Iron Ships, Iron Men

by Christopher Nicole

  It was not a controversy in which Rod had any desire to take sides, even if he had chosen to work for a southern sugar baron — he still could not regard his sojourn in this vast and exciting country as anything more than an interlude in his life. But he could not help but become aware that in many ways this United States of America was in fact two distinct nations, separated roughly by the vastness of Chesapeake Bay, in which the New England states and those of the deep south tolerated each other but no more, and those states like Maryland which sat astride the pair maintained an uneasy neutrality. Well, he thought, the country really was too big to remain one entity for very long, in any event; there was certainly room for at least two nations within the confines of the North American continent, quite apart from Canada and Mexico.

  Meanwhile, there was the journey to be savoured, and his charming companions to be enjoyed. Being regarded as an employee had certain advantages which more than offset the drawbacks — so long as he could swallow his pride, something he had become quite adept at doing since the crushing experience of the court martial. It enabled the girls to treat him with an intimacy they would never have considered to a possible suitor, allowed them to reveal themselves to him in their deshabille as they prepared for each morning’s journey, or carry on a conversation with him as they knelt, wearing only their shifts, before the huge wooden tub to have their hair washed by the attentive maids. While if he was not invited into the coach during the day, he was invariably summoned to the camp fire at night, the best part of the day, when Marguerite would often sing to her father in a high, clear voice, while Claudine filled the darkness with her chatter and sparkling laughter. That they both obviously adored their somewhat rough and ready parent was the best recommendation Wilbur Grahame could possibly have been given, Rod thought, and he suspected the girls’ presence had a lot to do with the happy atmosphere generated by the slaves.

  Of course he soon realised that the sisters were as different in their personalities as they were physically alike. Marguerite, as he had recognised from their first meeting, was, in addition to being the elder — he had no idea how old either of them actually was — also the more serious, while Claudine was by far the more vivacious — but each characteristic was carried to a far greater extreme than could be supposed on a casual acquaintance. Marguerite’s reserve, on closer study, could be seen to hide moods of deep introspection, when she revealed a brooding intensity which was almost sinister. While Claudine’s constant bubble, her habit of turning every incident, trivial or grave, into an exciting and if possible amusing adventure, suggested at least a shallowness of mind which led her to shy away from serious matters — and sometimes even more than that. He was hard put to decide which blemish was the more serious, as if indeed any blemish was the least important when set against such beauty and charm.

  Their interest in him continued unabated. While on the one hand they were openly amused when he did something stupid or careless from his ignorance of his new conditions, would call him a ‘tenderfoot’ or a ‘greenhorn’ and would go into peals of laughter as they saw him attempting to hit a target with his rifle, they also hung on his every word when he talked of England, or the sea.

  ‘It must be wonderful to have travelled all over the world,’ Claudine said, dreamily. ‘To have seen so many places. I’d love to travel like that. I’ve never been anywhere at all, save to New York this fall. And that was perfectly horrid. Maybe I will travel, one day. Would you like to travel, Meg?’

  Marguerite made a moue. ‘Not any more, really,’ she said, while Rod brooded on the memories that the nickname brought back, and wondered how the same three letters could mean such different things, as applied in the case of Marguerite Grahame and Margaret McGann.

  ‘You’ve never told us about your name, Rod,’ Claudine said. ‘I’ve never heard of a name like that before. What does it mean?’

  ‘It’s short for Rodney,’ he explained.

  ‘I’ve never heard of that, either.’

  ‘Well, George Rodney was one of Great Britain’s most famous admirals, oh, nearly a hundred years ago. I was named after him.’

  ‘What a quaint idea,’ Marguerite observed.

  ‘Not really. Think how many of your people are named after George Washington?’

  ‘I prefer Rodney to Washington,’ Claudine declared. ‘I so want to see you steer theScarlet Belle. I can hardly wait for that.’

