Thieves of Mercy

by James L. Nelson

  “We are gravely outnumbered on the Peninsula,” Batchelor said. “If there were anyone in command of the Union forces besides McClellan, they would be in Richmond by now. I hope all Yankee generals are as backward as the ‘young Napoleon.’”

  Batchelor described the Yankee men-of-war, the big ocean-going steam frigates, and the smaller river vessels, and the Confederate river forces that opposed them, mostly small converted civilian craft, save for the mighty Virginia.

  “The Virginia draws twenty-two feet, but the pilots assure us that if we lighten her some we can get her up the James River. Right now she’s the only thing stopping the Yankee boats from sailing up the James. That’s why the Yankees are going up the York. Tattnall made a try at getting Virginia up to the York. But he couldn’t do that without sinking or taking the Monitor, and the Yankees won’t let him get close enough to their precious boat to try.”

  During the entire lecture, Molly just listened and nodded and seemed to work each bit of information around in her head, like a wine taster ferreting out the subtleties of the drink. At last she said, “Very well, then.”

  “Do you have a notion of what you will do?” Batchelor asked.

  “No. Is there anything else you have not told me?”

  “I don’t believe so. One of our people tells us a Norwegian corvette is expected in the Roads. She is carrying the Norwegian minister to Washington.”

  “Really?” Molly said, and she leaned forward. This information, an afterthought for Batchelor, seemed to interest her more than the rest. “What is the name of the ship?”

  “The Norvier, I believe.”

  “You believe?”

  “She is the Norvier.”

  Molly leaned back again, and again her eyes moved to the dark glass of the carriage window and she said nothing. They rode in silence for another twenty minutes before Molly turned back to Batchelor and said, “Lieutenant, do you speak Norwegian?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You are formerly of the United States Navy, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are there many in the United States Navy who speak Norwegian?”

  Batchelor shrugged his shoulders. “I knew of a few square-heads in the forecastle. Not many. Certainly no officers that I knew of.”

  Molly nodded and looked out the window again.

  They arrived at Sewell’s Point somewhere around midnight. The air was thick with smoke, turning the black night sky into a swirling charcoal gray, lit up from below by the fires still burning—great heaped bonfires, ten feet high, with flames rising as high again, piles of burning wood which that morning had been the barracks for the garrisoned troops still left at the battery.

  Wendy stepped down from the carriage, her muscles aching, more bone-weary than she could recall ever having been. She smelled acrid smoke and the rotten fish smell of tidal flats. The black men on the driver’s seat hopped down and took their bags and they followed Batchelor through the rough gate of the battery.

  The burning barracks threw enough light around the place that Wendy could see the full length of the fortress. Walls of logs and dirt lined the seaward side, facing Hampton Roads. Behind the walls, timber frame gun platforms, crude but solid, made up of thick, rough-cut beams, morticed and pegged, supported a succession of guns. The muzzles peered over the walls, en barbette, if Wendy understood the term correctly.

  Men lay sprawled around the guns, and for a horrible second Wendy thought they were dead men, left to rot where they fell, but no sooner had the thought come to her than she realized that they were just sleeping, gun crews sleeping at their guns. In case of action, they would be right where they were needed, and with their barracks still burning, there was no better place for them.

  “There’s only a fraction of the original garrison left here,” Batchelor explained as he led the way up a ladder to the gun platform. “Just enough to man a few guns, and I reckon those will be withdrawn in the morning.”

  They stepped onto the rough wooden planks of the platform, and across to look over the parapet at the Roads beyond. The fire behind them made it difficult to see into the dark, but they could make out points of light here and there, anchor lights of the Union fleet, Batchelor explained, and the lights of Fortress Monroe across the water, a little less than four miles away.

  Wendy pulled her eyes from the water to look at Molly standing beside her. Her aunt’s face was grim, her lips set in a frown, eyebrows slightly pinched together.

  “I don’t think there’s a damn thing we can do tonight,” Molly said.

  “Too much chance of being shot in the dark,” Batchelor agreed.

