Thieves of Mercy

by James L. Nelson

  The two men spoke in rapid Norwegian and the women could do no more than listen and try to deduce, from the tone and the hand motions, what was being said. Wendy worked out her best-guess translation:

  CAPTAIN: Your Honor, I don’t know what these lunatic women are talking about. Something about the Federals not allowing them to go home.

  MINISTER: What do they want from us?

  CAPTAIN: Apparently they want us to take them over there.

  (The captain at that point gestured toward the south.)

  MINISTER: Very well, let us get them the hell off this ship and have no more to do with this. Lord, we don’t want to start an incident an hour after the anchor has dropped!

  That was just Wendy’s guess, but she would have wagered all the money pressed against her breasts that she was within a biscuit toss of being right. Before Molly could begin again, the captain informed her that they would be taken ashore, and he turned and shouted for a boat to be cleared away, shouting orders over the two women’s attempts to thank him.

  An hour later, with the sun just lost in the west, they fetched the beach at the foot of the battery at Sewell’s Point, the very spot from which they had left that morning in the first light of day. Lincoln’s boat and the other Federal vessels that had been shelling the fort were long gone, the Virginia, hulking and dark, riding on her mooring half a mile away.

  The Norvier’s launch was crewed by twenty young Norwegian sailors, tricked out in blue-and-white-striped shirts and flat-topped hats that they wore at a jaunty angle, bound around with a strip of black ribbon embroidered with the name of their ship. They were handsome, blond, smiling men who seemed to appreciate the women in the stern sheets. They took every opportunity to meet their passengers’ eyes and smile, while Molly smiled coquettishly back and Wendy blushed and the officer sitting beside them scowled at his men in disapproval.

  The boat ground up on the gravel shore and the oarsmen hopped out one by one and dragged the boat up on the beach, until at last they were able to assist Wendy and Molly out onto the dry ground. Molly thanked them all in French, and though it was clear they did not understand the words, her meaning was obvious, and they smiled and gave their welcomes in Norwegian. The humorless officer ordered the boat to be pushed back into the water and hustled the sailors back aboard, and soon they were pulling for the Norvier, a gray and indistinct object, half lost in the gloom.

  “Lord, I would sign aboard that ship in a minute if they would promise to put me in the fo’c’sle!” Molly said. Wendy was too exhausted to be scandalized.

  “Now what, Aunt?” Wendy said. She sat with a thump on a knee-high rock. The gentle surf pulsed against the shore and the saltwater washed over Wendy’s shoes but she did not have the energy to move them. Whatever spirit had been driving her along through the chaotic day was now entirely drained from her. Her body seemed to know it was safe to collapse now, with her feet back on Southern soil, her neck apparently free from the hang-man’s noose, and the question of whether or not she should blow out the brains of the President of the United States decided for her. She felt like a chicken, beheaded, hung by its feet, all the life juices drained from her.

  “That’s quite an image,” Molly said.

  “What?”

  “A beheaded chicken. You don’t look as bad as all that.”

  Did I say that out loud? Wendy thought. She must have, or else Molly was reading her mind. The soldiers that were moving down the beach were marching with an astounding symmetry, thousands and thousands of them, and the orange light streaming from the rifles they held over their shoulders lit the sky like sunset.

  “Come on, dear,” Molly said, and Wendy woke to find herself still sitting on the rock, Molly’s protective arm around her shoulders to keep her from falling onto the beach. “Do you think you can stand? Lieutenant Batchelor is here to help us find some transportation back to Norfolk.”

  Wendy looked around. In the fading light of sunset she could see Lieutenant Batchelor standing a few feet away, pristine in his frock coat. “Lieutenant…how good to see you! How…?”

  “The Yankees let me go, just as they said they would. Spent a fair amount of time questioning me, but they got nothing that I didn’t tell them when we first pulled alongside. To hear me, you would have thought I was the most ignorant man in the Confederacy.”

  Wendy smiled, genuinely pleased. “I am so happy to see you safe, sir. I would not have you hurt, or a prisoner, for our sake.”

  Batchelor gave a shallow bow. “I thank you for your concern, but it is duty, ma’am.”

