That, sir, was when Giselle stepped off a troop train to beg my return. She was heavy with child, but she screamed like the banshee and scratched like a wounded mountain lion. It was all I could do to avoid murder when the rage came upon her - as it was, I felt my open hand strike her face. Again and again, if truth be told. My youthful anger may have led me to land a fist on her distended belly, though truly I attempt to shut that memory from my mind.
I tell you, Samuel Wheeler, I was young. Foolish. I should have understood when I found the gutted bird in my bedclothes on the very next morn, and when thick, warm blood flowed from my canteen. But I was indeed a lad then, and I laughed in the face of her savage threats. When I once forced her lips to my manhood, they came away painted with my blood, her eyes dark with hatred, and then I laughed no more. She was a savage! I set about the task of teaching Giselle a lesson by way of physical mastery - yes, I ravaged that woman as if she’d been the enemy’s concubine. I tortured her body with mine and took such intense pleasure in her pain that even my own father could not accept my presence in his home after beholding the marks on her body, for I had learned uses for hot coals and needles that no prairie savage could imagine. Yet she clung to me, and I could not see the reason behind her blank eyes.
She had a reason, Wheeler, a reason as strong as life itself and much more permanent.
Hair disappeared from my comb, and my self-spilled seed was scraped into containers, though I knew it not. When she finally deposited a ruined child’s bloody body onto my floor, then I knew I had won. Her eyes flashed anger no more, and her hands hung limply at her narrow hips. I had taken from her the one thing she wanted most, you see, and it was a beaten woman I put on the next train south to New Orleans, back into the arms of her bokor mother. I thought it the end of my troubles and went about Navy business with a light heart, my mind occupied with the coming test of combat.
*
I stared at him, unbelieving. Yet his voice changed not in pitch or volume. I could see the madness then, though I could not guess what shape it would take. Forrester’s eyes seemed to be spinning, twirling as I have heard sailors describing the eyes of sharks.
A shudder crawled slowly down my back.
The whiskey dulled my senses, thank god.
*
Each day a steamer towed our cigar-shaped hull to the center of the river, near a target ship. Once in position, we drew water into the ballast tanks and the vessel sank beneath the swells. Seven men turned the single screw propeller, cranks powering the craft in a boiler’s stead. We rigged a conical torpedo behind our craft, dragging it toward the target vessel, submerging upon approach, and blowing up the ship upon contact. After a dozen such trials, our craft was deemed ready. President Davis considered Memphis lost - mostly unarmed, though shore batteries dotted its bluffs. All troops were withdrawn from Forts Pillow and Randolph under cover of darkness, so certain were we of the city’s loss.
When the Yankee fleet bombarded those fortifications, they were already empty. Meanwhile, the remainder of the Confederate fleet - eight gunboats and my tiny vessel - waited to make a stand. Wheeler, our gunboats were most effective as rams and that was how we planned to deploy them, but the Ellet rams attached to the Federal fleet wore their boilers on deck, allowing stronger bracing of the hulls.
At dawn on June 6, five Federal boats met our ragtag group.
Ah, those Memphis belles lined the bluffs, watching for heroes in the harbor. And waiting to see whose flag would fly highest that day.
The steam ram General Price towed our craft into battle. Through the glass I watched the Queen of the West ram our Colonel Lovell. Our Sumter then rammed the Queen. It was a veritable melee, and it occurred so quickly after first light that we were scarcely able to maneuver into position to participate.
I was not aware of it then, but one of the Ellets - Charles, I reckon, the engineer - took a pistol ball in the leg. He succumbed a fortnight later. Even that man’s notorious thick skin could not deflect a Dixie ball, no sir!
Then the Monarch smashes into the Lovell too, sinking the gallant ship with all hands but five. Our General Price and General Beauregard go for the Monarch, but it slips away before either can ram it.
