Thieves of Mercy

by James L. Nelson

  “Don’t you fret, Cap’n. Hell, you gonna thank me for this, one day.”

  They swept up alongside the flagship where a dozen sailors in white frocks aimed a dozen muskets at them, while a petty officer with a pistol gestured them aboard. They climbed the ladder built into the gunboat’s steeply angled side, the iron plating still damp from the morning dew.

  Bowater counted five gunports in her broadside, but he could not see the size of the ordnance hauled back into the dark of the interior. His eyes swept the hurricane deck as they stepped off the ladder and under an awning spread from the bow amidships. Two deck howitzers. Despite the anger and uncertainty he could not stop gathering intelligence.

  The lieutenant from the picket boat followed behind. “Mr. Grimes,” he addressed the petty officer, “hold these prisoners here while I see if the captain will see them.”

  “Aye, sir,” said Grimes, waving the Confederates amidships.

  “Come under a flag of truce! We ain’t prisoners!” Sullivan shouted at the lieutenant’s back, but the lieutenant did not respond.

  “We’re whatever the Yankees say we are, you stupid ape,” Bowater said in a loud whisper. “Prisoners of war, spies, whatever the hell they want.”

  “Now don’t let the blue devils get ya, Cap’n. They may be Yankees, but they got some civ-li-zation, I’spect. Ain’t gonna keep us prisoner when we come under a white flag.”

  Bowater folded his arms and glared out over the water, too angry to reply. Soon the lieutenant was back and he ordered Bowater and Sullivan to follow him, with the rest of the crew to remain topside under guard.

  They followed him forward and down through a small, square hatch to the gundeck below. It was dark, save for the patches of light that came in through the open gun ports and around the big guns hauled inboard. Bowater, his eyes not accustomed to the dark, could just make out the cavernous space on the beamy vessel, the rows of guns, much like the gundeck of a seagoing man-of-war. Forward, four bow guns leered out over the river. The ordnance seemed to be a mixed batch, thirty-two-pound smoothbores, forty-two-pound rifles, and a few others mixed in. A heterogeneous lot, but a powerful array of weapons.

  They did not linger on the gundeck, to Bowater’s disappointment. He would have liked to gain as much knowledge as he could about the ironclad, but the lieutenant, wanting no doubt to prevent that exact thing, led them down another ladder to the deck below.

  They were under the waterline now, and Bowater imagined they must be very near the bottom of the shallow-draft vessel. They were in an alleyway lined with brightly varnished wood-panel doors. Behind them, a bulkhead separated this living space from the boilers and engine room aft. The space was illuminated by a series of lanterns mounted on the cabin sides.

  “This way,” the lieutenant said tersely as he led them forward. He stopped at the penultimate door and knocked.

  “Come.” A voice from within.

  The lieutenant opened the door, waved his prisoners in, followed, and shut the door behind. They were in a wide cabin, a place that functioned, apparently, as the captain’s office, day cabin, and dining room.

  Seated behind a desk was a man in shirtsleeves and braces, a man in his mid-fifties or so, thinning dark hair combed over, a dark and very full moustache that covered his upper lip entirely, and a gray beard that ran just along his jawline, leaving his chin oddly exposed. On the desk was a scattering of papers and journals and a plate with remnants of egg and toast. The man leaned back and looked at the Confederates. He did not stand. He did not smile.

  “Sir, these are the Rebel spies we apprehended,” the lieutenant announced.

  “Spies?” Sullivan began but the officer behind the desk held up his hand and Mississippi Mike fell silent.

  For a long and uncomfortable moment the officer just looked at Bowater and Sullivan. His eyes were dark and penetrating, but Bowater met them and did not look away. Finally, the Yankee spoke.

  “I am Flag Officer Charles Davis, commanding United States naval forces on western waters.” He leaned forward for emphasis, elbows on his desk. “Lieutenant Phelps here tells me you were scouting our forces under cover of the shoreline when he apprehended you.” He addressed his words to Bowater.

  “We was flyin a flag of truce,” Sullivan began, but Davis held up his hand again.

