“Welcome to my little kingdom! Burgess, Moses, this here is Ordinary Seaman Atkins. He’s gonna sail with us today, observe, if you will.”
Burgess and Jones nodded to Wendy, their faces expressionless, and Wendy nodded back. She looked around the engine room. “It’s very nice,” she said, her voice uncertain.
“Oh, that it is!” Taylor said with enthusiasm. “Let me show you around.” He was warming to his subject. “The engine is a horizontal-mounted compound…”
“Chief,” Burgess interrupted, the word like a grunt. “Service gauge.”
“Forgive me for a moment, Seaman Atkins,” Taylor said with a little bow. “We gots to go to war.”
19
SIR: I have the honor to report that at 11:45 a.m. this day a small steamer under the Confederate flag…approached this ship and commenced firing upon us with a rifled gun from her bow, our ship being at anchor.
– Captain J. B. Hull, USS Savannah, to Hon. Gideon Welles
Able-bodied seaman Seth Williams rang four bells in the afternoon watch.
The Cape Fear was vibrating with the thrust of her propeller as Bowater backed down on her spring line and swung the bow off the seawall. He grabbed the cord that communicated with the bell in the engine room and jerked twice, two bells, slow ahead. He felt the vessel shudder as somewhere below Taylor shifted the reversing lever, changing the rotation of the screw instantly from turns for slow astern to turns for slow ahead.
The tug stopped dead, and Bowater could hear the water churning up under her counter, a wonderful sound, the sound of a powerful vessel digging in, and then she gathered way.
“Cast off!” he heard Babcock shout. Bowater stepped out of the wheelhouse, looked down as the seawall slipped away and the lines that held them to the dock were brought dripping aboard. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, a bright, hot July afternoon, and they were going to war.
“Come left, leave Harmony to starboard!” Bowater called into the wheelhouse, and Littlefield replied, “Harmony to starboard, aye!” and eased the wheel over. Bowater stepped back into the wheelhouse, rang up more speed. Moments later he felt the turns increase, felt the stern dig deeper, as the deep-draft tug gathered more way.
“I’ll give the chief this much,” he said to Harwell, who was just stepping up onto the deckhouse roof. “He knows when he can ignore commands from the wheelhouse, and when he cannot.”
“Mr. Taylor, sir, if I may be so bold, thinks a little too highly of himself and his engineering division. He would have us believe he was doing us a favor, getting steam to service gauge and turns on the propeller.”
There was more bitterness in the lieutenant’s tone than perhaps he had intended. Harwell’s was not a personality that could easily suffer the likes of Hieronymus Taylor. Bowater did not have an easy time of it himself. But Bowater could ignore attitude-to a degree-if a man did his job, and Taylor was scrupulous about the maintenance of the engine and all the Cape Fear ’s systems. Also, Bowater was captain. Taylor might get the last word, but that last word would always be “Yes, sir.”
“Had we sails, like a proper ship,” Bowater said, “Mr. Taylor would not be in so commanding a position.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, may I drill the men at the guns?”
“Yes, please. You have…” Bowater looked up at the sun. “…about three hours to get them ready to fight.”
Harwell hurried off, and Bowater stepped forward, leaned on the rail that ran along the forward edge of the deckhouse, and watched the city of Norfolk to the east and Portsmouth to the west slip past. Below him, up at the bow, Harwell was arranging the gun crew like a little girl setting her dolls around a toy table for make-believe tea.
They had taken on coal at the Gosport Naval Shipyard, and as many shells for the guns as they could lay hands on, around a dozen for each gun. They had requested twenty volunteers to augment their crew, enough to work the ship and all three guns at the same time. Thirty-seven men had stepped eagerly forward, and Bowater had had to choose among them. He was not the only one chafing at the inactivity of the dockyard.
Craney Island was in sight when Hieronymus Taylor climbed up to the deckhouse roof, squinting in the brilliant sun. His shirtsleeves were rolled up over powerful forearms and he wore only his gray vest, cap, and trousers. His formerly bright white shirt was wilted and smudged now. He stopped, took a long look around, puffing his cigar like a locomotive getting up speed.
