellowed. ‘Yellow-livered Yankee scum. Out of the way.’

  ‘Slave driver,’ the mob howled. ‘Southern trash!’

  ‘Who said that?’ The man curled the whip in the air above his head. ‘What Goddamned abolitionist scoundrel called me trash? Why, by God, sir, you show yourself and ...’

  ‘Southern trash!’ The word was hurled at him again, but this time he had identified the offender, and without a moment’s hesitation sent the lash of the whip snaking into the crowd round his vehicle, handling the instrument, which in his possession became almost a weapon, with consummate skill. There was a scream of rage and pain from within the crowd, followed instantly by a roar of outrage which was infinitely more ugly than the earlier baiting, and the people surged forward.

  ‘Oh, hell,’ Rod muttered. But he knew what was going to happen, and knew too that he could not stand by without at least attempting to help.

  The crowd heaved at the carriage. The driver jumped from his seat and was lost in a sea of hands, but no one was attempting to harm him. The horses neighed and reared, striking left and right with their iron-shod fore hooves, but this only seemed to anger the crowd more. The white man bellowed his rage, and the two women with him screamed their terror, but the carriage was definitely going over, with a crash, which sent its occupants sprawling on to the roadway.

  Rod was already forcing his way into the mob, using elbows and shoulders to clear himself a passage. He was only about six feet from the carriage when it was upturned, saw the two women, they were hardly more than girls, and were clearly sisters, tumbling on to the cobbles, surrounded instantly by jeering voices and clutching fingers. Rod didn’t know for sure whether any real violence would be offered to two ladies, as these obviously were from their clothes, but that they were going to be manhandled seemed certain. He thrust aside two of the baying youths immediately in front of them, and reached the carriage as the first girl was jerked to her feet, her bonnet coming off to allow a coil of splendidly rich auburn hair to drift past her shoulders. Even as her mouth opened to scream again, and her already huge green eyes widened in terror, Rod decided she was the most lovely thing he had seen in years. If ever. In a burst of exhilarated fury — for how long had he wanted to do something physical, like breaking someone’s head? ever since his sentence, to be sure — he grasped the shoulder of the lout holding her and grinning at her, swung him half round, and landed a punch with all his concentrated body weight, as he had been taught to do by the professional pugilists who had used to come down to Somerset to train when he had been a boy.

  The man fell over with an astonished exclamation. Other hands now reached for Rod, and he turned, standing in front of the girl and her sister, who backed into the shelter of the overturned carriage, its wheel spinning in the air so reminiscently of HMSSplendid on the rocks, while he endeavoured to hold off the crowd with his fists. It was a wild melee for a moment, but after that moment he was struck to the ground and was in a fair way of being trampled to death, when there was a rush of blue-clad policemen, heaving the crowd to left and right, swinging their nightsticks, and reaching the four people under attack, for the man, who was clearly the girls’ father, was still defending himself with his fearsome whip.

  ‘You’d best hurry out of here,’ said the sergeant in command.

  ‘You’re Goddamned right,’ declared the man, who had lost his hat, and was cut on the face, but was not looking particularly frightened. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he demanded of Rod.

  ‘Why, Daddy,’ said the girl Rod had first rescued. ‘This gentleman has just about saved our lives. Certainly our virtues.’

  Chapter Three: The Mississippi — 1858

  THE police escorted them to
the shelter of their hotel, where they were shown to their private parlour by a solicitous proprietor, who apparently counted the assaulted family amongst his most important customers.

  ‘Why, Mr Grahame,’ he said. ‘These mobs ... outrageous, sir, outrageous. You must let me do something about your face, sir. It’s cut.’

  Grahame pushed him away. ‘A scratch, man. Goddamned abolitionists, they were. They deserve to be horsewhipped. God knows what this country is coming to.’ He was by now surrounded by obsequious Negro servants, removing his coat, brushing down his jacket, polishing his boots, all of whom he totally ignored while accepting their ministrations. ‘You okay, Claudine?’ The red-haired girl looked hardly the worse for her adventure, although her bonnet, which had been trodden on, was ruined. A black girl was already brushing her unruly hair, while another was clucking her tongue over a rent in the sleeve of her gown; like her father, the girl named Claudine hardly seemed to notice they were there. ‘Sure I am, Daddy,’ she declared. ‘But this poor gentleman here ...’

  Rod, having no servants to fuss over him, found himself sitting down. He had in fact been beaten about the head, and was feeling quite dizzy, and the fact that he was going to have some pretty painful bruises was already evident.

  ‘We want a steak,’ said the other girl, quietly but firmly. She had also lost her bonnet, and her hair was equally tumbling about her shoulders, being tended now by another black girl — she looked no more concerned by what had happened than her sister. Her hair was more gold than red, and she was slightly the taller of the pair, and almost certainly was the elder, if by hardly more than a year, but these were the only obvious differences between them. Both had full figures beneath their winter coats, both had the most splendid features, clearly etched and unblemished, with wide mouths sitting perfectly between straight, longish noses and pointed chins, and both had enormous green eyes which were the true hallmarks of their beauty.