  Actually, Wendy thought, it is because I am trying to meet up with my lover in Yazoo City. She wondered how sanguine the lieutenant would be if he understood the true genesis of their wild mission.

  Molly slipped her arm under Wendy’s and helped her to her feet. Her muscles ached and she had some difficulty in standing straight. Lord, this must be what it is like to be eighty years old.

  They walked toward the fort, and as Wendy’s muscles warmed and stretched she was able to walk more easily, until finally the limp and cautious step were gone and she moved like herself again. They entered the fort through the small door from which they had exited that morning, stepping into a place very different from the one where they had spent the night.

  Wendy remembered the garrison as a small band of generally bored soldiers. They were a small band still, but they were not bored. Men were rushing in and out of the casemates, carrying loads of whatever they could—boxes of fuses, shells, small arms—and loading them into the backs of wagons, while restless horses, tapped into the frantic mood of the place, shifted in their traces and snorted their displeasure.

  “They are abandoning the fort,” Batchelor explained, leading the women past the batteries and hastily built barracks. “Yankees were shelling them again today. You must have seen them. No one has any doubt they’ll be coming ashore soon.” He stopped and looked at Molly. “I hope you know where.”

  Molly smiled. “I do.”

  “Good,” said Batchelor. “Let’s get you to someone who can use that information.”

  The carriage in which they had come from Norfolk had, by Batchelor’s orders, remained there, waiting on them. They climbed in and the coachman cracked his whip and they rattled and shook their way out of the fort and down the moonlit road. Soon Wendy was asleep again. She dreamed strange dreams of her mother and Samuel Bowater and Abraham Lincoln, of ships sinking under her and guns firing. Molly shook her awake as they rolled through the gates of the Gosport Naval Shipyard. Night was fully on them, the blackness through the carriage windows broken only by certain points of light, lanterns and larger fires. Wendy did not feel particularly refreshed.

  They stepped out of the carriage into a scene much like that at the fort at Sewell’s Point, but on a considerably grander scale. More wagons, hundreds more men shifting every conceivable article that might be found in a shipyard and moved by hand and by wagon. Barrels of powder, barrels of shot, round and conical shells, metalworking machinery, coils of rope, brass deck howitzers, boxes and boxes of paperwork, it was all being hustled across the yard, loaded in wagons, bound for Richmond by train or wagon or foot. For the past year the Confederate Navy had enjoyed the considerable windfall of Yankee resources that had come to them with the taking of the naval shipyard. Now all that could be moved was being moved, before it became Yankee property once more.

  “They’re taking everything,” Molly observed as she crossed the cobbled yard to Tucker’s office. “Will you take the buildings too?”

  “Don’t need buildings, ma’am,” Batchelor said. “Wish to hell we could take the dry dock, though. I’d trade all of it for the dry dock.”

  They found Captain John Tucker in his office, which was considerably more empty than it had been twenty-four hours before. The desk and chairs were there, the file cabinets as well, but the piles of papers were gone, the crates half stuffed with documents all absent. There was an orderly look about the place, t
he kind of orderliness you can only get in an unoccupied room.

  Handsome Jack sat at his desk, a few charts scattered around, the only paperwork left.

  “I’m pleased to see you have tidied up a bit,” Molly announced as she swept into the room. “I was going to suggest that you need a woman around the place.”

  Tucker looked up, gave as much of a smile as his weary face would allow. “Do you know one who is available?”

  “Available women? I know plenty of available women. I just don’t know any ladies. Save for my dear Wendy, but you can’t have her. Her heart belongs to another sailor.”

  “Ah, well…” Tucker stood, gestured to the chairs, and Wendy sat, gratefully. “What have you found out?”

  “The Yankees will land at Ocean View near Willoughby’s Point. Tomorrow, I reckon,” Molly said.

  “Tomorrow?” Tucker said. He pulled out a watch and snapped it open in a gesture so reminiscent of Newcomb that it made Wendy flinch. “It is twelve forty-eight now. May tenth. Do you mean they will land on the eleventh?”

