Thieves of Mercy

by James L. Nelson

  Bowater did not cheer, of course. He had not abandoned so much of his dignity or sense of decorum that he would yell like, say, Mississippi Mike Sullivan, who was whooping like a Red Indian, throwing his hat in the air, pounding one and all on the back, firing his pistol at the sky, and generally behaving in an appalling manner.

  Bowater stood with his back to the texas so that Sullivan would not have the clearance to give him another of his backslaps. He watched the celebration with the same mixture of horror and amusement with which he might view a minstrel show or some other crass entertainment. But it was all right. It was good. Good for the men to get that energy out. They deserved it. They had done damned good work that morning. Like the fight at Elizabeth City the previous February, it was one of the only battles so far in that war that could be called a fleet action. Unlike Elizabeth City, this time the Confederates won.

  “Captain Bowater!” a breathless Mike Sullivan said as he staggered over, “I surely do hope you and your boys will join us river rats in a little celebration when we gets back to Memphis. Oh, we’re gonna tear it up good, you can depend on it!”

  Bowater nodded. It was a scene he could happily miss, and one he would prefer his men to miss as well. But that, he realized, might be asking too much. His men had fought as hard as the riverboat men, and they would enjoy the bacchanal as much, and it would do morale no good for him to impose his sense of propriety on them.

  “My men will join you, I’ve no doubt. But I have other business to attend to.”

  “What-all you got to do that takes precedence over our celebrations?”

  “I must get to Shirley’s yard,” Bowater said, and he allowed the irony in his voice free reign. “I must inspect my ironclad.”

  The Tennessee was an ironclad in the same way that an assemblage of giant bones was an iguanodon. The basic structure was there, complete enough to suggest the final form of the awesome and powerful beast, but the chances of ever fleshing it out complete and bringing it to life were pretty slim.

  Bowater stood at the gate, surveyed the shipyard. The General Page and the other ships of the River Defense Fleet that had suffered damage in the fight the day before had returned to Memphis for repairs. Bowater had walked to the yard from the hospital, after having personally seen to Hieronymus Taylor’s admission, and watching the doctor drip laudanum on his tongue, though by then the engineer was pretty well played out.

  There had not been much activity in the shipyard the first time Bowater saw it, but that had changed in the three days he had been gone. There were a hundred men at least, swarming over the yard and over the Arkansas, the more complete ship. Men running hawsers from the ironclad to the shore, men greasing the ways, men pounding wedges under the launching cradle. It was like the preparations for a wedding, and the Arkansas was the bride, and poor Tennessee the bridesmaid, shoved to the background and ignored.

  Bowater hefted his seabag up on his shoulder, lifted his carpetbag, stepped across the trampled earth of the shipyard.

  He set his gear on a pile of fresh-cut oak beams and, ignoring the chaos surrounding the Arkansas, walked slowly around his own ship, running a professional eye over her, and mostly liking what he saw. She was framed in oak, her planking yellow pine, her scantlings a respectable thickness. With twin screws and her relatively small size she would be nimble, by ironclad standards. He envisioned the iron ram bolted to her bow, the great damage he could do with that weapon, the heavy nine-inch guns sending their shells through the Yankees’ wooden walls.

  He walked around her bow, looked at the run of her hull, and liked the shape of her wetted surface. He liked the low profile of her hull, the elegant round fantail, reminiscent of a tugboat.

  And then a voice, louder than the rest, broke through Bowater’s reverie, a strident order: “Hurry it along there, you lazy bastards, the goddamn Yankees’ll be here, time you get that hawser rigged!”

  The goddamned Yankees’ll be here… Bowater looked up, right up through the unplanked frames of his ship, right up at the blue sky above. They were working like mad to save the one ship that could be saved, and that was not the Tennessee. They might have beaten the Yankees at Plum Point Bend, but they could not hold them back forever. Here he was getting all moony about a ship he might never command, like falling in love with a woman in the last stages of consumption.

  A quiet seemed to settle over the yard, which Bowater took to presage some new turn of events. He took his eyes off his own ship, stepped around her stern, stood in the shade of her partially planked-up fantail. The Arkansas was ready to go.

