Bowater dashed back into the wheelhouse, grabbed the pull for the engine-room bell, rang up half ahead. “I’ll take this,” he said to the helmsman, pushing him aside and taking up the wheel. Tight maneuvering in a small vessel-it was easier for him to do it himself than to give helm commands.
He swung the Cape Fear’s bow off, headed her right for the granite breakwater. The shipyard was in flames from one end to the other, and some of it was lit as if it was noon and some was in shadow. The edge of the seawall made a sharp line where the yard met the river.
Samuel spun the wheel and the Cape Fear heeled into the turn and he rang for engine stop. It was a heady sensation to feel the tug move under his hands, feel the strong boat respond to his hand on the wheel, his hand on the engine-room bell.
The bow swung past the seawall, and Bowater rang engines astern and with a twist of the wheel brought the eighty-foot tug against the granite pier.
One jingle, all stop, and he felt the tug settle down as the screw ceased its thrashing. He leaned out the wheelhouse door. The fire had taken over the ship houses and engulfed them, the flames already reaching hundreds of feet in the air. There was a great roaring sound, the sound of rushing air, as the fires consumed everything: wood, stone, metal, the air itself.
Eustis Babcock was ashore with the forward fast, and he was directing the others to stern and spring lines.
Samuel Bowater took a deep breath, took in smoke and the swell of burning wood and paint and the coal smoke from his own boilers. He felt the excitement rush through him. He thought of how the fire had raced over and consumed Merrimack. That was it exactly. He felt strong, charged, with a head up steam, alive, as he had not felt in years. He was Rip Van Winkle. He was experiencing his own personal Great Awakening.
He turned, raced down the ladder to the side deck, nearly colliding with Thadeous Harwell.
“Sir, shore party is told off and assembled on the fantail, sir,” he said. Harwell could hardly contain his excitement, and it reminded Bowater to get control of his own.
“Well done, Lieutenant. Now see here, you are in command while I am gone. You are to concern yourself with the safety of the vessel above all else, even if it means casting off and leaving us, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Bowater regarded the young man for a moment, saw himself with the guns of Veracruz firing in the distance. He felt sorry for him. “Your chance will come, Mr. Harwell.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Bowater gave him a slap on the shoulder, hurried down the side deck. There on the fantail was Hieronymus Taylor. He had shed his coat and now his braces made two dark lines across his stained white shirt. He held his cigar clamped in his teeth, and on one shoulder rested a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun.
The rest of the party was assembled, with cutlasses hanging from belts and rugged sea-service carbines in their hands. And there was Jacob, who had been though this drill many times, waiting with sword belt, sword, and pistol.
Eustis Babcock was back aboard. He had his back toward Samuel, staring out over the water, and then he turned and Bowater could see tears streaming down his deep-lined cheeks.
“Mr. Babcock?”
“It’s the Merrimack, sir. The dear old Merrimack. Look what them Yankee bastards done to her, sir, just look!”
Bowater nodded. Ten years as boatswain aboard that ship, Babcock would love her as much as he loved his home state. He might as well have been watching Mobile burn.
“Well, let us go and make them pay for this,” Bowater said, a silly, shallow platitude that disgusted him even as he said it. But Babcock nodded and wiped his cheeks with his sleeve. Looked more like a boy in a sailor suit than the grizzled veteran that he was. The words seemed to have bolstered him.
Sailors and their damned sentimental… Bowater thought, and turned his attention back to the rest of the shore party.
“Listen here, men…stick close by me when we’re ashore…” He raised his arms and let Jacob wrap the belt around his waist and buckle it. “We’ll…” He was not sure what else to say. He did not know what they were going to do. Instead he pulled his pistol from its holster, his own personal.36-caliber Navy Colt, a present from his father. It gleamed in the light of the fires onshore, and the engraved vines that twisted around the sides of the weapon stood out bold and the ivory handle glowed orange. He spun the cylinder, checked the caps, reholstered it.