  “No,” Molly said. “I did not know it was past midnight. They will come today.”

  Tucker nodded. He seemed neither surprised nor alarmed. “Ocean View? You have it on good authority?”

  “Quite good.” Molly told him the story, from the tug’s intercepting them on the way to the flagship, through the shock of Lincoln’s presence, to their being allowed to join him on the boat deck for the bulk of his scouting expedition. Batchelor nodded his confirmation of their story. There was nothing for him to add. Molly’s recollection was flawless.

  She went to great lengths to describe what a gentleman the President was, how well-mannered and droll and quick-witted, and Wendy was sure her aunt was needling Tucker, trying to get some rise out of him, but in that she failed. Tucker simply listened, did not react.

  “The Norwegians were very kind to bring us back to Sewell’s Point,” Molly finished. “I don’t think they wished to have a dog in our fight.” She did not mention Newcomb or the incident in the cabin.

  Tucker leaned back, tossed the dividers he was holding on to the chart. “Good work, Molly. As ever. Excellent. There had been some concern that the Yankees would push down the Elizabeth River, bottle us in.”

  “I would be very surprised,” Molly said. “They are deathly afraid of the Virginia.”

  “They should be. So, if they are coming overland, we have half a day at least to complete our evacuation. After they get their troops ashore. By noon today, we must be gone.”

  “And Wendy and I with you?” Molly prompted. “I do believe we have fulfilled our half of the bargain.”

  “Admirably, my dear Molly, most admirably. I will be aboard the last boat out of here, and you and Wendy will be with me. I will certainly be up for the remainder of the night making preparations, but there is no cause for you to be as well. Your house is not too far from here?”

  “No, and my bed calls with an irresistible siren’s song,” Molly said. Wendy, though she thought herself acclimated to her aunt’s outrageous proclamations, still was mortified to hear Molly mention her bed to this man.

  “You must go to it, then. I will have the good Lieutenant Batchelor take you home and collect you in the morning, say, nine o’clock?”

  Molly stood. “Two bells in the forenoon watch,” she said. “And if the lieutenant is even ten minutes late, we will come hunting for him. And you.”

  “I understand,” said Tucker, also standing. “It is why I have chosen my most punctual officer.”

  The carriage in which they had arrived had already gone off on some other duty, but after some time Batchelor managed to locate a buckboard, half loaded with galley fixtures, that he commandeered for the time it would take to drive the women home. He climbed up onto the seat and took the reins, and Molly and Wendy shuffled in beside him.

  They rode in silence back through the streets to Molly’s home, streets that were mostly deserted, and Wendy wondered if that was because the bulk of the people had already fled town, or if they had given up and gone to ground in their homes, waiting for the Yankees.

  They arrived at last at the dark house they had left the day before. There was something anticlimactic to their return, Wendy thought, a step back after the extraordinary measures they had taken to leave that place. But it was only for a single night’s sleep, she knew, and indeed, the thought of a soft bed absolutely trumped any other consideration.

  She climbed with difficulty down from the seat, and Molly after her, and she noticed that even her aunt was not moving as spryly as she had. Batchelor took their bags from among the galley stores and led the way through the white picket fence and up the flagstone path to the front door.

  He stepped aside and Molly pulled a key from her reticule, unlocked the door, and swung it open. The moonlight and the illumination from distant gas lamps came in through the door and through the gauzy curtains and dimly lit the room in patches of dark blue and gray. Batchelor stepped in and Molly behind him and then Wendy. In the faint light she could see the shadowy shapes of chairs and love seat in their familiar places. She knew the room so well, dark or light.

  Then something in the blackness shifted, something moved, something scraped on the floor. Wendy gasped, heard Molly shout, “Damn!” saw Lieutenant Batchelor take a step into the room. And then from the dark place, a pistol fired, a great flash of orange and yellow in a horizontal column, and Wendy saw Batchelor flung back, arms up, crashing to the floor, knocking Molly aside like a bowling pin.

  She heard herself scream and she staggered back, hands on her mouth. The echo of the shot died away. And then, through the dullness and ringing in her ears, Wendy heard, clear as the gunshot, the sound of a pocket watch snapping open, snapping shut.

