Iron Ships, Iron Men

by Christopher Nicole

  For the crew of theKearsage, the episode had meant nothing but frustration, as month after weary month drifted by, with no news of theAlabama other than that she seemed to be making hay amongst American shipping in the Indian Ocean, and no certainty that they would be able to bring her to battle when she did return to European waters. Spirits began to droop. And Flushing was hardly the most brilliantly attractive of seaport towns.

  But today Winslow was smiling, if a trifle sadly, as he summoned Jerry to his cabin. ‘I have some news for you, Mr McGann,’ he said.

  ‘Sir?’ Jerry’s heartbeat quickened. News to him had to mean Marguerite and Joey. Perhaps the boy was ill!

  ‘You are to leave us.’

  ‘Sir?’ Jerry asked again, uncertain whether to be glad or sorry.

  ‘I have a communication here from the Navy Department. You have been given command of the USSTippecanoe, with promotion to the rank of Commander, both effective immediately. Congratulations, Commander McGann. I think your promotion was long overdue.’

  Jerry was too surprised to speak, this time; he had virtually abandoned hope of ever getting his own ship, at least before the war ended.

  ‘She is part of Admiral Farragut’s command,’ Winslow went on, ‘and the Admiral is apparently in a hurry for you to join her. You must be there not later than the end of July. Well, that gives us six weeks. You should be able to make it, but if I were you I would arrange passage immediately.’

  ‘Does he say why the haste, specifically, sir?’ Jerry asked, his heart pounding quite painfully now.

  ‘Well, yes, he does, in the strictest confidence. He is under orders to reduce the seaport of Mobile, Alabama, which has become the South’s last naval base of any consequence, and intends to commence the campaign in August. My God ... Mobile! Is that not where your wife and son are?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jerry said. ‘I shall be sorry to leaveKearsage, sir, but ...’

  ‘My dear fellow, you have my blessing. What a triumph it will be, for you to reclaim them, as captain of your own ship. Yes, indeed. Now ...’ he got up, to glare at the door as there was an urgent knocking. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Sir.’ The midshipman was panting with excitement. ‘We have received an important communication, sir. By telegraph from Paris to our minister in The Hague, and which he has sent down to us by courier.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Winslow held out his hand, took the sheet of stiff paper, read it. ‘By God,’ he commented. ‘By God!’ He gave it to Jerry.

  Who scanned the words. ‘Information just received CSSAlabamacoaling in French port of Cherbourg stop Will bring pressure to insure she is allowed no more than regulation three days stop Can your vessel be off Cherbourg day after tomorrow latest stop Chance may not recur God speed Dayton.’

  ‘At last,’ Jerry breathed.

  ‘Reply affirmative, boy,’ Winslow told the midshipman. ‘Well, Jerry, I am more than ever sorry to lose you, but I am afraid I must ask you to go ashore immediately. I must sail within the hour.’

  Jerry’s brain was racing. Because if he wanted to command his own ship, and to find Marguerite and Joey, with his whole being, there was one thing he wanted more — to settle with Rod Bascom.

  And here surely was an opportunity to accomplish all of those objectives.

  ‘Three days will scarcely affect my taking command of theTippecanoe, sir,’ he said. ‘I can obtain a passage across the Atlantic probably more easily from a French port than from a Dutch.’

  ‘By God, I was sure you’d stay,’ Winslow cried, and held out his hand. ‘Let us put to sea, Commander McGann. And rid the oceans of a pest.’ Then he frowned. ‘If we can. I wonder if Paris is arranging support. I wonder if there is support available. TheAlabama outguns us, you know. If it comes to a straight ship to ship slugging match, she may well prove the stronger.’

  Jerry nodded.

  ‘But you still want to come along?’

  ‘Providing you are going to fight her.’

  ‘Oh, I am going to fight her, if she’ll keep still long enough for me to catch her. But that doesn’t alter the fact that if she gets us in the sights of that big Blakeley, she could blow us out of the water. What is really needed to settle her is an ironclad.’ He shrugged. ‘But as we don’t have one, we will just have to see what wood can do.’ Jerry frowned. ‘With respect, sir, what does an ironclad have that we do not?’ Winslow’s expression suggested that he suspected the euphoria over his promotion might be affecting his senior lieutenant’s brain. ‘Iron plating on her sides, Commander. Off which even those Blakeley’s balls might bounce.’