Lest we miss the skirmish completely, I took a bearing and ordered submergence. Hayward, my second officer, opened and filled the ballast tanks and downward we plunged. Above, our two boats were ramming each other, bein’ too slow to change course. Both sank nearby, but the Pioneer was under those churning swells by then. My last sight before pulling the hatch closed above me was the early morning sun shining so brightly on the Memphis citizenry lining the bluffs in their Sunday best. I knew then. The battle was over, but the Pioneer could still get in its licks.
Indeed, in a ten-mile running fight all our other gunboats were sunk or captured - the Confederate Navy was no more, Wheeler, but we could still strike one blow, and this we did!
A narrow tube, a “breather,” brought in little air, and our candles blew out with the labored breathing of seven men turning a propeller by way of a hand-cranked shaft. A simple pump and none-too-reliable compass made up the remainder of our equipment. Only six-foot wide and four-foot deep, there was precious little movement possible in the casket-like quarters. As captain, I alone could stand erect - if the hatch were open.
My bearing was true, and we approached the Monarch with stealth even though the sun had risen to its full splendor. Perhaps they should have seen us - would have, if the excitement of victory were not still on them - but they did not, and my men strained over the propeller shaft until the sweat poured from their bodies like water from a mountain stream, hissing as the droplets spattered on the red-hot cranks. Suddenly there was no light from the tiny glass-covered portholes cut into our hull, and we knew we had drawn directly below the Federal gunboat - a minute, two, and then there was light again. We had traversed the Monarch’s beam. Our bodies slick, the temperature inside the vessel made insufferable by the heat of our exertions, we felt the tow-rope scrape the bottom of the Federal’s hull, and finally - when we thought we could turn those cranks no more, when our hands bled and the blood mixed with sweat to burn and blister like a self-forged hell - finally we heard the thump of the torpedo as it bounced across the bottom of the flat keel once, twice, three times. And then, just as we slowed our feverish turning of the propeller, there came a thunderous explosion and we were thrown from the crankshaft and scattered like puppets. Hayward’s foresight turned his efforts to the pump, purging the ballast so we could bob to the surface and view the results of our assault.
Wheeler, as I opened the hatch and heard the unmistakable rush of fire and explosions when the Federal’s powder lit, and then the tremendous roar of its boilers blowing one by one, that was truly a moment of elation such as I had never felt. The screams of the dying, both those ablaze and those who chose to drown in the river, their heavy cartridge belts dragging them down to the murky depths, those screams were as shouts of joy to my ears, to my weary arms, and the men below me - who could not see - let loose with a ragged cheer as the full impact of our actions made itself known. Not far from where we floated, enemy soldiers burned despite the river water, their oil and coal-covered bodies become torches. One turned his liquefying face to me and shouted incoherently until I drew one of my pistols and shot him in the head, his face immediately replaced by that of another dying man. Around us, men struggled against the fire and their equipment and the river and they all failed, their torch-like bodies winking out like drowned candles.
Aye, it was a scene from every hell you have ever imagined, and I laughed - mouth open and eyes wide, laughing fit to bust, even as I shot yet another man in the eye before he could drag his charred body onto the hull of my vessel.
I laughed and dealt out death in equal measure, Hayward recounted later, but I had no clear memory - only a jumble of images still to this day capable of stirring me awake. But on that great day, wonderful day, I was master of the river and emperor of the sea
s. Yes, Wheeler, I see your disgust, but this was war and we were beaten - though too stubborn to know it - and my vessel had succeeded where the Confederate Navy could not.
My men and I shared the sweet flavor of victory, even if tainted with charred flesh and burning blood. One hundred and six Federal troops, sailors, and rivermen perished either in the explosions, the fire, or drowned in the dark and merciless river. Or were finished by a ball from my revolvers. Before the day was done, bluecoats floated face-down in Memphis harbor. I saw a mere dozen splash their way safely to shore. I heard the spectators’ cheers, not knowing until later that the Queen of the West had meanwhile disembarked a four-man squad to lower the Stars and Bars and raise the Union rag above the post office.
The battle for Memphis was over.
