Glory In The Name

by James L. Nelson

  This one got a ramrod right up his ass, he thought. Taylor stepped across the deck, brushed past Lieutenant Harwell, thrust out his hand. “Captain…?”

  “Samuel Bowater.” He took Taylor’s hand, matched the strength of his grip, looked him in the eyes with no hint of expression. If he was angry or afraid or disgusted or pleased, Hieronymus Taylor could not tell. “And you are?”

  “First Assistant Engineer Hieronymus M. Taylor, sir. This here’s my engineering division. Them there’s the black gang. Coal heavers is black as coal, as you can see.”

  “Hmm, indeed.” Captain Bowater released his grip. His eyes flicked up and down Taylor’s clothing. His patrician expression did not change any more than that of a statue would change, but still Taylor felt the disdain radiate from the man. It was a particular trick that these gentlemen had.

  “What is the state of the engine, Chief?”

  “Ready for fire. Coal boxes are full. Soft coal, not so bad. Shit, we been sittin here for three weeks with our thumbs up our collective asses. Managed to get some damned things done.”

  Bowater just nodded and his eyes did not leave Taylor’s, and the chief thought, Damn, he got some fire in his belly. This Captain Samuel Bowater would not be so easily cowed. Hieronymus Taylor wondered if they might get deep into the monkey show after all. Maybe do some real fighting, put a shell through a Yankee or two. He felt a spark of hope, even through the immediate and thorough dislike he was harboring.

  “When can you have steam up?” Bowater asked.

  “Don’t you want to have a look ’round the ship first, Cap’n?”

  “I am looking at the ship now, Chief. I want to know when you can have steam up.”

  This ain’t goin so good. “Five hours.”

  “Good. Make it so.” Bowater turned away, done with Hieronymus Taylor. The chief felt like an overseer being dismissed, sent back to the cotton fields.

  “Lieutenant,” Bowater said to Harwell, “please have some hands help my servant with my things. You may show me the master’s cabin, if you will, then muster the hands aft for inspection. Then I will inspect the ship.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. McKeown, Williams, bear a hand with the captain’s things! Please, this way, sir.” With that, Harwell and Bowater walked off down the side deck and disappeared around the corner of the deckhouse.

  “Well, damn me,” Taylor said. He pulled his soggy cigar stub from his mouth, spit out the flecks of tobacco on his tongue. He scratched at his chin and the usual three days’ growth of beard there. He was never certain if he was growing a beard or not, it was a day-by-day decision. Finally he returned his violin to his case and snapped it shut. “Moses, get them darkies down t’the engine room and start buildin’ the fires. Y’all heard what Captain Samuel Bowater said.”

  7

  I reached Norfolk on the morning of the 19th instant and found the city in a state of great excitement…

  – Major General William B. Taliaferro, Virginia Provisional Army, to John Letcher, Governor of Virginia

  There was panic in the air. Commander James Alden thought he could smell it, like a whiff of smoke from a far-off fire. Far off, but closing.

  The Gosport naval yard seemed wrapped in an intangible strangeness, as if all the people there-and there were not so many anymore-were mesmerized. They seemed to wander about, unsure what to do, not knowing who was in charge.

  Alden paused at the Merrimack ’s brow, looked around, unsure himself. The yard seemed bathed in a weird light. The colors were different. Brighter. Everything seemed more intense.

  He shook his head, cursed himself silently. He would not be caught up in this nonsense.

  That is not my affair…. Alden clambered down the brow, stepped quickly across the yard, making once again for the commodore’s office.

  The rumors had been filtering in: militia and Confederate Army troops massing in the city, thousands arriving by train, batteries going up on Craney Island and all the points that commanded the shipyard and the anchorage.

  Those stories had been circulating since before he and Isherwood had arrived, but now they had a new momentum, and every hour brought fresh and more alarming news. Rumor built upon rumor until the people found themselves glancing up at the brick wall that surrounded the yard and half expecting to see Rebels pouring over it.