  “I hate to lose a moment, but there’s nothing for it,” Molly said. “Besides, I am too tired to think.” She turned to Batchelor. “Lieutenant, I assume you have some accommodations that are appropriate for ladies?”

  A tent was the best that could be produced, but it was a big one, a wall tent fifteen by twenty feet with two cots and a table, and it was fine with Wendy. She had been ready to lie down with one of the gun crews and sleep on the platform, she was so utterly exhausted. But even the siren song of the field cot was not enough to make Molly pause in her calculations.

  “Wendy, dear,” she said as she sat on the edge of her cot, and Wendy sat on hers, and they unbuttoned shoes from aching feet, “I forgot to ask you. Do you speak Norwegian?”

  Wendy smiled. “No, I am afraid not.”

  “A shame. How is your French?”

  “Not bad. I’m far from fluent, but I can get by.”

  “Écoutes, Wendy,” Molly said. “Peux-tu comprendre ce que je viens de dire? Pourras-tu le traduire?”

  Wendy smiled again. Molly’s French was perfect, but her accent was very odd. Not French at all, nor that of an American speaking French. “You said, ‘Listen, Wendy. Can you understand what I just said? Would you be able to translate it?’”

  “Excellent,” Molly said. “Now, come over here and sit by me. I must tell you what we are going to do in the morning, and then I will let you sleep.”

  Wendy stood with difficulty, her muscles tight and aching, hobbled over to Molly’s cot, and sat beside her. For the next hour and ten minutes, Molly laid out her intentions, quizzed Wendy, drilled her, instructed her. When she was done, Wendy retreated to her own cot. She lay down, let her muscles relax, and tried to let the sleep she so desperately craved wash over her, but for the next two hours she could do nothing but stare dumbfounded into the dark.

  Wendy was dreaming of ships. She was dreaming about walking the deck of a ship under way, the short choppy sea slamming broadside against the hull, making the ship shudder, jarring her body as she tried to make her way forward.

  She came from that dream slowly awake and realized that someone was shaking her. She opened her eyes. They smarted with fatigue. In the dim light of a single lantern she could see Molly standing beside her, shaking her gently.

  “Rise and shine, dear.”

  Wendy swung her legs over the side of the cot, rubbed her eyes. Her body ached; she was exhausted and confused. She had slept in her clothes in the hot, humid tent and she felt as if her whole body was coated in a layer of grime. Her dress was wrinkled and stained from climbing around the gun platforms and all the hard use it had received the night before.

  “Aunt, I am an absolute fright. I trust we’ll get some chance to freshen up and shift clothes?”

  “No, no. You are perfect, my dear. Remember the part you’re playing, and all you’ve been through. You look just the thing.”

  Wendy knew she was right but she did not have the spirit to reply. Instead she stood and walked over to the basin of water on the nightstand and splashed cold water on her face, and that did much to revive her. Molly led her out of the tent. It was just before sunrise, and the sky was a predawn gray. A campfire was burning, a couple of men in shirtsleeves and kepis sitting on stools and staring into the flames. Lieutenant Batchelor, looking immaculate in his uniform, stood before the fir
e. A black man squatting by the flames was tending a big frying pan of scrambled eggs and bacon.

  They ate, and Wendy felt her spirits rise again, and as the sky grew lighter, the day did not seem so horrible, the past twelve hours not so much a chaotic nightmare. She sat on a stool and enjoyed the quiet company and the bizarre turns of events and thought that everything would be all right. And then Molly said, softly, “Time to go,” and Wendy felt her stomach turn.

  The men in the kepis took the women’s bags and they all followed Batchelor out a small door in the seaward side of the battery. A makeshift dock formed a road over the mud flats to a place where the water was deep enough for a small boat to float peacefully at the end of its painter.

  They made their way to the end of the dock and then one of the men climbed down into the boat and the other handed the bags down.

  “How are you doing, Wendy?” Molly asked in a low voice.

  “I am frightened to death,” Wendy said. She thought she might throw up.

