He imagined he would have heard the sound of the impact if the gunfire had not been so intense.
Then the Colonel Lovell sank, went right down as if it had never been meant to float. She settled on the bottom with only the upper deck still visible, an island in midriver on which the survivors of her crew huddled.
The smoke from the Union ironclads was spreading downriver, and the River Defense Fleet was adding its own, and visibility was getting worse, with patches of smoke like cotton batting hanging over the water. The second ram was lost from sight, but just for an instant, and then it burst out of the cloud that enveloped it, bearing down hard on the General Bragg.
Bowater could make out the big letter M hanging between the Yankee’s chimneys. He searched his memory, pictured the rams anchored at Plum Point Bend. Monarch—she was called Monarch.
“Meet her, meet her,” Bowater called to Baxter at the wheel. They were four hundred yards downriver of the Yankee Monarch and the Bragg. If the Yankee ran the Bragg down, then the General Page would be there to do the same to the Yankee.
“Look here, Sammy, look here!” Sullivan said, with a renewed strength in his voice. “There goes the Beauregard and the Price! Lord, they’re gonna spit-roast that Yankee!”
The Beauregard and the General Price were racing for the Monarch, the Beauregard charging at her starboard side, the Price her larboard. They were like two hands clapping together to smash a mosquito between them, while the Yankee, seemingly oblivious, charged forward, bow still aiming for the General Bragg.
“Come on, come on,” Bowater caught himself muttering. The Yankee was going to be torn apart in this collision, smashed in on both sides. In a wild confusion of chimneys and black smoke, thrashing paddles and bow guns blazing away, the ships came together.
And suddenly there was empty space, just water and smoke, a gap between the Confederate rams as the Monarch slipped right between the two.
“No! No! No!” Sullivan screamed and the two River Defense ships hit, nearly head-on, bow to bow. The Price’s chimneys leaned forward, hesitated, then toppled over, as the two vessels, each still under a full head of steam, pounded against each other. The Beauregard smashed into the Price’s wheel box and ripped it away—box, wheel, shaft, everything—tore it clean off the side of the ship and dragged it along, hung up on the bow, a mass of iron and wood debris, nothing more.
“All right, here we go,” Bowater said. He was sickened by the scene. Nine Confederate rams against the two Yankees and the Yankees were decimating them. He rang four bells. Vengeance had no place in the heart of the professional naval officer, he knew, but this was different. “Right for him,” he told Baxter. “Just forward of the wheelhouse.”
The General Page surged ahead. Bowater could hear the note of the paddle wheels go up as, somewhere down below, Hieronymus Taylor cracked open the steam valve and let her go.
The General Bragg was just ahead of them, two hundred yards, twisting wildly to get out of the way of the Monarch racing down on her. Forward, the Page’s bow gun fired and a hole appeared in the Yankee’s deckhouse, but the Yankee did not slow. Instead it turned with the Bragg, keeping its bow directed at the Bragg as the Bragg tried to circle away.
When they hit, it was a glancing blow, the Monarch striking the Bragg aft and sheering off, tearing up some wood, but little else. And now Bowater was looking right at the Yankee’s broadside.
He rang four bells again, let Taylor know they needed it all. A hundred yards between them and the Yankee seemed to sense the danger. Bowater saw the paddle wheels stop, saw them reverse, the Federal ram trying to back out of the danger.
Oh, no, you won’t, you bastard… Fifty yards. The fire from the Union ironclads was terrific, the shells shrieking past. Bowater felt a jar in the deck as a shell struck somewhere aft, a clanging sound as another struck something metal. He turned around. The larboard chimney had folded like a wilting flower, half the guy wires snapped.
Thirty yards. He could see men on the Monarch’s hurricane deck. Sharpshooters were peppering the Page with minié balls, he could hear the familiar thud as they struck wood. The far right window of the wheelhouse was shot out, the sound of breaking glass delicate against the backdrop of heavy guns.
Twenty yards and the Yankee put his helm hard over, paddle wheels full ahead, and the nimble ram spun around on her center, and the broadside disappeared as she came bow-on to the Page.