  ‘Yes, sir. So, if we could set up a barrier against those balls, we could be similarly protected.’

  Winslow scratched his head. ‘You have lost me, Commander McGann. Are you suggesting we attempt to plate our topsides? We are sailing in an hour.’

  ‘I have been thinking about the problem all year, sir,’ Jerry said. ‘I also have been considering what the Confederates achieved in armouring their three so-called ironclads, using railway tracks. Now, sir, suppose we were to use all our anchor chain, and even take on more chain ... that can certainly be done in an hour ... and on our way down channel rig the chain along the sides of the ship ... then we would at least have ironribs, off which the Confederate balls might well bounce.’

  ‘By God,’ Winslow said. ‘By God.’

  *

  James Bulloch came up the boarding ladder from the dockside on to the deck of the CSSAlabama, saluted the marine sentries guarding the gangway, and shook hands with Captain Semmes. He did not look any happier than the last time they had met.

  ‘Well?’ Semmes demanded.

  Bulloch led him aft, out of earshot of the crew. ‘The French Government absolutely refuses to sell you any powder, Captain Semmes. What is more, I have been able to secure only one day’s extension on the mandatory time you may stay in port; the day after tomorrow you must sail or risk internment.’

  Semmes nodded, without great concern. ‘Well, we have completed provisioning, and we coal tomorrow. I would have liked to be able to slip her and scrape and paint the bottom, but that cannot be helped. And we actually do have sufficient powder for another cruise, even if it may not be as efficient as it once was. As soon as our coaling is complete, we will put back to sea. Do not look so disconsolate, Commander. You have done the best you could, and you have my thanks.’

  ‘There is another problem,’ Bulloch said.

  Semmes raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Your arrival here has been the talk of France, as you may imagine. And Dayton, the American Minister, has not been slow to learn the facts, or to act upon them. One of my friends in the post office has informed me that he has sent telegraphic messages to all Federal ministers in Europe, requesting them to send any Federal cruisers they may be able to contact to Cherbourg with all despatch. He means to catch you, Captain.’

  ‘The devil,’ Kell said, having joined them. ‘Can any of them get here in forty-eight hours?’

  ‘There is one might do it,’ Bulloch told him. ‘The USSKearsage, presently in Flushing, Holland. That is certainly within forty-eight hours of Cherbourg, maybe less. I’m afraid my advice to you, Captain Semmes, would be to leave here immediately, forgetting about coaling, and reach the open Atlantic before theKearsage gets here.’

  Kell began to nod, then glanced at his captain, who had turned away and walked to the rail, to look out at the harbour. When he turned back, his face seemed to glow. ‘A Federal cruiser,’ he said. ‘Coming here to catch us, by God. TheKearsage. What do we have on her, Mr Bascom?’

  Rod had just joined them, with the latest Navy List, which he had actually only obtained the previous afternoon from the French admiral of the port, and had not yet had the time to study in detail. ‘TheKearsage,’ he read, having found the appropriate page. ‘One of the new steam sloops built since the commencement of the war. Approximately our own size, and more heavily manned, but not as fast or as manoeuvrable, I would say; twelve knots i
s her maximum speed.’

  ‘But she may have a clean bottom,’ Kell pointed out, while Bulloch looked from face to face in growing dismay.

  ‘What is her largest gun, Mr Bascom?’

  ‘A four-point-two inch Parrott, sir.’ Semmes snorted. ‘A pop gun. I’ll not run from that, Commander Bulloch.’

  Bulloch bit his lip, and looked at Kell, who hesitated, then grinned. ‘As the Captain says, Commander — we can blow her out of the water.’

  ‘But in the name of God ...’ Bulloch looked at Rod in despair. ‘It is madness to risk the ship when you can so easily escape.’

  ‘To what purpose, if we do not take on coal?’ Semmes asked. ‘Without coal we cannot overhaul our objectives. We would become merely a sailing man-of-war.’

  ‘But ... Rod ...’ Bulloch begged.