  “This part is the worst. But remember, the whole thing might seem outrageous now, but outrageous will work for us. It’s half measures that fail, halfhearted attempts at deception. If you don’t have time for extreme subtlety, then it calls for a big show.”

  The morning was beautiful, the sun just breaking the horizon, the sky lit up orange and yellow and light blue as the boat glided away from the dock, her bow toward the Union fleet.

  The water in Hampton Roads was calm and dark, the ships riding at anchor peaceful and snug in the arms of the land, the bosom of Virginia, Wendy’s native Virginia, her beloved state. For a moment Wendy was able to forget her worries and oppressing concerns, and enjoy with her painter’s eye the scene unfolding around her.

  And then, from far off, a cannon fired, muted but sharp enough to make her jump; then another gun went off and another. “Oh!” she shouted involuntarily, looking around. Molly and the lieutenant were unmoved by the gunfire.

  “Morning guns, Miss Atkins,” Lieutenant Batchelor said, his eyes on the distant fleet and Fortress Monroe. “No reason for concern.”

  “Of course,” Wendy said, and she could feel her face flush. She had heard morning guns often enough, living in Portsmouth.

  I must calm down, she thought, and made a conscious effort to breathe slowly and deeply, but quietly. She did not want the others to know she was doing so. She felt her stomach roll over, felt the film of sweat on her palms and forehead, little shooting jolts of electricity in her fingers and toes and her arms and legs. She wondered if this was what it was like, going to one’s own execution, the terror and unreality of it all.

  She glanced at Molly. Her aunt was sitting upright, staring out at the Union fleet. She had a haughty, superior expression, a look of disdain mixed with anger, a look that took Wendy aback. Such arrogance did not seem terribly appropriate at that moment, under those conditions.

  And then she realized—Molly was playing her part, assuming her character, becoming the woman she wanted the Federals to see.

  Wendy looked across the Roads. They were still two miles from the USS Minnesota, flagship of the blockading fleet. A mile away was a small fort that from their vantage seemed to float in the water. “Fort Wool,” Batchelor explained. “It’s built on a little rocky island called Rip Raps.” Could men with telescopes see them already, see their faces? No, it was not possible. Molly was preparing herself for the moment when they could.

  “Wendy,” Molly said, her voice stern, “you had best start thinking about what you will say when we are alongside the flagship.” She spoke in French, in her weird accent. She spoke like an overly strict governess, a woman used to having her way. Wendy felt herself flush again, as if she had been scolded.

  “Oui, madame,” she said, meeting Molly’s eyes with an averted glance. Molly looked down on her with her imperious expression, and then, for just an instant, the arrogance was gone, and she smiled and winked. Just the length of a muzzle flash, and then Aunt Molly was haughty and arrogant once more.

  That smile and wink lifted Wendy’s spirits more than she would have guessed possible. It made her feel a part of what they were doing, not just someone being dragged along. It gave her a sense of camaraderie and shared adventure. It gave her hope. She sat up straight now, looked out across the water, considered who she was, and who she wanted the others to think she was.

  They pulled for the Union ships as the sun lifted above the Chesapeake Bay and spread its light over the water and the low green shore. No one spoke, and the only sound was the creak and splash of the oars, the call of the gulls.

  Finally, Lieutenant Batchelor spoke. “Tug’s under way. Seems to be making for us. To the right of the flagship.”

  Wendy and Molly shifted their gaze. To the right of where the Minnesota lay tide-rode at anchor, a small vessel was churning toward them, under a great plume of black smoke. They could see the flash of white water kicked up by her bow.

  “I better get this set,” the lieutenant said. He reached down to the bottom of the boat and with some difficulty extracted a long pole wrapped in white cloth. He stood, squeezed between the oarsmen, made his way to the bow. He unwrapped the cloth—a white flag affixed to a pole—stuck it in a socket at the bow. Satisfied, he made his way back to the stern sheets and took up the tiller again.

  They continued their rhythmic pull to the flagship, but it was soon clear that the tug would head them off. “Sorry, Miss Atkins, there’s nothing for it,” Batchelor said in a low breath. “Reckon this tug was sent out to see what we’re about. We’ll have to talk to them.”