  “I was speaking to the officer,” Davis said. “As he is in uniform, he is liable to be considered a prisoner of war. As you are not”—he looked at Sullivan for the first time—“you are liable to be hung as a spy.”

  “Oh, hell, Commodore, spy, my Royal Bengal. We come under a flag of truce ’cause we wanted to have a word with you. Got a thing to discuss, goes way beyond this here unfortunate hostility betwixt North and South.”

  Davis shifted his gaze to Bowater, and Bowater wondered what in hell he was going to say. He himself had had no intention of approaching under flag of truce, had no idea of what Sullivan was up to. But he couldn’t say that, because the flag of truce was the only hope they had to keep out of some stinking Yankee prison.

  “My name is Lieutenant Samuel Bowater, Confederate States Navy,” he said, very formal. “This gentleman is Captain Mike Sullivan”—Bowater came within an inch of saying Mississippi Mike—“of the River Defense Fleet of the Confederate States Army. They are irregulars with no uniform, but they are legitimate combatants. Captain Sullivan asked me to accompany him on a parlay with the commodore under flag of truce, and I agreed.”

  “Parlay? About what?”

  Bowater stood for a second. He could not bring himself to say “I don’t know,” which was the only true answer.

  Sullivan jumped in. “Here she is, Captain.” He took a step forward, so that he was leaning over the captain’s desk. “Captain Bowater and me, we’re what you might call men of letters. Been writin a book, hell of a book. An now we’re done with her, and we have to get her off to New York, on account of that’s where all them publisher fellas is.”

  Davis’s eyes narrowed. “You…wish to send a book to New York?” He looked over at Bowater, but got no help from Bowater’s incredulous expression.

  “That’s right. They’s a place called Harper and Brothers, they done a whole mess of books, and we reckon they’d just be eager as can be to get their hands on this one.” He reached into the haversack, which Bowater had not even noticed in Sullivan’s hand, and pulled out the familiar sheaf of papers, the manuscript of Mississippi Mike, Melancholy Prince of the River. He laid it on the commodore’s desk as if it were a holy relic.

  Davis looked warily down at it, as if it might not be safe to touch. “Let me understand you…. You came to us under flag of truce because you wish me to mail a book to a publisher in New York?”

  “That’s it exactly, sir,” Sullivan said, straightening and smiling wide. “’Cause some things, like art and such, well, they don’t know the boundaries of war. Ya understand? Can’t let a little thing like this here unpleasantness git in the way of havin lit-rit-ur get to the folks what would appreciate it. And hell, there ain’t no other way I’m gonna get this to New York, without I gets a Yankee to send her. Here, I wrote the address down, right there.”

  Bowater felt himself flush red. Before, he had been frightened by the possibility of becoming a prisoner of war. Now, he was simply humiliated to have this naval officer regard him as a part of Sullivan’s idiocy. He closed his eyes. Dear God, just let the damn Yankees shoot me, please, just let them shoot me now….

  He opened his eyes again. Davis was still staring at the manuscript and shaking his head, just slightly. Finally he looked up and addressed Mississippi Mike. “You want me to do this thing for you. What do you have to offer me?”

  Sullivan, unbidden, grabbed a straight-back chair that stood against the bulkhead, set it close to Davis, and sat. He leaned toward the commodore, spoke in a low voice. “Reckon I could tell you a thing or two about the force we gots down ta Memphis.”

  Bowater stiffened, felt his hands clench. Sullivan, you trai
torous bastard! The whole manuscript thing was bad enough, but now Sullivan was making him an unwitting partner in treason.

  Davis looked Sullivan up and down as if assessing the man, then looked up at Bowater. “What do you say, Lieutenant?”

  “I say…and I say this on my honor as a gentleman…that everything Captain Sullivan has told you so far is the truth. But I did not know that he intended to trade military secrets in order to get this manuscript posted. I will not be a party to that. Imprison me if you will, I’ll not engage in such treachery.”

  Davis considered that. “Well spoken, Lieutenant. Mr. Phelps, please see Lieutenant Bowater to the hurricane deck. I’ll have a word with Captain Sullivan, here.”