  Neither could Rod, although he was considerably more apprehensive than he dared let himself appear; he had an uneasy feeling that the Grahame girls might lose all interest in him should he not measure up to their expectations — and he was growing more and more certain that he was being employed, not because he had interfered in their New York fracas, and not even because Wilbur Grahame wanted a mate for his ship, but simply because the planter saw in him an amusing new toy for his daughters. Should they lose interest in him, he would probably find himself once again unemployed.

  In any event, he did not have much longer to endure, for theScarlet Belle was waiting for them in Natchez.

  *

  If Rod was astonished at his first glimpse of the Mississippi, having never seen any river quite so majestic — he had served in the Mediterranean on his way to the Crimea, four years before, and seen the delta of the Nile, but there really was no comparison between the two, even if the Nile might actually be the longer — this stately flood could almost have been described as an inland sea. He was equally surprised at the volume of traffic using the mighty waterway, and if he would have loved to explore the quaint little town, half French and less than half American, even after fifty years of belonging to the Union, he had no time to appreciate anything but the ship. TheScarlet Bellewas far larger than he had anticipated, some three times the size of theSplendid, predictably painted a brilliant scarlet, from her two funnels to the water line, with massive side wheels and three decks, a wealth of top hamper and a dozen luxurious cabins, and, of course, no sails. He gathered that Wilbur Grahame used her commercially, not only to ship his sugar up to Natchez and beyond, but for carrying passengers to and from Vicksburg, although in this respect she was only one of half a dozen large paddlewheelers which plied up and down the Mississippi. But naturally she had delayed her sailing for New Orleans to wait for her owner, much to the annoyance of her main deck passengers; the lower deck were either poor whites or slaves travelling about their various masters’ businesses.

  ‘We’d better make a move, as soon as you’re ready, Mr Grahame,’ said Captain Lunis, a short, thick-set man with bushy side whiskers, and a blue tail coat which all but brushed the ground. ‘Near had a riot last night, when we didn’t sail.’

  ‘Goddamned Georgia crackers,’ Grahame growled. ‘I’m ready now, Captain Lunis. But first, I want you to meet your new mate, Mr Bascom.’

  ‘He’s from the Royal Navy,’ Claudine pointed out, having accompanied her father up to the bridge.

  ‘You don’t say, Miss Claudine,’ Lunis remarked, not the least impressed, although he shook hands.

  ‘And in New York he rescued us from an abolitionist mob,’ Marguerite said. ‘With his fists.’

  ‘Well, now, there’s something.’ Lunis began to warm. ‘Welcome aboard, young fellow.’

  ‘You got a uniform he can wear?’ Grahame inquired.

  ‘Not on board, sir. We’ll have to fit him out in New Orleans.’

  ‘Well, let’s see what he can do, for a start. You take her out, boy,’ Grahame said.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Claudine cried. ‘You take her out, Rod.’

  Rod opened his mouth and then closed it again; he had not expected to be pitched in at the deep end, almost literally. He looked at Marguerite, and she raised her eyebrows, but preferred to make no comment, either for or against.

  Lunis, however, was now looking distinctly alarmed. ‘You reckon, Mr Grahame?’ he asked. ‘Has Mr Bascom ever done any river work?’

  ‘He can handle her,’ Grahame asserted, before Rod could reply. ‘I want to see
him do it.’

  Lunis shrugged. ‘Well, let’s get to it, then. We’ve a lot of impatient people down there. Whenever you’re ready, Mr Bascom. Steam’s up.’

  I am not the least ready, Rod wanted to tell him. Nor can I possibly be, until I’ve had a wash and a brush up, and an opportunity to inspect the ship and learn something about her. But obviously he was not going to be given such an opportunity. He went to the bridge windows and looked down. The bow of the ship was actually resting on the bank, with gangplanks run out to allow people to cross the mud without getting their feet wet. Both the bow and the shore were crowded, with passengers on one side, relatives and well-wishers on the other, each group shouting at each other and complaining about the delay.