  But Rod had allowed himself to continue reading, and had reached the list ofKearsage’s officers. ‘Captain,’ he read to himself, ‘John L Winslow. First Lieutenant, Jeremiah McGann ...’ Jerry McGann, he thought. Sailing towards him to give battle. Now they would face each other again. But this time, even with defective powder, the odds were surely on his side.

  ‘Rod,’ Bulloch appealed again.

  ‘I must stand beside my captain, Commander.’

  Bulloch looked from face to face, then shrugged, and smiled. ‘I cannot blame you. I wish I were coming with you.’ He held out his hand. ‘God speed, Captain Semmes. If you can sink theKearsage, it will be the greatest tonic our people will have had since the war began. In any event, the honour of the Confederacy sails with you.’

  ‘And will be upheld,’ Semmes promised him. ‘You may be sure of that.’

  *

  ‘Land ho,’ called the lookout.

  ‘That will be Cape Levy,’ Captain Winslow said, studying the coast through his binoculars. ‘You’ll alter course two points to starboard, cox. It is a mass of rocks and tideraces some distance out,’ he told Jerry, standing beside him. ‘You’ll shorten sail, Mr McGann, and tell the engine room to raise steam. God, I hope she is still there.’

  It was early in the afternoon, and theKearsage had come down the Channel in twenty-four hours. Every man on board knew by now what they were after, and enthusiasm was running high: they had waited a year for this opportunity. She has to be there, Jerry thought, watching the coastline unfolding, or I should be on a ship for Mobile, Alabama, and Admiral Farragut’s squadron. She has to be there.

  An hour later he could make out the massive breakwaters enclosing the outer race, surmounted by the circular forts. ‘Do we ask permission to enter the port, sir?’ he while the other prisoners asked

  ‘No,’ Winslow decided. ‘We’ll not risk getting caught up in any more damned neutrality nonsense; the French might well insist on us allowing theAlabamatwenty-four hours to escape. We’ll heave to outside the three mile limit. But I wish you to go ashore and discover what is happening, and if theAlabama is still there.’

  ‘Aye-aye, sir,’ Jerry said.

  ‘And Mr McGann ... stay out of trouble, no matter what the provocation.’ For the captain was well aware Rod Bascom served with the Confederate raider — and during the incident in Brest his men had engaged in more than one brawl with the crew of theFlorida.

  Jerry nodded, and gave the necessary orders. Soon the ship’s cutter was pulling between the breakwaters, watched by the marines in the Fort of the West. They rounded the inner mole, and Jerry caught his breath; he had never seen theAlabama, but there was no mistaking, even at a distance, the lines of the steam barque, which was engaging in coaling, and a few minutes later they were close enough to identify both the flag and the name on her counter, just as the seamen on the raider could clearly make out the stars and stripes flying from the stern of the cutter — they abandoned their work to crowd the rail and stare at her.

  Jerry pulled to the first available steps, told his coxswain not to let a man leave the boat, and went ashore to report to the Admiral of the Port.

  ‘You wish permission to enter our harbour, sir?’ the French officer asked.

  ‘No, sir. I but wish to ascertain when the time limit extended to the CSSAlabama under the international neutrality laws will expire.’

  ‘Why, sir, she must sail by noon tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Jerry saluted, left the office, and checked, heart seeming to slow, as he watched a squad of marines approaching him; at their head was the unmistakeable figure of Rod Bascom.

  The party stopped, and Rod saluted. ‘Lieutenant McGann.’

  Jerry returned the salute. ‘Lieutenant Bascom.’

  They gazed at each other. ‘I have a message from Captain Semmes for Captain Winslow,’ Rod said.

  Jerry waited.

  ‘Captain Semmes wishes to convey to Captain Winslow that he understands the reasons that have brought the USSKearsageto Cherbourg, and that, if your captain will but be patient and wait until we have finished coalingAlabama, which should be some time this evening, he will attend Captain Winslow with his full complement in order to decide which is the better ship.’

  The effrontery of the scoundrel, Jerry thought. But he nodded. ‘I can assure you that my captain will accept the challenge, Mr Bascom.’