  Phelps led Bowater to the hurricane deck. The four men from the General Page were sitting, smoking and chewing. One was engaged in conversation with the bluejacket who held a rifle on him. Bowater stood apart, folded his arms, fumed.

  The coal barge thing was bad enough, when he had been made a party to theft, but now he was a party to treason.

  Never mind my own culpability, he decided. He had to report Sullivan, had to see him tried and sentenced. Hung, preferably. Such treason could not go unpunished. If that meant that he, Bowater, was cashiered from the service, sent to prison, so be it. It was what honor demanded.

  Some time later, Mississippi Mike reappeared on the hurricane deck. He was smiling widely. The haversack was bunched up in his hand. The manuscript was not inside.

  “All right, boys, we done what we come to do. Let’s git on home.”

  The sailors with the rifles looked up at Phelps for instruction. “Commodore says let the Rebs go,” he said, but the sailors still kept their weapons aimed at the Southrons as they climbed back down into the gig and pulled away.

  They rowed in silence, save for Sullivan’s soft whistling, which was like a knife working under Bowater’s skin. Finally, as the Union fleet disappeared around the bend, Sullivan said, “Well, Captain Bowater, I reckon that was one successful sum bitch of a mission.”

  Bowater glared at him. “You do, do you? By God, Sullivan, I’ll see you hang for that.”

  Mike Sullivan laughed, that full body laugh. “Hell, Cap’n, I brung ya with me so’s you could show that fancy uniform to the Yankees, let ’em know we ain’t foolin, so’s ta help yer own book along, and now you wanna hang me? Hell.” Then, a moment later added, “Don’t you even want to know what I told the commodore?”

  Bowater did not reply.

  “Figured you did. I told him how at Plum Point they near wrecked half our fleet. Boilers shot out, more’n a hundred men kilt, half them that was left over skedaddled. Most of our River Defense Fleet in a sinkin condition. Told him how the only ironclad we gots down there’ll never git finished. Actually, that part’s most likely true. Anyway, he bought my stretchers right up, was jest like a little kitty, jest lappin up milk, on account of that’s what he wanted to believe.

  “So now, when them Yankees do attack, and they will, now they ain’t gonna be ready fer what’s really waitin for them. An that’s jest what I’m gonna tell Cap’n Montgomery when I reports to him.”

  Sullivan put a cigar in his grinning mouth. He poked Bowater in the chest with his sausage finger. “So we got our book off to that there Harper and Brothers in New York, an we got the Yankees all thinkin there ain’t no threat to them, downriver. Now ain’t that some good trick, Cap’n?”

  Bowater glared at the finger and then up at Sullivan. “Go to hell,” was all he said.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  On returning to the ship, he [Lieutenant Jones] found that Craney Island and all the other batteries on the river had been abandoned…. [T]his unexpected information rendered prompt measures necessary for the safety of the Virginia. The pilots had assured me that they could take the ship, with a draft of 18 feet, to within 40 miles of Richmond.

  FLAG OFFICER JOSIAH TATTNALL

  TO STEPHEN R. MALLORY

  Wendy could feel her confidence and her boat-handling ability growing with every foot of their course made good.

  She concentrated first on steering small, on preventing the boat from taking wild swings to port and starboard, on not turning so far to weather that the sails flogged, then jamming the tiller over so they swung far off to leeward. A little experimentation showed her how little she had to nudge the tiller to get a response, even with that heavy, beamy boat.

  Steer small, steer small, she kept the words running in her mind until soon the tiller was amidships, the boat tracking nicely. She lined up a point of land with the boat’s stem and kept it there, correcting her course with minor adjustments of the helm as the boat tried to wander to one side of the river or the other.

  “You’re getting the feel of it,” Molly said. Even she could see the difference.

  They cleared Portsmouth, leaving that town in their wake, with Norfolk under their bow. Sitting on the weather side of the boat, they kept their eyes forward as they stood on toward the waterfront.

  “Um, Wendy,” Molly said at last, tentative in her ignorance of boats, “we seem to be heading toward Norfolk. Shouldn’t we turn to the left?”

  Port, Wendy thought, but she did not correct her aunt. After a lifetime of trial and error she was finally learning not to embarrass herself with such pretension.