  Men were standing on the foredeck and fantail, preparing for the ride down. More men were clustered around the launch cradle, sledgehammers in hand. A small man with a long black beard and a stovepipe hat that added six inches to his otherwise unimpressive height was flying from one place to another, seeing that all was in readiness, like a little girl setting up her dolls for a tea party.

  John Shirley, Bowater thought, the ironclads’ builder. He seemed to know it intuitively, though he had never seen the man.

  When all hands were at their stations, the man in the stovepipe climbed aboard as well. From the foredeck he shouted, “All right, let her go!”

  The sledgehammers fell on the wedges, the air was filled with their pounding. And then the ironclad gave a little jerk and the hammers stopped and the men stood clear, and silent as a winter morning, the one-hundred-and-sixty-five-foot ship slid down the ways. She moved slowly at first, no faster than a man might walk on a casual stroll, but her speed built, faster and faster, an exponential climb with each foot she slid, until she was moving at a frightening speed when she parted the river with her rudder and sternpost, and floated free.

  The Arkansas entered her native element with never a sound, from the last ringing hammer blow to the first swoosh of water closing around her hull.

  No one cheered. No band broke into patriotic airs. For several moments no one even spoke. A ship launching, like a wedding or a birth, was supposed to be a time of optimism, a moment when the vessel’s full potential lay before her, when she was all newness and perfection and had yet to be tried in combat or at sea, before there was an opportunity for her to be found wanting.

  But this launching was not like that, because Arkansas was launched in desperation, launched before her time.

  Despair thy charm, Bowater thought, and let the angel whom thou still hast served tell thee, Arkansas was from her mother’s womb untimely ripped. Her builders had slid her into the water not because she was nearly ready to go forth and fulfill her destiny, but because they had to get her the hell away in the face of an encroaching enemy. She would not steam proudly from the dock to fight the Yankees, she would be towed away to a place where she would be safe from them, followed by barges loaded with the rest of her, the parts they had not had time to assemble.

  The solemn launch put Bowater in mind of another he had seen, less than four months earlier, in Portsmouth. Then it had been the Confederate ironclad Virginia, built on the burned-out hull of the old Merrimack. She had not slid into the water, rather the water had been let into the dry dock while the silent watching navy men waited to see if she would flip over from the weight of her casemate. That had been a launch like this; not celebratory, but quiet, introspective, the kind of event staged by men who understood the terrible odds against which they fought.

  Thoughts of Norfolk inevitably brought Bowater’s mind around to thoughts of Wendy Atkins and her little carriage house behind her aunt’s home, and he felt a rush of longing, a sting of guilt that he had not thought of her more, had not written in two weeks. Wendy. She seemed part of a different life, a life he longed to get back to, and especially to her.

  For more than a month they had been hearing of the Yankees’ big push on the Peninsula, more than one hundred thousand strong, or so it was reported, though Bowater was certain that was something of an exaggeration. But no matter what the size of the army, it was bigger than that of the Confe
derates defending the place. Richmond was supposed to be in a panic.

  If the York Peninsula falls, Norfolk cannot be far behind, Bowater thought. What will Wendy do? Bowater knew enough Yankees from the old navy to know they were unlikely to rape and pillage, that Wendy and her aunt would be safe enough, even in an occupied city.

  Still, he wondered if she would try to get out. Where would she go? Culpepper would be the likely answer. For a moment he toyed with the idea of asking her to come west, to join him, but that was absurd. He had no idea where he would be next week, let alone where he would be by the time she managed to get out to Memphis on the crowded and unreliable railway.

  He shook his head, as if trying to jar loose his own pointless musings. Wendy was safe, out of harm’s way, and that was the best place for her. No doubt she was busy at the naval hospital. He could not speculate on when he would see her again; such thoughts would make him crazy.

  “Sir?”

  Bowater, his eyes on the Arkansas, watching her without really looking at her, had not noticed the approach of the short man with the stovepipe. “Sir?” the man said again, and this time Bowater looked over. The man extended a hand. “Lieutenant, I am John Shirley, constructor here. May I be of some assistance?”