“You whoremonger bastard!” Sullivan roared at the Yankee ram. He had one of his pistols in his hand, a big army .44, and he was blasting away. Bowater thought he had better take it easy or he would kill himself before the Yankees did, but he had no time to dole out medical advice. He stepped into the wheelhouse and leaned over the speaking tube. “Engine room, stand by!”
He grabbed a spoke of the wheel, twisted it around, with Baxter adding his weight. The Page heeled as she leaned into the turn, spinning toward the Yankee ram, bow to bow.
They hit with an impact that threw Bowater against the wheelhouse bulkhead. His arms came up to protect himself and he put his elbow right through the glass. He heard Baxter give a grunt as his chest hit the wheel, heard the horrible sound of the General Page’s bow crushing against the Yankee’s.
The forward momentum stopped, the Page surged back, and Bowater was flung to the deck. He landed on his back in a pile of books and charts, and a half-eaten dinner that someone had left in the wheelhouse.
Baxter was clutching the wheel to keep to his feet. He twisted around, looked at Bowater, opened his mouth to speak, and a bullet blew the top of his head off. Bowater could only watch as the blood and bone flew out in a spray across the wheelhouse and the helmsman tumbled forward, a surprised look on his face, and collapsed right beside him.
Bowater climbed to his feet and looked out the glassless window. The two ships were grinding together, but the Yankee had called for turns astern and was extracting himself from the Page’s bow. Bowater grabbed the bell, gave a jingle, two bells. All right, Taylor, get us out of here.
Bowater stepped out of the wheelhouse. The minié balls were hitting like hailstones, but they made no impression on him. Mississippi Mike was lying in a heap, just forward of the wheelhouse, his arm moving feebly.
Bowater took a step toward him, heard a terrible screeching sound behind. He turned. The walking beam was making its rocking motion, up and down, pushing the paddle wheels astern, but it did not sound happy about it. That can’t be a good thing, he thought, but there was nothing for it. He knelt by Sullivan, half rolled him over.
“Cap’n Bowater…give a fella a warning…”
“You shot, Sullivan?”
“Don’t reckon…”
Bowater looked up. Ruffin Tanner was there, kneeling beside him. “Bow took a good hit, sir. Sprung some planks betwixt wind and water. We’re shipping it now, but I don’t think it’s coming in so fast the pumps can’t keep up. The bow gun went right over the side.”
Bowater nodded. “Can you take the helm?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Help me get Sullivan up first.” They each grabbed an arm and lifted, twisting Sullivan around until he was sitting up, and then leaned him back on a stanchion. The fall had opened his wound. There was a dark wet spot the size of a dinner plate on his shirt.
“Oh, hell, just when I was gettin better,” Sullivan gasped.
Tanner raced into the wheelhouse, pulled Baxter’s body out of the way, grabbed the wheel. Bowater stepped in after him. The Page and the Yankee ram were still backing away from one another, the distance opening up between them. Ramming distance.
“We’re going to circle around and give it to this son of a bitch broadside,” Bowater said. He grabbed the bell rope, rang up four bells. “Put your helm hard to larboard.”
“Hard to larboard, aye!” Tanner said and spun the wheel. Bowater was happy to have a navy man, a deepwater sailor, on the wheel, and hear the familiar brisk response to a helm command.
The screech from the walki
ng beam was even louder now as the paddle wheels stopped, then went ahead, changing the momentum of the ship from sternway to headway.
“Wheelhouse!” Hieronymus Taylor’s voice came echoing out of the speaking tube.
“Wheelhouse here!” Bowater shouted back.
“Just thought you beats might like to know, things ain’t lookin too almighty grand down here. You can ring that fuckin bell all you want, but I don’t know how long it’s gonna do you any good!”
Bowater paused. What did one say to that? “Very well,” he shouted. Very well.
Hieronymus Taylor, as a rule not overly concerned with his own mortality, still had often wondered how a condemned man could march calmly to his death. It was, after all, the final moment, the dread end.
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause, he thought, in Shakespeare’s words.