“Beg pardon, Cap’n,” he said at last. “I was wonderin, and I ask purely to increase the efficiency of the engineering division, but what’re you plannin for this day’s activities?”
“Well, Chief…” Bowater equivocated. “I wish I could tell you exactly what we will be doing, but I cannot. The circumstance of the Union fleet will dictate our actions.”
“No, really, Cap’n,” Taylor said. “What’re you meaning to do, now?”
“I mean to steam up to the Union fleet, Mr. Taylor, and blast away and see what mischief we can do.”
“Ain’t much of a plan, if you’ll pardon my saying so,” Taylor said. His cigar was clenched in his teeth, but his mouth seemed to be smiling around the obstruction, and his tone suggested more approval than concern over Bowater’s boldness.
“I am willing to take suggestions, Chief.”
“No, no. I don’t presume to know better, Cap’n. For a man of your breedin, you seem to have an aptitude for this sort of craziness.”
“I would thank you for the compliment, Mr. Taylor, were I certain it was one. Now please see to your engine.” He wondered if perhaps he was winning the respect of First Assistant Engineer Hieronymus Taylor. And if so, he wondered if that was cause for concern.
For an hour they steamed north, up the Elizabeth River, then rounded Craney Island and stood out toward the middle of Hampton Roads, that wide patch of water where the James, Nasemond, and Elizabeth rivers joined forces to pour into the Chesapeake Bay.
A good portion of the seaborne power of the United States was arrayed out in front of him, stretching in a loose line of anchored ships from Newport News Point across Hampton Roads to Fortress Monroe.
He could pick out the sailing ship Savannah, and the Cumberland, towed to safety the night that the dockyard burned. There was the Wabash, which had arrived since the last time Bowater had been up that way, the mighty USS Minnesota and the screw steamer Seminole, the St. Lawrence and the Congress. In the distance he could pick out the Harriet Lane, which he had last seen off the Charleston Harbor entrance, mere hours after the start of the Rebellion.
There were other ships as well, transports and tugs, schooners, store ships. It seemed as if more and more vessels arrived all the time, massing for something or other, ready to fall on some Southern shore.
They plowed northwest, through the blue-green water and the lovely late afternoon, looking for all the world as if they were heading up the James River, a little Union tug out on some job or other. The sun was moving fast toward the west, lighting the Union ships up with a soft, rosy tint. From a distance they looked tranquil and quiet.
Bowater put his telescope to his eye. Up close the ships still looked tranquil and quiet. Not a wisp of smoke from any stack, not one of them had steam up. The Cape Fear was two miles distant and he could detect no alarm on any of the decks, no frantic running as men raced to quarters, no bells, no rattles, no drums.
“Helmsman, start coming right. Slowly.”
“Slowly right, aye…” Littlefield turned the wheel right, one spoke, two spokes. The Cape Fear’s bow swung to starboard, bit by bit, and her course changed from northwest to northeast, and soon her bow was pointing not up the James River but rather at the anchored fleet.
Bowater swept the ships with his telescope. Still no alarm. He looked down onto his own foredeck. The wheelhouse cast a shadow all the way forward, to the breech of the ten-pound rifle. The sun was setting behind them. It would not hide them, but it would make it more difficult for the Union gunners to aim.
The gun crew were sitting and squatting on the deck, out of sight behind the bulwarks. Bowater could see the tension on their faces, the nervous tapping of fingers, feet wagging back and forth like a dog’s tail. He felt it himself; the sweating palms, the quickened pulse, the sense that everything appeared sharper. He had chosen his side and he was fighting and he felt alive, and he had not felt that way in a long, long time.
Lieutenant Thadeous Harwell crouched behind the bulwark with his forward gun crew, though he did not know if he should. He was not certain an officer should be crouching. But the captain had said crouch, and he did not say for the luff not to crouch, nor had he expressed any obvious displeasure with an officer crouching, so Harwell continued to crouch.
This is it, this is it, this is it… Harwell had never been in combat. He had missed the Mexican War. That conflict had been no great shakes in the naval line in any event, and only a few had managed to distinguish themselves, such as the young Ensign Samuel Bowater. But still it was a war, which Harwell had never seen.