  “Mr. Shirley, an honor.” Bowater took the hand and shook. Shirley’s palms were rough and calloused, like a seaman’s, or a shipbuilder’s. “You have done a fine job on the Arkansas.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. I am proud of her, I don’t mind saying it. Worth three regiments of soldiers when she’s done. If I could have got the men and the material, why, we could have had two boats launched today, but it weren’t to be. Had to choose one, get her along, at the expense of another. But Lordy, let me tell you, it’s akin to having to choose one child to live over t’other.”

  Bowater nodded and the two men fell silent, contemplating the injustice of it all. Then Shirley said, “Forgive me, Lieutenant, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Abraham.”

  “Abraham?”

  “Abraham, father of the child sacrifice.”

  Shirley wrinkled his brow. Not a man of great imagination, Bowater decided.

  “I am Lieutenant Samuel Bowater,” he said. “I have been assigned to take command of the ironclad Tennessee.”

  “Ahhh…” Shirley said as his confusion turned to embarrassment. “Well, it weren’t quite right, what I said, about one over t’other. The old Tennessee ain’t burned yet, we might still get her in the water.”

  Bowater nodded. “I am glad to hear it.”

  “We’ve had a power of trouble getting men. General Polk, this whole thing was nearly his idea, but will he send me any men from his army to help in constructing? No, not a blessed one. And him a bishop—a bishop! Did you know that? Goddamned Episcopalian bishop. Now how’s that for Christian charity? And I gave him the names of a hundred men under his command who are qualified shipwrights.”

  Shirley was an energetic man, Bowater could see that. He spoke in the same frenetic way that he moved, racing around, getting the Arkansas ready to launch, his thoughts all over the place.

  “I’ve brought about thirty men with me,” Bowater said, “not shipwrights, regrettably, but good, hardworking men. I see you have timber for completing the Tennessee.” Bowater nodded toward the stacks of wood positioned around the ship. “What of her iron plating?”

  “Most of her iron’s here…well, not here, exactly. Across the river, Arkansas side, but it’s there. Just needs paid for and we pick her up.”

  Bowater nodded. “You have the funds to pay for her?”

  “Not exactly. But Secretary Mallory, he’s been a real gentleman about advancing money, as needed. Wouldn’t have got half done on the Arkansas if it weren’t for that.”

  Bowater nodded. “And her machinery? Engines?”

  “Oh, yes, sir, we got all the machinery in order. Right over there, on the second barge, there’s Tennessee’s engines.” Shirley pointed enthusiastically.

  “I see,” said Bowater. “And why, pray, are her engines on a barge?”

  “Oh”—Shirley hemmed a bit, threw in a few ha’s—“Well, we reckoned it would be best to get them away, you understand. Engine’s a damned hard thing to get these days, worth its weight in gold. More than that. You can’t make an engine out of gold, can you? So the provost, he said, get the engines out of town with the Arkansas. It’s a minor thing, no cause for worry. Come time to drop them engines in, why, we’ll just tow her back upriver.”

  Bowater shook his head. Lost causes were becoming something of a specialty of his, and, romantic though they might be, he was not sure that he cared for them so very much.

  He spent another hour with Shirley, during which time the contractor tried to bolster his spirits with regard to the possibility of getting Tennessee in the water. The more he talked, the more Bowater felt the blue devils torturing him. By the time he bid farewell to John T. Shirley, Samuel Bowater was thoroughly depressed.

  “Lieutenant!” Shirley called just as Bowater was stepping through the gate. He turned, and Shirley hurried up. “Almost forgot. This come for you yesterday. Didn’t know who the hell ‘Samuel Bowater, Esq.’ was, so it went plumb out of my mind.”

  Bowater put down his seabag and took the package, wrapped in brown paper. It was heavy, the box inside hard—a wooden box, not cardboard. Addressed to him at Yazoo City, but somehow, miraculously, it had been correctly rerouted.

