Iron Ships, Iron Men

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘One,’ Jerry said.

  ‘Well, sir,’ Jacob said again. ‘I don’t know about being free, that I don’t.’

  ‘Two,’ Jerry said.

  ‘Well, sir,’ Jacob continued. ‘They must be in Mobile, I am thinking.’

  ‘Mobile? Mobile, Alabama?’ Not a hundred miles away. And a seaport.

  ‘Yes, sir, they must be gone there when they left here. That is what they must be done. I think it was so Mr Bascom could catch a ship.’

  ‘Bascom?’ Jerry shouted. ‘Rod Bascom was with them? But ...’ He’s dead, he thought. He has to be dead.

  ‘Oh, yes, sir, Captain,’ Jacob said, more easily as he watched the gun being holstered. ‘He was the one what made them leave. He came out of the bayou by the levee, wet like if he had been swimming in the river, and he said they must leave, real quick.’

  Because he had been swimming in the river, Jerry thought. But being Rod Bascom, he had survived. For a moment he almost felt relieved about that. And then he realised that he would now have to kill his friend himself. Because Rod had come back here ... not for the wife from whom he was estranged, certainly. He had come for Marguerite. Only that would have brought him here when he must have wanted to escape as quickly as possible. ‘And is he still with them?’

  ‘Oh, no, sir, Captain. He did catch a ship the very day we did reach Mobile. I don’t know for where. But he been gone since then. April of last year,’ he added helpfully.

  April, Jerry thought. And it was now again March. At least Rod had not been there for almost a year. But he would undoubtedly be meaning to go back, for Marguerite. Who was waiting for him, not a hundred miles away ... and little Joey was with her. He wheeled his horse. ‘Don’t forget now, Jacob,’ he called. ‘You’re a free man.’ He hurried his mount along the levee.

  *

  Commodore Farragut regarded his Executive Officer with some scepticism. ‘The answer has to be no, Jerry,’ he said.

  ‘But, sir, my wife and child are there. I must attempt ...’

  ‘They are well, you tell me, and with your parents-in-law, so undoubtedly they are being looked after. And they have nowhere to go. The time will come, I have no doubt, when we shall receive orders to assault Mobile. But until then, we must obey the orders we do have. Nothing in those orders permits me to allow one of my officers to go wandering off behind enemy lines, almost certainly to be hanged as a spy. No, no, Jerry. In fact, I have decided that what you need is a change of air and scenery. So I am seconding you to the USSRear sage, as Executive Officer.’

  ‘Sir?’ Jerry frowned at him. He had never heard the name before.

  ‘She is a fine ship, I understand. One of our new screw sloops. She was built in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and has just been commissioned. John Winslow will command. Have you met him?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jerry said unhappily. He knew Winslow, like Farragut, a Southerner — he had actually been born in Wilmington, North Carolina — who had adhered to the Union cause. He had also had the misfortune to lose an eye at an earlier stage in his career, and was reputed to be a sea-going disciplinarian, and ill-tempered with it.

  ‘Well, he is delighted to have you as his Executive Officer. You are to transfer immediately, and join the ship in Boston. The journey north will give you an opportunity to see your family. And then, Europe.’

  ‘Europe?’ Jerry shouted. ‘But, sir ...’

  ‘I have had a growing feeling this past year that you are a little too close to events down here, Jerry. A break away from this incestuous war will do you good. I give you my promise that should we take Mobile in your absence, I will personally see to the safety of Mrs McGann and your son, and see that they are returned to Long Island.’ Jerry stood to attention. ‘With respect, sir, I must refuse this posting.’

  ‘You cannot refuse a posting, Jerry.’

  ‘I can resign my commission, sir. I do so, now.’

  Farragut leaned back in his chair. ‘You are being absurd. A McGann, resign his commission?’

  ‘It has precedent, sir.’

  ‘No it has not. Your grandfather was dismissed the service, erroneously, as it turned out. He was later reinstated. He would certainly never have resigned.’

  ‘I cannot possibly absent myself from America at this time, sir.’

  ‘And I will tell you why you are being absurd, Jerry,’ Farragut went on, as if he had not spoken. ‘From what you have told me, at least half your anxiety to catch up with your wife is to be revenged on Rod Bascom.’