  Immediately beneath the bridge, in a kind of well deck, there were a couple of hundred head of cattle, pushing against each other and lowing, and also a large number of passengers, mostly black or obviously poor white. Above them was the main deck on which there was also a goodly number of people, mostly drinking from long glasses, and passing critical comments about the delay in departure. Rod went on to the bridge wing and looked astern, along the sweep of the promenade immediately behind the bridge, and did not like what he saw. Reasonably slack inshore, the river was flowing past just beyond the stern of the paddle steamer at what seemed a tremendous speed — it reminded him of the tide races he had encountered in the Bay of St Malo while on training cruises as a midshipman. To further complicate matters, just downstream of theScarlet Belle, and really not much more than two hundred yards away, he estimated, another paddle steamer had only just driven her bows into the bank and was still discharging cargo; he would have very little room to manoeuvre once his ship was in the grip of that current.

  He knew what he would have done had he been in command of a naval vessel: put out a boat with a kedge anchor to hold her while she swung to the current. But he doubted the Americans knew anything of proper naval procedure; in such a ‘prove-yourself’ society he might well be ruining his chances.

  Nor was there any point in delaying; everyone was waiting with almost painful anticipation to see what he was going to do. He returned into the bridge, and told the waiting Negro helmsman, ‘Put your wheel amidships, and keep it there until I tell you otherwise.’ He knew that if the ship would not manoeuvre at very slow speeds without the use of her helm then she would not manoeuvre at all, and sawing the wheel to and fro would only make her, and her skipper, look ridiculous.

  He picked up the speaking trumpet, and returned to the wing. ‘Cast off those gangplanks,’ he bawled, far louder than was really necessary. The men lounging on the bow jumped in surprise, the chatter of the passengers was momentarily stilled, and the cattle became more restless than ever. ‘And stand by your lines.’ He bent over the speaking tube, catching a glimpse of the two girls out of the corner of his eye; Claudine was pinching Marguerite’s arm in excitement. ‘Stand by your engines,’ he said to the engineer he had not yet seen; but a ship this size would certainly have two engines; without separate gearboxes for each wheel he did not see how she could be manoeuvred at all. ‘We are about to cast off.’

  ‘You got it,’ came the terse reply.

  Rod returned to the wing. ‘Cast off for’ard,’ he bellowed.

  The lines were dropped, but the ship still clung to the mud. He went inside. ‘Slow astern both,’ he said down the tube.

  ‘Slow astern.’

  Smoke belched from the funnels, and the paddle wheels turned, but the ship didn’t budge.

  ‘Hard astern,’ Rod snapped, as the crowd was starting to murmur again.

  There was a whoosh, and theScarlet Belle shot off the bank. ‘Hard astern,’ the engineer agreed.

  Rod cast a hasty glance behind him. There was nothing in his way save an awful lot of fast flowing water; the stern of the paddle steamer was already in the grip of the current, and swinging down river. In only a few moments the ship would be careering, stern first, into the next steamer — on whose deck men were gathering to watch what was happening, in some alarm.

  ‘Slow ahead starboard,’ he said down the tube, keeping his voice quiet, now. The helmsman’s hands were resting on the spokes of the wheel, anxious to start turning — but he did not dare disobey Rod’s instructions.

  ‘Starboard slow ahead,’ was the response. The right hand paddle wheel checked in its rotation, hung for a moment, and then started moving the other way. With the left hand wheel still going full speed astern, the stern of the paddle steamer slowly began to swing up against the current, while the bows began to come round to point downstream.

  And the steamer below them seemed to be rushing at them.

  Captain Lunis cleared his throat, shuffled his feet, and glanced at Wilbur Grahame, but was checked by a quick shake of the head.

  Rod opened the speaking tube. ‘Very good. Starboard engine full ahead, port engine slow astern and stand by.’

  ‘Starboard full ahead, port slow astern.’

  The wheels churned the brown water, and theScarlet Belle started to turn very quickly. Now she had completely reversed herself, virtually within her own length, but was still being swept, broadside on, closer and closer to the other ship, on which there was considerable agitation.

  ‘Full ahead both,’ Rod said. ‘Steady as she goes, cox.’

  Now both paddle wheels started to drive the ship forward, and the ship to draw ahead, while the coxswain gratefully felt the response beneath his hands. The other ship was now within thirty yards. But theScarlet Belle would certainly clear her now.