  Head down, Alden paced off the steps across the cobbled shipyard. I’ll wear a path in these stones before I am free of this place…

  The shipyard was McCauley’s concern. The Merrimack was his. His only thought was to get the frigate under the guns of Fortress Monroe at Old Point Comfort.

  He stepped into the building that housed the commodore’s office. It was Thursday, the 18th of April, but it might as well have been a Sunday evening for all the activity there. Gone were the officers and warrants hustling in and out of the various offices, pleading for this or that, gone were the civilian engineers and shop stewards and correspondence secretaries and enlisted men. Gone was almost everyone, and more leaving by the hour.

  Of those who were left, Alden was not sure whom he could trust. He hoped to soon be one of the gone himself.

  McCauley’s office was open, and Alden entered without knocking. The old man had his frock coat on and was wearing sword and pistol. He was not alone.

  Commodore Pendergrast, commander of the Home Squadron, was there. The Home Squadron had found itself at Norfolk when the trouble first began to simmer and had been ordered by Gideon Welles to remain and lend its weight of iron to the defense of the shipyard. Along with Pendergrast was Captain Marston, captain of the 1,708-ton sloop-of-war Cumberland, flagship of the squadron.

  “Commander Alden, good you are here…should be part of this…” McCauley said, and his voice sounded even less promising than it had that morning. “Just discussing the strategic situation here…last report I heard, must be two thousand of these damned Rebels massing…”

  “It would seem so, sir. Commodore, Merrimack has her head up steam. I’ve men enough to get her to Fortress Monroe, at least. I beg of you, sir, give me leave to go.”

  McCauley threw a hopeful look at the other officers. “Pendergrast, what do you think?”

  “Welles says to move the ship. It ain’t going to get any easier. Best do it now.”

  Alden wanted to cross the room and hug the man. How clear and straightforward was his perception of the situation!

  “Well…” McCauley sputtered. “You have men enough for this, Alden?”

  “There are men enough in the engine room. If I can beg of Captain Marston thirty men from Cumberland-I’ll send them right back, soon as we’re under Monroe’s guns-then I have enough.”

  Marston frowned, and the expression brought out a hundred more lines in an already craggy face, but he nodded his big head. “I can spare you thirty men, Commander, if you sent ’em right back.”

  All eyes turned back to McCauley. The commodore breathed deep. Alden tensed. This is a lot of work just to get the old bastard to let me do what the Secretary of the Navy ordered me to, he thought, and then McCauley nodded as well.

  “Very good, Commander. Take Merrimack out of here before these Rebels can get their damned hands on her.”

  Alden straightened, and he felt inches taller. “Aye, aye, sir,” he said.

  Marston stood up from the desk on which he had been leaning. “I’ll arrange for those men, Alden, march ’em over to Merrimack,” and with no more ceremony he left McCauley’s office.

  “Thank you, sir. Oh, and sir?” Alden turned back to McCauley. He felt he was pushing his luck, as if inching farther out on ice of dubious thickness. “Sir, the ordnance is all out of the ship. If I could have a couple of field pieces, something we could bring right up the brow, that should serve as battery enough for now.”

  “Yes, yes, very well,” said McCauley. Now that the decision was made, he seemed to not want to hear more about it. “Go see Tucker about it.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. And sir…you have done the right
thing, if I may be so bold…”

  “Yes, yes, yes, dismissed, Commander.” McCauley waved him away, did not meet his eye.

  Alden fairly ran out of the commodore’s office, raced back to Merrimack and up the brow. Lieutenant Murray, first officer of the Cumberland, who had volunteered to help with Merrimack, was on deck. He was in discussion with Chief Isherwood.

  “Mr. Isherwood, Murray, praise God, we have orders to get the ship out of here!”

  “Most high miracle,” Isherwood said dryly. “God alone could have moved that man to make a decision.”

  “God and Commodore Pendergrast, reminding him of his duties. Where is Lieutenant Poindexter?” Poindexter was the Merrimack’s first officer. Alden would have expected to find him on deck as well.

  “I haven’t seen him,” said Murray.

  “No matter, I’ll find him. Mr. Isherwood, if I might impose upon you to see the engines ready to get us underway?”

  Isherwood nodded.