  ‘Well, sir ...’

  ‘And therefore, part of your reasons for wishing to get into Mobile is in the anticipation that Bascom will shortly return there to continue his liaison with Mrs McGann.’ Jerry flushed. That was too close to the truth.

  ‘So what will you say when I tell you that Bascom himself is no longer in America?’ Farragut continued. ‘Nor is he likely to be again, for a very long time. He is serving as Second Lieutenant on board the Confederate commerce raider,Alabama.’

  Jerry frowned at him.

  ‘We have just learned that,’ Farragut said. ‘We have in fact obtained a full list of theAlabama's complement. She was out there in the Gulf, only two months ago, apparently.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘She it was decoyed the USSHatter asfrom convoy duty, engaged her, and sank her in a night battle, all in a matter of thirteen minutes. You will remember that it was assumed theHatterasmust have foundered in a sudden storm, but her survivors have just got back from Mexico, where they were set ashore by theAlabama. They say the raider mounts at least one very powerful gun, and as a matter of fact, we have obtained details on that too, from Mr Adams in London. It is a Blakeley RML, with a six-point-four inch bore; that is, it will deliver either solid shot or shell, weighing a hundred pounds. That makes her a most formidable ship, Jerry. I doubt that there are too many in our navy which could match her in a straight slogging match. The Blakeley is about the only really successful rifled cannon yet produced; it is certainly far superior to anything we have managed to build over here.’

  ‘But if she is out in the Gulf, sir, then a fast squadron should be able to catch her. Even her big gun can only fire in one direction at a time.’

  ‘She was out in the Gulf, two months ago,’ Farragut reminded him. ‘She is certainly no longer there. In fact, theHatter assurvivors have told us that she was on her way into the South Atlantic to interfere with our trade there. Then she intended either to round the Horn into the Pacific, or go off for the Indian Ocean — apparently, in addition to her other strengths, she has an almost unlimited cruising range. And of course, people like Raphael Semmes, and Rod Bascom, are old hands at this sort of game; they practised it on theSumter.’ He stroked his chin. ‘That is what makes the attack on theHatter asso odd, to my way of thinking. They out-gunned her, sure, but shewasa warship, and shecouldhave damagedAlabama. A raider’s business is to keep out of trouble, and concentrate on destroying our merchant shipping. I wonder what was in their minds? An act of bravado, perhaps? Or of provocation? Anyway, we’ll all sleep easier when she is finally brought to book.”

  ‘And theKearsage is being sent to look for her?’ Jerry asked, almost eagerly. That was a quest he could appreciate.

  Farragut shook his head. ‘That would be an impossible task.’ He smiled as he saw Jerry’s face fall. ‘But we will have her. For a very good reason.’

  Jerry waited.

  ‘Thanks to the efforts of our ministers and consuls around the world, we have closed virtually every port to her,’ Farragut told him. ‘Certainly we have closed every port where she can obtain coal, and she needs coal to take down her victims. But she is now regarded as a pirate, and will receive no assistance from anybody. With perhaps one exception. France.’

  ‘France, sir?’

  ‘The French are almost alone amongst maritime nations in refusing to regard Confederate commerce raiders as pirates. We are putting what pressure we can on the Emperor Napoleon, of course, but he is a man who g
oes his own way, and frankly, since he has decided to ignore the Monroe Doctrine and launch an invasion of Mexico in support of this Austrian prince, Maximilian, a Confederate victory, or at least the establishment of a Confederate state, too weak to do anything about his Mexican empire, would suit him best. It seems almost certain, therefore, that theAlabama, when it becomes necessary for her to coal and refit, and that must happen fairly soon, will have to return to France to do these things. Thus we are staking out warships in various positions in European waters, for just that day. TheKearsage is one of the sloops appointed to that duty.’

  Jerry gazed at him, all manner of thoughts flickering through his mind.

  Which Farragut was able to put into words. ‘So I suspect that you will be able to attend to at least part of your personal problem, and serve the Union, and avoid being hanged as a spy, and survive to reclaim your wife when the Confederacy finally goes down, if you were to accept this posting,’ the Commodore said. ‘Providing you remember about that big gun theAlabama carries.’