There was a strange numbness that had accompanied him down into the engine room, that awkward climb down the short ladder from boiler deck to the lowest part of the ship, on which the engines and boilers were mounted. It was like a climb up onto a gallows.
He recalled the feeling, helping Guthrie replace that fire tube, the gut-wrenching, piss-your-pants fear in the face of that dubious boiler. It was a long time past. He was almost too tired to care anymore, so sick of being afraid that he barely had the energy for it.
That, he imagined, was how men went to their deaths. Since the Battle of New Orleans, since the horror of the boiler explosion that had wiped out his black gang, Taylor had pondered considerably on his reluctance to work around boilers. Now, in the middle of another fight, in a flimsy, unarmored ship, he was ready to admit the truth of the thing.
“I’m scared to death.” He said it out loud. He was marching up the gallows steps. He was a dead man. Why the hell not say it? “I am plumb, outright, full-blown, goddamned scared out of my wits. I’m like to shit myself, right here.” It felt good.
“What was that, Chief?” Burgoyne was checking the water levels in the gauge glass on the boiler face.
“Nothin, nothin.” Over the hiss and thump of the engines, through the deck, they could hear the thunderous gunfire and feel the vibration through the water that enveloped the hull.
Bowater rang four bells and Taylor twisted the throttle open. None of it sounded good—the pistons, the cranks, the walking beam—but it was holding together.
If somethin would just let go, it’d give me some damned thing to think about, he thought. As soon as that idea had formed in his head, he regretted thinking it—bad luck—but it was too late. The feed water pipe burst, spraying hot water all over the forward end of the engine room. A coal passer named Luke found himself right under the broken pipe. He screamed under the burning shower, dropped his shovel, and ran forward.
“Oh, come on, it ain’t even steam!” Taylor yelled after him, but the sound of the man screaming unnerved him. He swallowed hard. “Burgoyne, close that boiler up, get the steam down. Larboard boiler on line, come on now, stoke her up! We got enough water in there?”
Burgoyne slammed the damper shut and the third engineer opened the door on the second boiler, worked the valves to bring the steam on line. “Enough water for now, Chief!”
Taylor hobbled back, fast as he could on his splint, shut off the feed water valve, and the spray of near boiling water dropped off to a trickle. “Burgoyne, get a fish plate on that pipe, quick now!”
“Fish plate?”
“Yes, a damned fish plate. Please don’t tell me you don’t know what a fish plate is.”
“No, no. I knows what a fish plate is, hell yes. I just don’t know as we gots one.”
“Well look for one, if it ain’t too much trouble.”
Burgoyne hurried over to the workbench. The bell rang out, four bells again.
Taylor glared at it. Ol’ Bowater wants him some steam, huh? Got somethin in mind.
He twisted the valve full open. You can have all the steam I got, Cap’n, but it ain’t gonna be what this bucket could do on her palmiest day. The engine speed increased with the additional steam. The crank made a terrible sound. “Someone get some oil on that!” he shouted, but the end of the sentence was lost when the gauge glass on the working boiler shattered with a tinkling sound like a little bell, which might even have been pretty if it hadn’t been for the fireman’s shriek as the boiling water sprayed his bare arm and chest.
“Shut that down!” Taylor shouted. “An everyone stop screamin, goddamn it!” Burgoyne turned from the bench, took a step toward the boiler. “Not you, Burgoyne, you find the damned fish plate! Luke, you done screamin? Shut off the valve to that gauge glass.”
Luke approached it with caution, the boiling water spewing out, reached under and twisted the valve fast. The water stopped spraying. But now they did not know how much water was in the boiler.
What the hell was I afraid of? Hell, I wish the boiler would blow right now and put us out of our damned misery.
A shell hit the deckhouse overhead and Taylor jumped and felt his heart pounding hard in his chest. Well, maybe not.
Another shot hit with a clanging noise that reverberated through the engine room. Damn it, that’s the chimney, he thought. A shell had hit one of the chimneys.
Might not make any difference…Perhaps the firebox flue would continue to draw, the chimneys would continue to suck the smoke and poisonous gas up out of the engine room. Then Taylor saw the first tendrils of smoke wafting around the tops of the boilers.