He had suffered with his fear that he would not see war, would never find out if he had the stuff to be a Nelson or a John Paul Jones. He had pictured himself often enough with upraised sword leading a screaming horde of bluejackets over the rail of some first-rate ship of the line. Harwell’s Patent Bridge. He knew it was foolish, that those days were over, that armor-clad steamships were spelling the death of the great sailing navies, with their thundering broadsides and boarders swarming through the smoke. But logic did not stop the dreams.
I regret…no, no…Gladly do I give my one life…“one life”…that hardly needs saying…Gladly do I give my life for this, my beloved land… Great last lines did not, Harwell believed, happen spontaneously. Hadn’t Nelson uttered one each of the many times he thought he was done for? Sure he must have practiced ahead of time. Harwell would not allow himself to be caught short.
Gladly do I lay down this life for my beloved Southern home, and only regret that I shall not live to fight on…
That’s not so bad.
Gladly do I lay down this life for my beloved South…
Good…so even if I only get the first part out, it will still stand.
“Mr. Harwell!”
The lieutenant looked up. Bowater was standing at the forward edge of the deckhouse roof, calling down. He felt his face flush. How many times had the captain called his name?
“Sir?”
“You may remove the cover from the gun, lieutenant, and prepare to fire.”
“Aye, sir!” Harwell leaped to his feet, figured the order to cease crouching must have been implicit in the order to fire.
“Your target will be the large ship to the south.”
“Aye, sir! Wabash, sir?”
“Yes, that is correct. The Wabash.”
“Aye, sir!” The Wabash. He had served for five years aboard that ship, gone from ensign to lieutenant on her decks, boy to man. But sentimental pining for ships was an emotion of the lower deck, not fit for an officer.
Gladly do I lay down this life for my dear…no…my beloved Southern home, and regret only that I shall not live to fight…to struggle…on…
They were within a mile of the nearest ships of the Union fleet, the Savannah and the Wabash, and, incredibly, Bowater could see no sign of alarm. It was beginning to make him nervous.
On the Cape Fear’s foredeck, the canvas was peeled off the ten-pound Parrott and the crew bustled around the big gun. Seth Williams, designated gun captain, hooked a friction primer to the lanyard and inserted the primer into the vent, then stretched the lanyard out. The lanyard was a pretty bit of ropework, with Flemish eyes tucked in either end, coach whipped and capped with Turk’s heads and ringbolt hitching around the eyes. It had been lovingly crafted by Eustis Babcock, starting the moment the gun came on board, so that the Cape Fear might have something attractive and seamanlike with which to fire her heavy ordnance.
Lieutenant Harwell mounted the ladder to the roof of the deckhouse and stood beside Bowater, who was pressed against the forward rail. “Ready to fire, sir,” he reported, even before he was done saluting.
“Then fire away, Lieutenant,” said Bowater, with a calm he did not feel.
“Take aim and fire!” Harwell shouted.
“Aim and fire, aye!” Williams shouted. He sighted down the gun, called for a bit of an adjustment, stepped back, bringing the lanyard taut.
Bowater felt the excitement build, clutched the iron rail tight, pressed his lips together. They were still approaching, their distance-off less than a mile, and the big Parrott was accurate up to a mile and a half. What…
Bowater’s thoughts were interrupted by the blast of the gun, the jet of gray smoke, the surprisingly violent recoil as the gun flung itself inboard, making the Cape Fear shudder from keel up.
Harwell was staring at the Wabash through his field glasses. He pointed to the sky and Williams waved his acknowledgment.
“Over, sir,” Harwell explained to Bowater. The gun crew jumped back to their places, swabbing and ramming home another shell.
A little more than two minutes passed before the big gun was run out again. Williams adjusted the elevating screw to his satisfaction, then stepped back and pulled the lanyard taut. A pause, and then he jerked the rope and the ten-pound Parrott roared out again.