“Let’s go.”
He turned and stepped up onto the tug’s rail and jumped the five feet to the cobbled yard below. The heat was overwhelming, even from that distance, like standing in front of an oven. One by one the men dropped to the ground beside him.
He turned and counted. The shore party was all there. He marched off toward the burning ship houses, because that seemed the focal point of the growing destruction. He wondered if the yard was still in Federal hands, or if the Confederates had come over the wall. He wondered if they might be shot by their own side.
“Don’t see how hell could be much diff’r’nt than this,” Taylor remarked, stepping up to Bowater’s side. “Reckon we’ll find out, soon enough.”
Hell, indeed, Bowater thought. The fire could be measured in square acres now, and the buildings were mere ghostly outlines in the center of the flames. Fire reached hundreds of feet in the air, arching over in the light breeze, dancing and swirling like yellow-and-red dragons. And under it all, a low and steady roar and the crash of structures collapsing as they burned through.
Fifty yards away, black against the flames, a knot of men moved toward them. Bowater’s hand reached under the wide flap of his holster, pulled his Colt, cocked the hammer back in a motion as familiar as pulling his watch.
“Hold up!” Bowater held up his hand, and the men behind him stopped.
The approaching men grew closer, and as they drew away from the flames Bowater could see the dark blue frock coats and the sky-blue trousers of United States Marines.
“Keep your mouths shut. Don’t do anything unless I tell you to.”
The marines came on at the double quick, rifles held against chests, and then they noticed the band from the Cape Fear. Bowater saw the lieutenant redirect his men.
Brass it out…have to brass it out with this type…
“Lieutenant!” Bowater called in his best quarterdeck voice. “What are you men still doing here? Report!”
The marine lieutenant stopped, and Bowater saw his eyes move up and down his uniform, but the frock coat he wore was the same one he had worn in the Union navy, the same worn by naval officers everywhere, and it did not give Bowater’s secret away.
“We were detailed to protect the men blowing the dry dock, sir.”
“Good. You are the detail I was looking for. Get down to the ordnance building, there, there,” Bowater pointed, “and cover the boat tied up at the seawall. We’ll see to the dry dock and get the men out.”
The lieutenant hesitated. He began to say something, a protest forming, but marines did not protest, it was not a part of them, so finally he said, “Yes, sir!” and led his detail away.
Bowater watched them go, watched the smoke swallow them up, then said, “Come on, men!” and led his people off at a jog.
Blowing the dry dock. That was what the man said.
Samuel knew Gosport, he had been to the naval yard often enough. The dry dock was the most valuable thing there. If the Yankees managed to burn every last inch of the yard, it would still be a godsend to the Confederate Navy if the dry dock was saved.
Blowing the dry dock. That could not be allowed to happen.
They raced along, closing with the ship houses, beside which Bowater knew the dry dock lay. Two hundred yards away, the heat seemed unbearable, but they ran on and Bowater wondered if the heat would discharge the rounds in his pistol. He shifted his holster so the barrel was pointing away from any part of himself.
The smoke from the burning building rolled over them, and they slowed their pace, coughin
g and staggering forward. Bowater felt as if his skin was on fire, as if it would start peeling and blistering, but they staggered on.
Thirty yards away, a gang of men hurried along, moving in the opposite direction, like specters, barely seen through the smoke, but they did not seem to notice the men from the Cape Fear, or if they did, they did not care who they were or what they were about.
Then, right ahead, Bowater could see gleaming in the light the long line of bollards and the small capstans that ran the length of the dry dock, and beyond them, the black pit of the empty dry dock itself.
“Taylor!” Bowater called, shouting over the roar of the flames, then paused for a fit of coughing. “Take…Babcock and go that way.” He pointed toward the river end of the dry dock. “See if you can see if the dock is mined. McNelly, come with me! The rest of you, station yourselves here, keep a weather eye out.”