  Chapter Eleven: The English Channel — 1864

  ‘THERE is a letter for you,’ Wilbur Grahame said, striding into the parlour of the Mobile home.

  ‘For me?’ Marguerite cried, scrambling to her feet. She had not received a letter in over a year.

  ‘For Marguerite?’ Claudine demanded, outraged.

  ‘For Mama,’ shouted little three-year-old Joey, bouncing up and down.

  Antoinette Grahame smiled vacantly and took a glass of rum punch.

  ‘I would say it’s from Rod Bascom,’ Wilbur commented, inspecting both the handwriting and the stamp. ‘Mailed from Manila, in the Philippines. That’s a long way away, by God.’

  ‘Let me see,’ Claudine cried, reaching for it.

  ‘It ismy letter,’ Marguerite snapped, snatching it from her father’s hand.

  ‘Oh, you ... you whore!’ Claudine shouted.

  Marguerite ignored her and ran from the lounge to her bedroom, there to open the letter, heart pounding as she devoured the love and loneliness which poured from it. But ... it was dated Christmas 1863, and it was now May, 1864. It had taken virtually six months to get to her. Rod had been alive then, at Christmas — but was he still alive now?

  But he had to be. Rod, Raphael Semmes, John Kell, their crew and their famous ship, were all the Confederacy had to brag about in this spring of 1864. Only nine months ago it had all been so different. If here in the west the Confederate cause had always been flagging, as President Lincoln had put his trust in a hard-drinking, hard-driving military genius named Ulysses Grant, in the east Robert Lee had proved himself no less a master of the art of war, and having demolished McClellan’s threat to Richmond, in the summer of 1863 had even led his armies into Maryland in a grand offensive designed at last to force the fall of Washington and bring the Federals to the peace table. No one had doubted he could do it, and optimism that a successful end to the war might be in sight was high.

  But swinging north of the capital in an attempt to turn the Union flank, Lee had been brought to a grinding halt at the town of Gettysburg, the flower of his army wasted in futile attempts to smash through the determined Federal defence. It mattered little to the North that their casualties had been virtually as heavy as the Confederate, that their army had been too exhausted to mount any counter attack; they could replace their losses in men and materiel, while Lee had nothing better than to order a retreat, and with that command, doom the south to stand forever on the defensive, while the North grew ever stronger. If Rod had been right in his judgement that the failure of theVirginiato defeat theMonitor and thus raise the blockade had been the decisive moment of the war, then Gettysburg, more than a year later, was the first fruit of that defeat.

  To crown the disaster, on the very days that Gettysburg had been fought and lost, Grant and Farragut had forced the surrender of Vicksburg to the combined Federal army and navy of the West, and could now claim the entire Mississippi as a secure Union highway. The Confederacy was being slowly reduced to its heartland, with nothing but ultimate defeat left in front of it — barring a miracle or European intervention.

  Thus only in the reported exploits of the now notorious and immortalAlabama could the Confederates still take pride. And at least at Christmas, she now knew the ship had still been afloat and prospering, and Rod had still been well.

  She raised her head. Claudine stood in the doorway. ‘He writes toyou? she spat. ‘He is a swine, as you are a whore. I am his wife.’

  ‘From whom he never received any comfort or joy,’ Marguerite said.

  ‘I am hiswife.'

  ‘In name only,’ Marguerite said, with determined placidity.

  ‘And you would claim to be more? You, married to another man? To a Yankee?’

  ‘We all make mistakes,’ Marguerite said. ‘Rod made as big a one as I. We are sufficiently human to accept that and attempt to rectify it.’

  ‘And me?’

  Marguerite laid down the letter and stood up. ‘I am sorry, believe me, that it should have happened this way. I must beg your forgiveness ...’

  ‘My forgiveness?’ Claudine shouted. ‘You have the gall to ask for my forgiveness? Everyone knows what you have done. Mama, Papa, they all hate you, you ...’

  ‘If they hate me, then I am sure they will tell me so, one day,’ Marguerite said evenly. ‘Perhaps when Rod returns for me. But I love him, and he loves me, and we can give each other what we want, and that is all that matters.’