Bowater kept his glass pressed to his eye, the Wabash filling the lens, and to his delight he saw a hole appear in her bulwark, blue sky where before there had been black hull, splinters big enough to see from a mile away tossed into the air.
“Hit!” shouted Harwell and the men cheered, waved hats, then fell to loading again.
“Well done, Lieutenant!” Bowater fixed the Wabash in his field glasses. It was chaos, as he reckoned it would be, an anthill kicked over. From less than a mile, Bowater could see perfectly well what was happening on the big steamer’s deck. Men were racing about, officers were crowding the quarterdeck, waving arms, men rushing over the foredeck and up the rigging. It was bedlam, Gulliver waking to find himself the captive of the Lilliputians.
Wabash carried nine-and ten-inch Dahlgrens. But her guns were not rifles, but smoothbores, already antiquated. After hundreds of years during which little changed in the way of naval warfare, things were suddenly developing so rapidly that it was difficult for any navy to keep pace.
Still, smoothbore or no, the Wabash’s guns could blow them to kindling with one broadside, if Wabash could come to grips with them.
The Cape Fear hurled another shell and a hole appeared in the Wabash’s side, and Bowater wondered what destruction that must have done to the lower deck. He wondered if Wabash was getting steam up. It would do them no good. Cape Fear would be gone before their screw bit water.
The forward gun went off once more, and Bowater saw wood fly off the after rail. It is like a turkey shoot, just an absolute turkey shoot. And once again, he found that the ease with which they were attacking the Union fleet left him feeling edgy and nervous.
He crossed over to the port side, looked out at Wabash with his telescope. There was another vessel now, a smaller one, side-wheeler, schooner rig, steaming around from behind the big steam sloop. Not much bigger than the Cape Fear. Was she going to tow Wabash off?
Bowater shifted his focus from the ship to the side-wheeler. Not towing Wabash off. She was, in fact, coming bow on to the Cape Fear. And then the puff of smoke, the scream of shell, the water plowed up forty yards away, and with it, at last, the flat report of the distant gun. A gunboat! For all the Yankees’ sea power, the only vessel that could get underway fast enough, the only one with a rifled gun that could reach out that far, was one not much larger than the Confederates’.
Harwell, beside him, was dancing with excitement. “Mr. Harwell, please have your gun crew redirect their fire to the gunboat.”
“Aye, sir!” Harwell practically shouted, and relayed the order.
They were closing fast, both vessels charging like knights-errant. The Cape Fear fired, m
issed, but not by more than a dozen yards. The Yankee fired again and charged on.
He must have more shells than we do… Bowater was counting the valuable projectiles as his gun crew blasted away. He wondered if the Yankee captain had to do the same. He wondered if he knew the Yankee captain, if they had been shipmates once.
The Cape Fear’s gun went off, the deck shuddered under Bowater’s feet, and in the deafening blast, the Yankee’s gun seemed to fire in absolute silence, less than half a mile away. The last of the reverberations from the Cape Fear’s rifle were dying, and from that noise rose the scream of the Yankee’s shell, fast and loud. Bowater could see the black streak in the sky, right in line with his vessel, and then the shriek was like sharp pegs in his ears and the shell crashed through the cabin behind him, exploding in a great shower of shrapnel and wood and glass.
Before Bowater’s shocked face, an image of painted wood and dark paneling and Littlefield the helmsman, all exploding as if from some internal force. And then he was down, and the darkness washed over him, like the cold water in the dry dock, and once again he could not crawl free.
Hieronymus Taylor did not care for this, did not care for it at all. He paced back and forth, worried the cigar in his mouth, glared at the wheelhouse bell.
Generally, he preferred to be below. He would rather be in his engine room, surrounded by his beloved machinery, than up there in the light with the idiots and prima donnas of the master’s division. He preferred the precision of machinery to the vagaries of wind and tide and politics and chains of command.
It was a preference, and a passion, which he tried to convey to Wendy. He gave her a tour of the engine room, spoke passionately about Scotch boilers and fire tubes and blowdowns. He was absolutely poetic on the subject of winging fires with slice bars, on hot wells and feed water, on Stephenson links and trunks and rods and shafts and pillow blocks.
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