Taylor hurried off and soon disappeared into the smoke, and Bowater and McNelly raced off in the opposite direction. They inched toward the edge of the dry dock and peered down. The bottom was in deep shadow; they could not see if there was anything there, powder kegs or such.
“Sir!” McNelly shouted, pounded him on the shoulder. Bowater looked up, looked in the direction that McNelly was pointing. Through the smoke, silhouetted by the burning ship houses, he could see two men, one standing, one kneeling, concentrating on some job at hand.
Bowater stepped forward, waved McNelly after him. He picked up his pace, reached under the flap of his holster, pulled the Colt free.
Then he was up with the two men in the smoke. He tightened his grip on the pistol, held it away from his body, stepped boldly forward.
One of the men, the one standing, noticed him at last. He turned until he was facing Samuel straight on, took a step forward, put a hand on his holster, paused.
Bowater stopped five feet from the man. He was framed against the wall of flame that was the ship building, and Samuel could barely look at him, could see little beyond a black shape against blinding red, yellow, and white.
The man crouching paused in what he was doing, looked up, and for a moment it was a stalemate, like the moment with the marines. And then the standing man took another step and said, “Lieutenant Bowater? Samuel Bowater?”
Bowater coughed, squinted at the man. His eyes were sore and running with tears from the smoke and he brushed them away. “John Rogers? Is that you?”
The man stepped forward, hand outstretched, and he materialized into Lieutenant John Rogers.
“Lieutenant…!” Bowater shook Rogers’s hand, glanced at his shoulder boards. “Forgive me, Commander!” Bowater had been fourth lieutenant and Rogers second aboard Wabash five years before.
“Good to see you, Samuel,” Rogers yelled. Bowater could see the sweat streaking through the grime on his face. “Hell, I thought you’d gone secesh!”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Sure! What are you doing here?”
“Came to see about the dry dock!” This reunion in the smoke only added to the dreamlike, unreal quality of the night.
“She’s set! See there?” Rogers pointed down at the ground. Through the smoke Bowater could see the sparking flames of a powder train, racing toward the edge of the dry dock. Lighting the powder train, that was what the kneeling fellow had been doing.
“Two thousand pounds of powder!” Rogers shouted. “Gonna blow this son of a bitch to Kingdom Come!”
“Then shouldn’t we get the hell out of here?”
“It’d be a good idea. Got five minutes till it blows, maybe less!”
Bowater felt the salty sweat running down his face and burning his eyes. He wiped a sleeve over his forehead. “I have men down there!” He pointed toward the river. “I have to go get them!”
“Be quick about it!” Rogers turned to the other man. “Captain Wright! Let’s go!”
“Which way?” the other shouted. Bowater looked at him for the first time. He wore the uniform of a captain of Army Engineers.
Rogers looked around, unsure. “Boat’s that way!” Rogers shouted, pointing past the burning ship houses. “Don’t know if we’re going to make it through!”
“Best try!” Bowater shouted. “Go on, I’ll follow behind!”
“All right! But get out of here, quick!”
John Rogers gave Samuel Bowater a fraternal slap on the shoulder, and Bowater saw the eyes follow the hand, saw the absence of shoulder boards register on Rogers’s face.
“Let’s go!” Bowater shouted to McNelly and turned away from Rogers, and Rogers let the question go. He and the other man stumbled off into the smoke and the shadows and the brilliant glare of the flames. Bowater watched them until their dark silhouettes disappeared.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, sir!” McNelly shouted, but Bowater shook his head.
“We’ve got to put out the powder train!” he shouted and started running. At the edge of the dry dock the cobbles gave way to smooth granite stones. Bowater approached the edge of the dry dock carefully, peering through the smoke, trying to see the powder train and avoid falling over the edge.
“Sir!” McNelly whined. “It’s gonna goddamned blow…”
“Shut up, sailor!” Bowater shouted, staring down through the smoke.