  Molly nodded; her expression did not alter. “Very well,” she said softly, her lips barely moving, though the nearest Yankee was still nearly a mile away. The degree of caution Molly exercised was not lost on Wendy.

  This was not good, and Wendy felt her fear rise again, just as she had come to a place where she was ready to play her part. Their intention had been to get aboard the flagship, where decisions were being made. At two o’clock the next morning, Batchelor would come alongside to take them off. It did not seem much of a plan, but Molly assured her that there were any number of ways to get off a ship unnoticed, that under the guns of Fortress Monroe the Yankees would keep an indifferent watch.

  But none of that would apply if they had to go aboard the tug. What intelligence might they gather aboard so unimportant a vessel? What if they were simply deposited behind Union lines and left there?

  It took less than ten minutes for the tug to come up with the boat. Wendy could see the steamer throttle back, see her settle lower in the water as the speed came off of her.

  The tug’s wake reached them first and the boat rocked hard in the succession of waves. Wendy grabbed tight on the gunnel and felt her stomach convulse again. It was not seasickness, but the proximity of the moment, the instant she had been thinking of since she had sat on Molly’s cot the night before.

  The tug came up at a crawl, slowly enough to avoid swamping their boat. Wendy could see blue-clad sailors on board, some carrying rifles, a gun crew manning the big cannon in the bow. And they had only the white flag to protect them.

  At last the tug came to a stop, ten feet away, and a man tossed a line, which one of the oarsmen caught, and the boat was pulled alongside the tug. Bearded, grim men looked down on them. Wendy felt her hands shake; sweat ran freely down her neck. Was she supposed to speak first? She had forgotten to ask, and now it was too late. She felt the sharp edge of panic at her throat.

  Leaning on the tug’s rail, an officer in a blue frock coat regarded the boat and the occupants. He opened his mouth, but before he could say a word, Molly seemed to explode. It was a full barrage of words, a broadside of anger and fury so startling and intense that it took Wendy a second to realize she was speaking French.

  Wendy turned to her aunt, held up her hands as if to ward off the attack, said, “Just a second, just a second, let me speak to them.” She said it in French. She had no notion of how she had remembered to do so.<
br />
  “What is this?” the Union officer managed to get out.

  Lieutenant Batchelor spoke next. “Lieutenant, I got these here women on my hands, I do truly believe they belong on your side. This one,” he nodded toward Molly, who looked as angry as a wet cat, “says she’s the wife of some Norwegian minister. I got orders to take them to the flagship.”

  The Union officer’s brows came together. He looked from Batchelor to Molly and back, and Wendy recognized her moment.

  “Sir, if I may,” she said, her tone tired and defeated. “This is my aunt, Ingrid Nielsen. She is the wife of the Norwegian minister, who is due to arrive on the Norvier. A Norwegian navy ship, sir.”

  Wendy paused, as if she thought that explained it. Don’t be too quick with answers, Molly had instructed.

  “So what are you doing here?” the Union officer asked.

  “Oh, sir, we have had a horrible time. We…my aunt and I…were taking passage to America when we were captured by one of these horrid Rebel privateers. Sir, we have been forever trying to get to Washington, so my aunt might meet her husband.”

  “You are not Norwegian,” the lieutenant observed. There was a hint of accusation in his voice.

  “I am a Marylander by birth, sir, but have been in Europe these past years. I have been traveling with my aunt, sir, from Norway, where I was visiting, sir.”

  The Union officer nodded. “Why didn’t you take passage on the Norvier?”

  Wendy began to speak, but Molly cut her off with another tirade, a nearly hysterical shrieking, arm-waving harangue that covered Rebels, Yankees, Americans, ships, everything that had supposedly caused offense in the past month. She spoke in French, and Wendy understood now that the weird accent was Norwegian, or what Molly guessed a Norwegian accent to be.

  Again Wendy held up her hands, silenced her. She felt bold, on her game. She was no longer afraid. She was taken with the spirit of the thing.