  Claudine glared at her. ‘We shall see,’ she said. ‘Oh, we shall see. About yourlove’ She stormed from the room.

  *

  ‘Sail ho,’ came the call from the masthead.

  ‘Where away, Mr Bascom?’ Captain Semmes asked, quickly coming on deck.

  ‘Fine on the starboard bow, sir,’ Rod replied. ‘From the cut of her sails she could be a Yankee clipper. But in these light airs she won’t have the chance to show her speed.’

  ‘Treat her gently, Mr Bascom,’ Semmes said. ‘Treat her gently.’ He opened the speaking tube to the engine room. ‘Raise steam, Mr Freeman,’ he said.

  ‘Aye-aye, Captain,’ came the response from the Chief Engineer.

  It was close to dusk, and on the Equator dusk was a matter of moments between six in the evening and half past. And there in front of them was another victim. She would be their eighty-second, Rod thought, in a two year cruise which had taken them around the world and back. And here they were, almost out of coal, returning to the very waters from which they had set out on their epoch-making voyage; the Azores were only a thousand miles to the north west, Africa a hundred miles to the east, France their destination. In France they would be able to obtain coal, and slip and recondition the ship — so they had been told by the last Confederate agent they had encountered.

  Rod wondered if the Captain, leaning on the rail to watch the ship which was rapidly coming back to them, under no suspicion that the sail astern could be an enemy, was so sanguine. ‘Our very last victim, Mr Bascom,’ he said thoughtfully.

  ‘Of this cruise, sir,’ Rod suggested. ‘Once we have bunkered and are reprovisioned ...’

  ‘Hm,’ Semmes remarked. ‘Then the world will again be our oyster, eh?’ He peered at the clipper in front of them, glanced up at the first wisps of smoke issuing from the funnel, then looked at their quarry again. ‘How proudly she sails,’ he observed, half to himself. ‘Like a bird on the wing.’

  Rod glanced at John Kell, who had joined them on deck, and the First Officer raised his eyebrows. Both of them had observed, with increasing concern, the growing introspection of their captain during this marathon voyage. It was a phenomenon Rod had seen happen to other shipmasters, in the Royal Navy, on a long cruise. For a captain at sea is in a position no landsman can appreciate, or indeed, sympathise with. His word is more absolute than that of any tyrant or dictator, who must always be aware of the opinions of his aides, of the sanctity of the laws he may be breaking, of the mood of the people he rules. A se
a captain can rest assured that, except where quite exceptional cruelty or misjudgement can be proved against him, the courts of law will always upholdhis decisions, and also that he can never be criticised or deposed by his officers, or be subjected to a change of mood amongst his crew, for any reason whatsoever save disability, either of the body or of the mind — and even then, the officers who dared depose a captain would know that they would have to explain their actions, again before a court of law, on reaching their home port, and could face hanging for mutiny were they unable to do so.

  But for a sea captain, the position was complicated by the absence of the perquisites of absolute power. He enjoyed only slightly more comfort than his crew, in normal conditions; in action or bad weather he enjoyed less. He possessed no harem in which he could assuage his desires, and there was little temptation to drink heavily, even supposing there was alcohol on board — there was none on theAlabama; drunkenness was one of the few permissible reasonsfor deposing a captain. In addition, for all that he held power of life and death over his crew, a captain was also totally and solely responsible for the success or failure of the voyage, for the profit, if there was to be one, and for the loss, if one was incurred, for in fact everything that happened throughout the voyage, and every incident had to be faithfully recorded in the ship’s Log Book, the vital evidence which would be accepted by any court, and by which the captain stood or fell. His tyranny had to be based on leadership and seamanship, of a higher quality possessed by any of his officers or crew. Semmes certainly stood in that category.

  But the mental strain, over a long period of time, was tremendous. Rod had seen apparently well balanced and even kindly men change into hideous monsters as the long, lonely hours and days and weeks had drifted by, out of sight of land, or of any restraining influence. No such charge could be laid against Semmes, rather the reverse. Increasingly he regarded himself as the father of every man in his company, and treated them with that amount of consideration and kindness. The result was that, as Rod had observed on board theSumter, there could never have been a crew more devoted to their captain. Even the two Negro servants, both slaves, worshipped the deck on which their master stood.