  “Yes,” she said, “perhaps…” It was exactly the problem she had been considering. She understood the theory of tacking, of how a sailing vessel worked to windward. She tried to feel the wind on her face, but she could get only a rough sense of its direction. Now that the boat was moving along so well, she hated to change anything.

  “Perhaps we won’t have to tack,” Wendy said next. She was thinking out loud. She pushed the tiller to leeward, an inch, then another, watched carefully as the boat began to turn up into the wind. The town of Norfolk disappeared behind the sail. If she could turn just a bit more, then they could sail clear into Hampton Roads on that heading.

  She gave the tiller another inch to leeward and the elegant curve of the sail’s forward edge collapsed, the canvas rippling and snapping and bulging out. Wendy jerked the tiller back and the boat swung quickly downwind, the sail filling, the Norfolk waterfront sweeping by.

  Steer small, steer small! She eased the tiller the other way, brought the boat carefully back to its original heading.

  “We’ll have to tack,” Wendy announced.

  “All right…what shall I do?”

  Wendy was not sure. She tried to picture what would happen when they brought the bow of the boat through the wind. The line from the corner of the sail, which she believed was called the “sheet,” ran through a block just in front of her and was fastened to a cleat. She did not think it would need adjustment.

  “When we tack,” Wendy said, “then the other side of the boat will become the higher side, and we’ll have to shift over there.”

  Molly nodded.

  “All right, here we go,” Wendy said, trying to sound confident. She pushed the tiller over to the leeward side. The boat turned up into the wind, higher and higher. The sail began to flog, a distracting and unnerving sound, but Wendy kept the tiller over. The shoreline beyond swept by, the sail rippling as it passed through the wind.

  Then they were on the other tack, the boat pointing almost downriver, the wind coming over the starboard bow. The sail was pressed flat against the mast by the wind, and Wendy thought, That can’t be right….

  Somehow the gaff and sail should have been moved to the other side of the mast in order for it to set right on the opposite tack. But, unseamanlike as it looked, it was doing the job, driving the boat along, and Wendy played with the tiller until the bow was as high on the wind as it would go.

  Molly did not look confident. She was looking at the sail, looking at the shore.

  “We have to sail on this tack for a bit,” Wendy explained, “so that when we tack again we can sail past Norfolk.”

  Molly nodded. “Because it does appear we are going back the way we
came,” she said.

  “I know. But not for long.”

  For five minutes they held that course, crossing the Elizabeth River from east to west, and then they tacked again. It went smoother that time, and with the wind back over the port bow, the sail set correctly, which was a relief to Wendy. Seeing the sail pressed awkwardly against the mast made her very uncomfortable.

  They cleared Norfolk, made Finner Point where the river opened its wide mouth to Hampton Roads. Craney Island was three miles ahead on the port bow, and beyond that, only the shimmering open water of the Roads, with the low blue-gray coast of Newport News a thin line on the northern horizon.

  “I see a boat,” Molly said.

  “Where?”

  “There.” Wendy could hear the forced calm in Molly’s voice, and in her own. She looked where Molly was pointing. A small boat, not unlike their own, coming upriver under sail.

  No reason to be afraid, Wendy assured herself, but she was. “What do you think we should do?”

  Molly shook her head. “Sail on. Hope they ignore us.”

  Wendy nodded, ran an eye over the approaching boat. They had the wind a little astern and they were coming up fast.

  “I wish we had a telescope,” Wendy said.

  “I prefer guns,” Molly said. “Where is the pepperbox?”

  “We left it behind.”

  Molly nodded. “Do you have your gun?”

  “Yes. I put it in my carpetbag.” Wendy wondered how much of that morning her aunt recalled.

  Molly dug through the bag, pulled out the little gun, examined the chamber and the percussion cap. “We have one shot. We had better make it a good one.”

  Four minutes passed before the boat was up with them. From fifty feet away, the women could make out six men sitting on the weather side, and a man who appeared to be wearing an officer’s frock coat at the tiller.

  “I hope to God these aren’t Yankees,” Molly said. She adjusted her skirts so they covered the gun in her right hand.