  “And Mr. Murray, we need a pilot. Do you know of a pilot who will take us out of here?”

  “Ahh,” Murray equivocated in a way that Alden did not like to hear. “That won’t be easy. Since Virginia went secesh, none of the pilots’ll work a government ship. They’re all afraid of being hanged, apparently, by the damned Rebels.”

  “Well, find one. Offer a thousand dollars to the man who will get Merrimack to Fortress Monroe. Wait…offer twice that if he can get the Germantown there, too. We’ll tow her out. And offer a place for life in the navy, as well.”

  Murray smiled. “He’ll need that. Damned sure won’t be going back home anytime soon.”

  “Good. Go.”

  “Aye, aye!” Murray hurried off, and Alden was glad he did not ask if he, Commander Alden, had the authority to make such offers. To hell with it. We’ll sort it out when the ships are safe.

  “I must see to getting us a few guns, Mr. Isherwood,” Alden said next.

  “I will see the fires stoked up, Mr. Alden,” Isherwood said. He looked pleased. That was a change from the seemingly permanent dour look that the frustrations of the past week had stamped on his face.

  Alden raced back down the brow and back across the yard to the ordnance shed. It was a grand warehouse of artillery, and where it met the water’s edge, a great set of shears rose up overhead, used for lifting the heavy guns and setting them down on ships warped alongside. He would have liked to put those to use, to have Merrimack’s twenty-four nine-inch guns back in place, but there was no time. If he could get a couple of three-inch ordnance rifles he would be happy.

  He stepped out of the sunshine and into the gloom of the cavernous ordnance building. On the far side of the big shed door was the office of Commander J. R. Tucker, ordnance officer for the naval yard. One of the few officers who had not resigned.

  Alden crossed over to Tucker’s office, knocked, and entered. Tucker was at his desk, his frock coat unbuttoned, his feet up, heels resting on the edge of the desktop. He made no move to assume a more businesslike position.

  “Commander Alden! What can I do for you, this fine spring day?”

  Alden stiffened. Tucker’s informality would have been objectionable in the normal course of affairs. In the current crisis it was near insufferable. “I need guns, Mr. Tucker. For…”

  “No, no, no. That ain’t gonna happen, Mr. Alden. I don’t have men to work the shears, or…”

  “Damn the shears. I need two field pieces, that’s all. Howitzers, three-inch rifles, whatever you have, just something I can defend the Merrimack with.”

  Tucker smiled, shook his head. “It’s all these damned disloyal workers, all gone over to the Rebs, now Virginia is out.”

  “Never mind the workers. Marston’s giving me thirty men out of Cumberland. Give me a pair of guns on field carriages and we’ll get them up the brow.”

  Once more Tucker shook his head. “It ain’t just men I’m wanting for, Alden. I haven’t got the requisition forms I need to issue guns, don’t know where in hell I would get them.”

  Alden made to speak again, but Tucker talked right over his protest. “And even if I had them, who would approve them? The damned office is deserted, old McCauley’s too drunk, I’ll bet. I’m sorry, Mr. Alden, I sure as hell would like to help you, but there is just nothing I can do.” He shrugged, smiled, and then Alden realized what was what.

  The commander straightened, looked down on Tucker, hoped that the disgust he felt was evident. He could see what Tucker was, now. Traitor, secesh. It was like discovering that a friend and shipmate is in fact an escaped criminal. He tried to think of something to say, something proportionately scathing, but nothing would come.

  “Good day,” he said, and turned and stamped out. Through the open door he could hear Tucker call, “And good day to you, Commander! Good luck with them guns!” The humor in his voice was like a knife to Alden.

  He crossed back, making once again for the commodore’s office. Having ordered Merrimack away, perhaps McCauley would have the guts now to stand up to Tucker. He saw Lieutenant Poindexter across the yard.

  “Lieutenant! Lieutenant!” Alden shouted, and Poindexter stopped and waved. Alden hurried over to him. “Lieutenant, we’ve received orders to go. Isherwood is stoking the boilers up. I need you to single up the fasts and have the ship winded. We’ve no time to lose.”