  ‘I never doubted it. Well, then, until tomorrow.’ Rod hesitated, then held out his hand. ‘May the best ship win.’

  ‘I am sure it shall,’ Jerry said, ignoring the proffered fingers.

  Rod continued to stare at him. ‘Once you called me Rod,’ he said softly. ‘I would be happy were you to do so again, before I kill you.’

  ‘Once I called you friend,’ Jerry reminded him. ‘Now I call you enemy, and mean to attend to your destruction, and that of your pirate ship and crew.’

  Rod hesitated again, then saluted, turned, and led his men back along the dock.

  *

  Of course Jerry could not be blamed for hating him, Rod told himself; he had done his erstwhile friend irreparable harm. How odd that so much should have arisen from so chance a meeting. If theMontgomery'sanchor had held that day off Cuba, Jerry would not have needed to call for assistance; if theSplendid's engine had not failed at so crucial a moment, they would merely have nodded to each other and sailed away. Now they must try to kill each other. But he had known for two years that it would some day come to this.

  And how much else had rested on that chance meeting. This uniform he wore. The epoch-making cruise he had just completed. And Marguerite. Whatever happened now or in the future, he would not have had it otherwise.

  Captain Semmes was on deck at dawn. ‘A fine day, Mr Bascom,’ he said.

  ‘No wind, sir,’ Rod pointed out.

  ‘We are not going to need a wind. This battle will be decided by steam and gunpowder,’ Semmes told him. ‘Calm conditions are ideal for us. It will be a great day for the Confederacy. I feel it in my bones. How the news of our victory will resound around the world. By God, but I seem to have waited all my life for this moment.’

  Rod could believe that. But then, he might have done the same. He had now seen action enough himself. But apart from theHatter as, which had been grotesquely outgunned, and the gunboat skirmish in the Mississippi, his only real experience of ship to ship combat had been on board theVirginia, and he had to regard that as a total freak, on both sides. Here were two wooden vessels about to face each other in a duel to the death — that was what sea warfare had always been about. That it was also a personal matter made him the more anxious to get to grips with the enemy. His blood tingled, even as his throat was dry and his belly light.

  ‘It’s apparently a popular match,’ Kell remarked, pointing at the shore, which was crammed with people, while boats were putting off to convey even more spectators to the outer breakwater to get a closer view of the coming action — at least a third of the would-be onlookers were women, but there were even children mingled in the throng. And they would certainly have a grandstand view of the action; theKearsage could clearly be seen as the morning mist began to lift, hove
to and drifting in the strong Channel tide, just three miles off — she already had steam up, and every half an hour stemmed the tide to move back into position.

  ‘Where the devil have all these people come from?’ Semmes demanded. ‘Well, we must endeavour to entertain them, gentlemen. But first, we’d better entertainhim.' For the Port Admiral’s barge was nosing alongside the Confederate raider; she had moved away from the dock on to a mooring the moment coaling had been completed.

  Rod hastily assembled a guard of honour, and the Frenchman came on board, to salute the quarterdeck and then shake hands with Semmes. ‘We seem to have attracted quite a crowd, monsieur,’ the Captain remarked.

  ‘Ah,Mon Dieu, Captain Semmes, but they have been arriving all night. There have even been special trains from Paris, bringing people to see the fight. A sea battle, here on our doorstep; Cherbourg has never seen anything like it.’

  Rod scratched his head; the French were apparently treating the event as some colossal carnival.

  ‘And you are determined to go through with it?’ the French officer asked.

  Semmes frowned. ‘Should I not be?’

  ‘Well, sir ...’ the Frenchman hesitated. ‘I have had the Union vessel inspected through the most powerful glasses at my disposal, and I have also had the report of a fishing vessel which was enabled to get close to her last night ... she has armoured her topsides, sir.’

  ‘Armoured her topsides?’ Kell demanded.

  Semmes looked at Rod. ‘You did not mention this, Mr Bascom.’

  ‘She is described as a wooden vessel, sir,’ Rod told him.

  ‘You’d best explain, monsieur,’ Semmes said to the Frenchman.

  ‘Well, sir, she has, somewhat ingeniously, in my opinion, strung iron chains from stem to stern along her exposed hull, to act as a barrier to your shot.’