  ‘Starboard your helm, cox,’ Rod said quietly, and as theBelle swung to pass behind the stern of the moored vessel and commence her run down the river, he strolled as nonchalantly as he could on to the starboard wing and touched his hat to the men staring at him from the other deck. Then he returned inside. ‘Port two points, cox,’ he said. ‘Then steady as she goes.’

  ‘Port two knots, sah,’ the Negro' said. ‘Then steady.’

  TheScarlet Belle took up her new course, while the houses of Natchez went racing by.

  Captain Lunis took off his cap and wiped his brow.

  ‘I must apologise, sir,’ Rod said to Wilbur Grahame. ‘I’m afraid the current was a trifle faster than I had expected.’

  ‘By God, boy, but you can handle a ship,’ Grahame said. ‘Lunis wanted me to warn you about the current, but I thought I’d see what you could do. He’s the man we want, eh, Captain?’

  ‘Good enough for me, Mr Grahame,’ the captain agreed, having regained his composure. ‘That’s how the Royal Navy does it, eh, Mr Bascom? Me, I usually put down a stern anchor to kedge on when the current’s running that strong.’

  ‘I think you were just wonderful,’ Claudine cried, throwing both her arms round his neck to kiss him on the lips.

  *

  ‘So it seems I’ve been accepted,’ Rod wrote to Jerry McGann, enclosing an order for fifty dollars. ‘And I have to say, Jerry, that however much you, and I, for that matter, may disapprove of the principle of slavery, the life down here is very, very good. I wish you could sample it.’

  It was in fact, of a standard he had never suspected existed, outside the royal courts of Europe. One’s impression of the vast scale on which the Louisiana gentry lived was compounded by the river, of course. Rod could understand why to those born and bred in any of the states through which the huge tide flowed, and especially to the Negroes, it had taken on the appurtenances almost of a deity. And as the climax to the southern voyage, there was the city of New Orleans. New Orleans was not the end of the river, for below the city there was the huge lake of Pontchartrain, beyond which the waters debouched into the Gulf of Mexico. But New Orleans was the end of the voyage for the paddle steamers, and Rod would not have had it any different. The old world architecture of the Creole capital, so different from the solid brownstones of New York, or the frontier-like timber dwellings of New England, was fascinating; it meant entering a close-packed kaleidoscope of verandahs and e
xquisite iron work, wooden shutters and exciting aromas, of grilled doorways which gave access to delightfully secret interior courts and lawns, and immense flower gardens. And it was a world populated by the most attractive people, laughingly lovely dark-eyed and blackhaired girls, somewhat sullen but hardly less handsome Latin youths, scattered amongst whom were the large, pale-skinned, aggressive, true Americans, who had decided to seek their fortunes in the south.

  As Wilbur Grahame had apparently done, with more success than anyone else. It was a whole day’s journey to reach the Martine Plantation, as it was still called. Part of the way was by boat, through the swamps, or bayous, which suggested a survival of the primeval breeding grounds of the age of the dinosaurs. Then there was a high dam, or levee, beyond which were acre upon acre of sugar cane, the granulated gold which gave Grahame his immense wealth.

  The cane, nearly ripe and ready for cutting, waved endlessly like a green sea, soon to be reduced to ashes, as it was burned before the cane cutters were sent into its midst, to drive out all the snakes and poisonous spiders or scorpions which would undoubtedly lurk in its damp shade. Now Grahame and his daughters, and his slaves and his guest, travelled in open barouches on another high dam between the fields, while Rod gazed in wonder at the huge factory, dominated by its chimney, which pointed like a lance at the sky, ready to belch forth its smoke when grinding commenced. Beyond the factory was a regular township of low, barrack-like buildings where the slaves lived, and about a mile further on were a more European-style group of houses for the bookkeepers and overseers and their wives and families. Only after all of these had been passed, and with them, platoons of black people, men, women and children, anxious to bow low before the gaze of their master, was the plantation house itself reached, some several miles from the levee which marked the boundary of Wilbur Grahame’s land.