  SEVENTEEN

  I then dispatched [Jones] to Norfolk to confer with General Huger and Captain Lee. He found the navy yard in flames, and that all its officers had left by railroad…the enemy were within half a mile of the city….

  FLAG OFFICER JOSIAH TATTNALL

  TO STEPHEN MALLORY

  In the dark, Wendy saw Molly make her move for the door. Off balance, Molly lunged to her right, but stumbled over Batchelor’s body. She grabbed Wendy’s arm, hard, and pulled, trying to drag her along out the door.

  “Stand still!” Newcomb’s voice was hoarse and shrill. The pistol fired again, the sharp crack of percussion cap, the explosive sound of the cartridge going off. The room was lit up in the lightning flash of orange and yellow and red. Something on the wall shattered. Mirror, Wendy thought, ridiculous to think of that, of all things.

  “Don’t move, or God help me, Cathy, I’ll blow your brains out!”

  Molly froze and Wendy froze, and for a moment Wendy could hear nothing but her own breath.

  Finally, Newcomb broke the silence. “Close the door and light a lamp. Now.”

  “I can’t close the door,” Molly said. “This poor man you murdered is in the way.”

  Wendy’s eyes were beginning to recover from the muzzle flash. She could see Newcomb now, the dark outline of his body, on the far side of the room, standing in shadow. She could see Molly, tense and tight-lipped beside her, could just make out the features of her face. She heard Newcomb sigh in exasperation.

  “Drag him out of the way and close the door. And by God if one of you tries to run, I will kill the other.”

  Molly nodded toward Wendy and they stooped down and each grabbed one of Batchelor’s legs and pulled him inside. Wendy thought perhaps the man was only wounded, hoped desperately that that was the case, but now she knew he was not. There was no response, no life at all in the body they were dragging.

  Then Batchelor’s body gave a sigh, a gasp, as if it was struggling to draw breath, and Wendy screamed and dropped the leg. Newcomb screamed, “Don’t move!” and the pistol fired again, the muzzle flash lighting Newcomb’s startled face. The bullet whizzed by, thudded into the half-closed door. The gunsmoke tasted bitter in Wendy’s throat.r />
  “Goddamn it, Roger, take your goddamned finger off the trigger!” Molly said.

  Quiet again, in the wake of that order, and in a voice that sounded as if it was struggling for calm, Newcomb said, “Close the door and light a lamp.”

  Molly stepped around the body and shut the door. It clicked with a finality like a tomb being sealed, and half of what light there was in the room was gone, and it was hard to see even the shapes of things. Wendy could hear Molly’s hand patting the side table, looking for the box of matches. She found them at last and with a scraping sound struck a light, and suddenly Molly’s face was illuminated, her lips taut, her eyebrows together—angry, frightened, her mind working, her mouth shut.

  She lifted the chimney off the lamp on the table, lit the wick, and turned it up. Now the yellow light fell on the dark shapes and gave them color—the floral patterns in the upholstery, the stripes in the curtains, the intricate pattern of the oriental rug.

  Wendy looked down at Batchelor. The bullet had hit him dead center in his chest. There was a bloom of dark red around the wound, soaked into the gray cloth of his frock coat. A puddle was forming beneath him, a swatch of red on the floor and carpet where they had dragged him. His eyes were open, his skin was white like candle wax. His expression was one of surprise. Wendy felt her gorge rise and she looked away, quickly.

  Now they could see Newcomb as well, and he was not a lovely sight. He was wearing his uniform pants and a white shirt, splotched with great patches of perspiration and stained and smudged in various places. Over that was a civilian vest and on his head a slouch hat. His eyes seemed wider than Wendy remembered. He held his navy .36 at waist height, held it in his left hand. With his right he pulled his watch, snapped it open, looked at it, returned it to the pocket.

  “Roger, this will not end well—” Molly began.

  “Shut your mouth.”

  “You are a dead man, Roger, either way. If the Confederates get you, they will hang you for a spy in your civilian clothes. If your people get you, they will hang you for a deserter.”