He saw it at last, a bright dancing light, crawling along near the bottom of the dry dock, moving toward the unseen barrels of powder. “Go find Chief Taylor, tell him I’ve gone down to put the powder train out!”
He turned to see if McNelly had heard him, but the sailor was nowhere to be seen, and Bowater could do no more than hope he had run off to obey the order.
Samuel Bowater raced along the length of the dry dock, his eyes moving between the burning train and the edge of the dock. The dry dock was constructed in a series of great granite steps or ledges angling down to the bottom, like a long, narrow coliseum. Bowater took the first, three feet high, and the next, climbing fast to the bottom of the dry dock, trying not to slip or tumble on the granite ledges.
It was black in the dry dock, and many degrees cooler, as he climbed down and down, and the flames of the shipyard were now no more than an orange glow overhead, and the omnipresent roar.
Down, it seemed a terribly long way, and then his foot came down in water and he stepped down another step and another and the water rose around him. It had not occurred to him that the dry dock could be partially flooded, but if the water was over his head he would have to swim for it, and he was none too sure of his ability to do so.
Another step down and his foot hit the slick, granite floor of the dry-dock. The water was up to his waist. He pushed forward, breasting the water, which dragged at him and slowed him down as he tried to race for the distant moving flame.
The powder train, he could see, had been laid along the far side of the dry dock. He would have to push his way through the water and reach it before it reached the powder. He forced his legs to work harder.
Goddamned…damned…nightmare… Bowater pushed on through the blackness and the water. It was just like one of those hellish dreams, in which he would run harder and harder from some nebulous evil and get nowhere.
The spark hissed and leaped and flared and raced toward the powder as Bowater raced toward it, and it seemed as if the entire world was compacted down to that space between himself and the flames. With his mind so focused he did not hear the grating, mechanical sounds at first, did not register the rush of cool water, he just forced himself on.
“Captain! Captain Bowater!” The voice came through his fog, but far away, barely audible above the roar of the flames and his own heaving breath.
“Captain Bowater!” It sounded like Taylor, Hieronymus Taylor.
Bowater stopped long enough to suck a lungful of air and shout, “Down here, in the dry dock!” He paused and realized that the mechanical sound he had heard was getting louder now. He staggered as an eddy of water caught him in the midriff.
“We’re opening the damned gates, Captain!
Get the hell out of there!”
Opening the gates… Then Bowater understood that the mechanical, grating sound was the sound of the floodgates being cranked open, which also explained the sudden eddies of water rushing in. Taylor was flooding the dry dock.
Good, good… Bowater thought as a fresh surge of water knocked him off his feet. He flailed at the water, kicked with his feet, but his shoes could not find a foothold on the slick bottom.
The water rolled him over and he sucked in a mouthful and then managed to get his feet down and stand. He spit, gagged, thrashed his way toward the side of the dry dock from which he had come.
Son of a bitch…son of a bitch… He could see nothing in that black pit. He looked up and could see the edge of the dry dock, impossibly high overhead, framed against the orange, burning sky. The water swirled above his stomach, up his chest. It was cold, coming in from the Elizabeth River.
Another step and his foot was out from under him and the water tumbled him again, pushed him under and swirled him along. His arms grabbed out for something, but there was nothing but water. He kicked, reached out again, and this time his hand came up against cold granite, the side of the dry dock.
He steadied himself, tried to get his feet down, but there was no bottom anymore, the water was over his head. He tried to lie back, float, but the surge of fresh water coming in would not allow it. He slammed against the side of the dry dock, bumped and scraped down its length, completely at the mercy of the roiling river water.
And then his hand hit something, something jutting out from the wall of the dry dock, a ringbolt for tying off a fast. He grabbed it, held himself in place, climbed up one of the granite steps, then another, found another ringbolt to grab. The water swirled around and tugged at him, but he held fast to the bolt, pressed his face against the cold granite, and breathed.
Glory In The Name Page 9