  Bowater’s first thought was that it was from Wendy, but he looked at the return address and saw that it was from his father. So, it would not be anything of an uplifting or sentimental bent, but that was all right. He was wandering in the wilderness, and any contact with his former life was welcome.

  Thanking Shirley, he made his way to a nearby hotel, which the contractor had suggested. He secured a room and, key in hand, stumbled up the narrow stairs, fiddled with the lock on the door until he managed to open it.

  The room, with its sagging bed, faded curtains, patchy rug, and faint smell of mildew did not lift his spirits. He dropped his carpetbag, seabag, and the package from his father, shed his frock coat and vest, flung his cap away, and sprawled on the bed.

  He lay there for some time, drifting in a place between wakefulness and sleep, a place that offered no rest or peace. At last, with a sigh, he rolled over and sat up.

  The first thing to catch his eye was the packet from his father, but he was not in the mood to read William Bowater’s stoic reports of wartime Charleston. A little humanity would have suited him, and he knew he would not find it in his father’s correspondence.

  Instead he fished around in his carpetbag and pulled out a package that Mississippi Mike Sullivan had given him, saying only, “Here’s what I done. Have a gander, would you?” as Bowater left with Taylor for the hospital. The bundle was wrapped in brown paper and bound with tarred marlin, but there was no question as to what it was. The latest adventures of Mississippi Mike Sullivan, the Melancholy River Rat.

  Without thinking, Bowater ripped the paper off and read the note on top, written in Sullivan’s barely legible scrawl.

  Dear Captain Bowater,

  This here’s the latest chapter I writ and I wood be honored wood you read it and tell me what you thik and don’t go easy on me neither. Like always, I follered yer ideas and they was damned good ones to. I still reckon some of them names you come up with is a bit queer, but you know best on such things.

  Yer frend,

  Mississippi Mike Sullivan

  Bowater smiled as he read it, remembering the look on Sullivan’s face as he handed the pages over. What was it? Sheepishness? Yes, it was that, but something more.

  Vulnerability. That was what it was. Mike Sullivan, human mountain, was vulnerable and he knew it. Bowater found himself wondering at the courage it took for Sullivan to expose himself to the possibility of devastating ridicule. No wonder he was so very secretive about their literary endeavors.

  But Bowater had to be in th
e right mood to stomach Sullivan’s “lit-rit-ur,” and at the moment he most certainly was not. He set the manuscript aside, picked up the package from his father, and tore off the paper.

  Inside was a wooden box, which Bowater suspected contained a bottle of wine. He slid the cover off. Inside, an 1853 Château Pétrus, a merlot from the Bordeaux region. And while Bowater the Younger generally eschewed merlot as inferior blackstrap, he was aware that a few of the French vintners were doing some astounding things. And if William Bowater had gone to the effort of sending this wine halfway across the country, there had to be a damned good reason.

  Samuel uncorked it, examined the cork, poured a bit in the glass he carried with him, wrapped in cotton and silk. He swirled it under his nose. Excellent. He sipped. A complex but subtle wine, fruity but not obnoxiously so. He could taste the French oak from the cask in which it was aged. It gave the wine a somewhat more manly palette. He held the wine in his mouth a moment, then swallowed. The merlot was fabulously deep and beautifully textured with a lasting finish. He smiled. Held the bottle up and examined the label. A touch of civilization, here in the wilderness.

  He sat on the bed and tore open his father’s letter, angling it toward the candle burning in the holder on the nightstand.

  My Dear Son, he read and he frowned and squinted at the page. His father always began a letter Dear Samuel:. Always a colon. The comma was a new degree of intimacy.

  I trust this finds you well and safe. I pray that it does. You have seen hard fighting in the fourteen months since you took that difficult step of resigning your commission and joining the Confederate States Navy, and I have feared for your safety every minute. Those naval officers who remained with the Union sit fat and idle on board their big men-of-war, which every day I can see on close blockade off our harbor, taking no greater risk than chasing unarmed runners, while you and all the brave men of the Confederate Navy, like David of old, go into battle with little more than slingshots and ships in sinking condition. No one has ever praised Goliath for his courage in facing David, and why should they? There is no courage needed when your force is overwhelming.