We attempted to outrun a gunboat, but fatigue cramped the muscles in our arms and backs, and we opened the sea-cocks and scuttled the Pioneer rather than surrender it to our enemies, swimming away and dragging ourselves ashore. Fort Pemberton was our destination, but it was a distance best undertaken with fresh horses and supplies, so that night we camped on the river’s edge south of Memphis, drying our clothes and regaining our strength.
Saddened by the loss of our vessel and the city, but heartened at having struck our blow, we reminisced near the blazing fire. I had come to rely on Hayward and the others, Doughty and Parmalee, Mills and Fox and Woodson, though I was their captain, and allowed as I would be able to use my name to purchase us all places on some naval ship or privateer.
Suddenly we heard heavy rustling in the woods a few yards away and a handful of bluecoats came lumbering at us, arms outstretched, stepping rigidly as if paralyzed. Carrying no other weapons but Navy caliber pistols and cutlasses, we scrambled for our revolvers and strove to defend ourselves. You may choose to disbelieve if you wish, Wheeler, but our lead did no damage to the dozen attackers, though we saw clearly that our ball found its target. Blood and bone burst from the wounds our volley caused, yet the bluecoats came and soon we were smashing in their heads with lengths of wood from the fire. Hayward found a shovel and stove in the heads of four men all on his own, at which they finally lay down twitching and died. The rest of us followed suit as best we could, burying pistol butts into skulls until brains spattered onto our faces and tunics. We were like savages, although we found afterwards that they had torn Woodson apart between them. The six of us weighed the corpses down with rocks from the beach and sank them, then we buried the firepit and moved on, fearful of another squad’s ambush.
It was then that Hayward spoke of what we had all been thinking. “Those men wore naval coats,” he said, “and the ones I done in were looking through their eyelids, cause their eyes was tightly closed.” The men muttered agreement, but I said nothing. The slick gore that covered my pistol grips and dribbled down my trouser legs was proof enough.
The following night, camped again near the river, we were set upon by three of the shambling things - for we were certain by then that these were no longer men, but merely vessels for some kind of supernatural spirit. We did them in easily enough, saving our ball and powder this time and staving in their skulls with clubs fashioned from a farmer’s woodpile. Fox, who hailed from New Orleans bayou country, said we were cursed somehow, that these were the men of the Federal gunboat, that we were evil for having snuck up on their boat like we did and done them in, and this was their revenge. Now this seems like a load and a half, but as soon as he started raving about voudon, and what he had seen his family’s slaves doing, well, we all contemplated it a great deal. I knew immediately that the corpses were not seeking revenge for their deaths - no, they sought me for a vengeful woman and her even more vengeful mother, student of the priestess Marie Laveau.
Ah, but my story is only half-done, Wheeler. For Giselle and her mother made sure I would continue to pay.
*
I emptied my long-neglected glass and poured another. The flames of Forrester’s story seemed to clutch at my skin, crinkling it like parchment. I shuddered.
“Your health, Wheeler,” he wheezed, tilting his head to follow suit. “We haven’t much time, so prepare yourself. I do hope you’re armed.”
“I am.” I wondered at his query, but let it pass.
He patted various pistol butts in his belt and the tomahawk, and caressed the long knife sheathed on his thigh. A smaller pistol butt stuck partway out of one boot, a knife hilt from the other.
“You are a walking armory, my friend,” I whispered.
His glare silenced my lips. “Indeed.”
I shrugged. “Giselle and her mother,” I prodded.
*
We had lost mastery of the river, for New Orleans had fallen to the Yankee Farragut in late April. Giselle and her mother had fled northward to Vicksburg, now the largest Confederate stronghold between us and the bluecoats. You see, they were tearin’ out our soft underbelly, and now they had the run of the river from Kentucky clear to New Orleans, but they could not cut our east-west supply line at Vicksburg. I was destined to find Giselle in Vicksburg, for that was where we also made our way, hoping to buy a commission onto a gunboat or a lightly-armed supply steamer. I hoped to continue developing undersea vessels, though it was not to be.