  “Single up the fasts…?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant. It is customary when leaving a dock. What in hell is the matter with you?”

  “It’s just…well, sir, I reckon you need to get permission from Commander Robb.”

  “Robb?” Commander Robert Robb was the executive officer of the shipyard. “I have orders from Commodore McCauley!”

  “Well, pardon, sir, it’s just, I think we need Commander Robb’s permission to do that…”

  Alden looked at Poindexter, and where before he had seen a handsome young lieutenant of the United States Navy, he now saw a loathsome, ugly thing. Like Tucker. A man whose loyalties were not where Alden had thought.

  Involuntarily he glanced to his right and left. It was like a dream, as if he suddenly realized that he was not in the place he thought he was, that the people he took to be friends and comrades were really people he did not know.

  Without a word he abandoned Poindexter to his halfhearted protestations and headed back to McCauley’s office, his pace just short of a run.

  “Whoa, there, Commander!”

  Alden looked up. Standing in his way was Commander Robb. Had Robb not spoken, Alden would have run him down like a ship in a fog.

  “See here, Robb…what’s the meaning of Poindexter telling me we need your permission to get Merrimack underway? I’ve orders from McCauley, and I don’t reckon I need any others…”

  “Hold up, there, Mr. Alden!” Robb held up his hands in mock defense. “No one is saying that Commodore McCauley isn’t in charge here. But I am the executive officer, as you well know, and these things must come from me.”

  Alden drew a breath. “Very well, then, may I have permission to single fasts and wind the ship?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I’m sorry, Commander. You may not have the ship.”

  Alden just shook his head. He had no words.

  “Commodore McCauley has changed his mind. We need to keep the Merrimack here. If we try to move her now it will only infuriate the thousands of troops mustered in town.”

  Alden glared at Robb through narrowed eyes. Robb’s soft voice, the accent of northern Virginia, sounded to Alden like the strident shriek of a traitor, howling out his perfidy. “Damn you…”

  “Yes, yes. Now please go and draw your fires.”

  “To hell with you, sir. I will not take orders from a traitor.” Alden pushed past Robb, made a point of physically pushing him out of the way, and stamped into McCauley’s office.

  “Sir!” Alden shouted. McCauley looked up, his eyes bleary and rimmed with red, his face gray and sagging. He looked much worse tha
n he had even that morning, and Alden, who had intended to shout at him, softened his approach.

  “Sir, I have just spoken with Commander Robb, whose loyalties I frankly question. He could not have told me the truth.”

  “I’ve spoken with Robb. We both agree Merrimack should remain. You may draw the fires and stand down to an engine watch.”

  “Sir…”

  McCauley slammed the flat of his hand down on the desk, a more energetic move than Alden would have thought him capable of, and Alden started. “Goddamn it!” McCauley shouted. “Do you think I have not examined this from all angles? Goddamn it! Fifty-two years I have been in this navy, was a captain while you were still at your mother’s tit, sir, and I will not have you in here questioning my every order!”

  Alden straightened, came to attention. McCauley was no traitor, but traitors had his ear and they had swayed him and he would not be swayed back. He had made the last decision that he had the energy to make, Alden could see that, and that decision would stand.

  “Aye, aye, sir. I will go and see the fires are drawn.” He turned and left the office, and he knew he would not return.

  A cable length from the Merrimack he stopped and ran his eyes over her. She was a grand and solid thing, with her high black sides and the single white band running from gunport to gunport. She had none of the elegant sweep of the ships of an earlier era-her sheer was perfectly straight-but what that lost her in grace it added in giving her a formidable, martial look. If she was the descendant of the great high-pooped, gilded men-of-war of centuries past, then she had evolved into something leaner, more efficient, more deadly, the naval equivalent of Mr. Darwin’s theory.

  She did not look so magnificent now, with her masts and yards all gone, down to the lower masts, and not a bit of standing rigging to support those. Smoke was rolling out of her funnel, midway between the fore and main masts, a thick black smoke, and Alden knew that down in the belly of the ship Isherwood was pushing the men to get the fires up and the boilers churning and the steam pumping through the pipes.