Ah, damn…
Burgoyne came ambling up. “Got this here fish plate. It ain’t quite the same size as the feed water pipe.”
“Wrap some gasket material around the pipe and clamp that son of a bitch on. We got to get water into that boiler.”
“Gasket material?”
“Find some, for the love of God!”
Burgoyne stood there for a moment, an unpromising look on his face. Bowater’s voice shouted from the speaking tube. “Engine room, stand by!”
“Stand by for what?” Taylor shouted back.
The General Page began to heel over in a turn, as much as the flat-bottomed boat would heel, enough to make Taylor grab onto the throttle to steady himself and Burgoyne stumble a step or two. “Now what in hell is he doin?” Taylor wondered out loud. And then they struck.
THIRTY-TWO
GENERAL: I am under the painful necessity of reporting to you the almost entire destruction of the River Defense Fleet in the
Mississippi River in front of Memphis.
BRIGADIER GENERAL M. JEFF THOMPSON
TO GENERAL G. T. BEAUREGARD
The impact tore Taylor’s fingers from the throttle valve and sent him careening forward. He slammed into Burgoyne, who was tumbling back, and the two men hit the deck, Taylor on top of the second engineer. He could smell the stale sweat and coal dust and residue of whiskey on the man. He could hear the wrenching sound of engine parts being torn from their mountings.
Taylor’s arms and legs were flailing and Burgoyne’s arms and legs were flailing and Taylor had a horrible image of the two of them, looking like they were copulating there on the deck plates. He pushed himself off and rolled away as Burgoyne scrambled to his feet.
Everything was moving. Lanterns swaying, men rushing around, shouting, stumbling. One of the boilers was leaning at an odd angle. Taylor could see it move with the twisting and surging of the ship.
Oh, dear God, don’t let that son of a bitch blow up….
He pushed himself up on his arms, but standing with his splinted leg was more of a trick. “Secure that son of a bitch boiler! Git some shorin under it! Luke, Burgoyne, git some slice bars under that thing, hold her up! Eddy! Blouin! Git some shorin under that before it kills us all!”
The black gang recovered from their trance and scattered. Burgoyne and Luke grabbed up the long iron slice bars used for cleaning the boiler grates and levered them under the boiler, holding it in place. The others grabb
ed up wood planks and shoved them under the iron cylinder to stop it from breaking free.
Taylor crawled to the reversing lever and used it to haul himself to his feet. The engine room was filling with smoke. He could see the halo around the lanterns, hear the men begin to cough. The boiler that had been knocked out was the one they had shut down, so the steam pressure probably was not enough to blow the thing. That was probably why they were still alive and not scalded to death or shrieking their last few moments away. He twisted the throttle closed.
He was breathing hard, his mind racing, but he was thinking clearly, and the fear was gone. He did not realistically think he would live beyond the next hour, but he was not afraid, and that was something.
“Reckon that’ll hold!” Burgoyne shouted aft, and on top of his report, a jingle and two bells. Oh, hell… Taylor jammed the shifting lever to astern, opened the throttle. Overhead the big walking beam paused and then began to rock the opposite way, with a screech and a clang and a banging sound. Taylor heard something pop.
Goddamn walking beam… Tolerant as walking beams were, they were not meant for that kind of abuse. He wondered if something had been knocked out of alignment. Knocked more out of alignment. The walking beam had been in no great shape even before they started bashing into other vessels.
“Hey, Burgoyne, get back to that feed water pipe!” Taylor shouted. Without water to the boilers they would be dead in the water in fifteen minutes.
The bell rang, four bells. Four bells? What the hell they think’s goin on down here?
Taylor shifted the reversing lever, opened up the throttle, then hobbled to the speaking tube. “Wheelhouse!”
“Wheelhouse, here!”
“Just thought you beats might like to know, things ain’t lookin too almighty grand down here. You can ring that fucking bell all you want, but I don’t know how long it’s gonna do you any good!”
Thieves of Mercy Page 39