In three days’ time we were once again Navy men, and heroes too. You see, word had spread from Memphis of our strange victory over the Monarch. Of course the Yankees never let that one get out - renaming one of the captured gunboats Monarch and flim-flamming the facts so that their precious fleet got no bad press. Those dead soldiers, they were listed as “missing,” and eventually dispersed onto other casualty lists. As far as the world was concerned, there was no undersea vessel. But President Davis himself rode a special train to Vicksburg, only miles from enemy lines, just to present our medals.
A week later Giselle came to my door with a message from maman. She dribbled chicken blood onto my doorway and feet, her white teeth gritted with hatred. Upon seing the medal, she splattered blood on its surface and spoke yet another incantation. Before she could turn and leave, I dragged her through the door and administered a beating the likes of which she should not have survived.
Within days, Parmalee and Mills succumbed. Parmalee made good account of himself, destroying three of the walking corpses, but in the end they tore his limbs off and battered his head to pulp. Four of seven remained, but Giselle had visited the others, cursing their medals.
I led them to the boarding house where Giselle and her crone of a mother resided. We forced entrance and I used this knife in my boot to cut furrow after furrow into Giselle’s once-beautiful face, peeling the skin and fat away like layers of salt pork - but the crone would not break. We commenced slicing off fingers and toes, but neither damned witch would recite a single word, spitting on us through ruined lips, drenching our feet with their vile blood. Before I severed the crone’s vocal cords she uttered some kind of spell, her last words, for a group of bluecoats appeared and tore Doughty’s throat out with their fingers. He had by now become a raging madman in any case, driving his knife into her body over and over to “awaken” her for further torture.
The next morning Hayward and Fox and I took passage to the coast and threw in with a privateer named Royale who smuggled powder into Florida from Central America. It was months later, on a North Florida beach, that the three of us - now in command of the vessel - dragged a ship’s dory onto the white sand and waited for our contacts, who would pay us for our load of powder. But when they emerged from the mangroves, we quickly realized they were not Confederate partisans, but more bluecoat zombis spawned from a single battle and given eternal life in hell by virtue of the curse spoken against me.
Don’t doubt me, Wheeler, for this is the truth.
The corpses moved quickly, and Hayward and Fox and the others in our landing party were caught unawares. Though I shouted, “Bluecoats!”, only Hayward and Fox understood my true meaning, just in time to rake cutlasses across the throats of two hellspawn who charged together. T
he rage-borne hatred flowed from me and then I waded into a group of them, my blades and pistol flashing in the half-dark like rays of silver moonlight enslaved.
The zombis proved difficult foes, and my two unknowing sailors could not comprehend how their well-placed ball had no effect. In moments, cadavers swarmed over them and opened their bellies like one guts fresh mackerel.
Even in my blind rage I saw that the group was of manageable size, and Hayward and Fox also stood and fought, beating back the attack corpse by corpse, finishing off demons with lead ball or knife-thrust. But individual demons, faces grinning maniacally, singled out each of us and set to with uncommon persistence.
I faced off with a corpse but was forced to retreat from the intensity of his attack. Indeed, his ragged talons burned furrows along my cheeks and chest, and I nearly stumbled. The creature pressed its advantage, knocking the Bowie knife from my hand and coming in for the kill. Wheeler, I thought the curse fulfilled, when someone - Hayward - beheaded the cadaver with a single tomahawk stroke, showering us both with black gore and a gout of grave-rotted blood. Hayward wielded the unusual weapon with the certainty of a true warrior, making cuts with one hand and switching to chops, then following with swipes of his cutlass. Together we felled a half dozen corpses and Hayward deprived half again as many of their limbs with single, well-aimed hatchet swings. I emptied both pistols, swung knife and cutlass and finished off those Hayward had slowed. Then Fox handed me another loaded pistol and headed for the fray again with a new pistol in his fist. The pile of twitching bodies around us grew, until I saw Fox falter as a particularly obstinate corpse tore out his right arm at the shoulder. He fell to his knees and I watched as they surged over his body, ripping and tearing with red-stained lips and claws.
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