They closed with the Yankees. Half a mile away, nearly point-blank range, and both fleets opened up. But the Yankees had more than twice the guns, and the Yankees, it seemed, had all the ammunition they could want.
The shells came through the smoke. They ricocheted off the water, plucked sections of bulwark and cabin away, whistled and screamed through the air. The Parrott banged out, once every few minutes, whenever Harwell had his shot. The mosquito fleet kept up the fire, the Yankees returned it, three for one. The world was reduced to a haze of powder smoke, the blast of artillery, explosion of shells, the howl of flying metal, weird-sounding through numbed ears.
Eight bells, noon, one bell, two bells in the afternoon watch, and the firing did not subside, and Bowater did not know how any of them were still alive in the midst of it, still moving, ships still floating under them.
He paced back and forth. He stood in the wheelhouse, gave directions to the helmsman, rang the engine room when needed. No maneuvering, though, not really. Nothing fancy. The days of weather gauge and raking shots and fleets tacking in succession were gone, the brilliance of a John Paul Jones or Horatio Nelson part of another time, when wind was the chief tactical consideration.
Finesse and seamanship were no longer part of the equation. Two clusters of gunboats, slugging each other, hitting hard, pounding away until someone dropped. They were not fencers, they were brutes with clubs, flailing at one another. It was exactly the kind of fight that the mosquito fleet could not afford. But the only other option was to run, and that was no option at all.
Tanner bounded up the ladder. “Mr. Harwell’s compliments, sir, and he has four shells left.”
Bowater nodded. Then what? The howitzers were worthless at that range. Get closer? The Yankee rifled guns would tear them apart if they tried.
The gunfire was like a rainstorm, it would swell to great intensity, dozens of guns firing at once, a wall of noise, then taper off to a gun or two, clear and conspicuous in the quiet, then swell again.
It fell off now, two guns from the Yankees, a gun from the Ellis. Forward and below, Harwell fired the Parrott.
Three shells… Bowater thought.
Half a mile off, a Yankee gunboat stood bow on to the Cape Fear. Bowater saw the plume of gray smoke, the yellow muzzle flash. He heard the scream of the shell and at the same instant the crash of wood, the tremor through his feet, as the round smashed its way into the Cape Fear’s deckhouse. He half turned, half spun with the shock of explosion as the shell went off. The boat deck abaft the wheelhouse blew apart, like a volcano erupting out of the guts of his ship.
This is it, this is it… Bowater thought, and he could only marvel that they had stood in line of battle for as long as they had before taking that fatal shell.
Four shells… Taylor thought. He had been counting, through no conscious effort. It was just the way his mind was. He could not keep himself from processing numbers. So he knew how many shells there were, and he subtracted one each time he felt the bone-jarring crash of the Parrott gun going off, delivering a concussion to the tug that she was never designed to endure.
Wonder what the Hero of Veracruz will do now?
It had been a dull battle thus far, his first and likely only fleet action and he had spent most of it standing there with his thumb up his ass. Underway briefly, then just turns to maintain position. A little ahead, a little astern. Finally he turned the throttle and reversing bar over to Burgess.
“How we doin’ there, Moses?” he shouted.
Moses tossed a shovelful of coal into the firebox, straightened, looked at the steam gauge. “Twenty pound, boss! Nice and steady.”
“Tommy! What’s the coal look like in them bunkers?”
“Black, boss, black as my black ass!”
“Shaddup, smart aleck. How much coal’s in there?”
“Little less den half, port side. A quarter, starboard.”
Taylor nodded, chewed his unlit cigar. That was not good. The coal was their only armor, the only substantial thing between them and a shell right in the boiler.
Hieronymus Taylor had to make a conscious effort not to think about what would happen if the boiler exploded. He had seen men scalded, some bad, but never one scalded to death. He could barely imagine what it would be like to stand in the way of a full blast of steam. He saw images of skin falling off, eyes seared out, bloody pulped bodies writhing on the deck plates. If he thought too long about it he knew he would run screaming from the engine room, so he pushed the images from his mind.
He ducked under the piping, stepped aft to where the twenty-inch-wide piston maintained its slow, rhythmic stroke in the big iron cylinder. Psssst, thump, psssst, thump, psssst, thump, steam and metal keeping their perfect beat. He reached down to the crankshaft, touched his fingertips to smooth bearing. He examined the color of the oil that stuck there. Black. The shaft was running hot, but Taylor knew from experience that it always ran a bit hot, and he was not concerned. He threaded his way out of the engine maze, into the ten feet of open space between engine and boiler.
The Cape Fear vibrated, rumbled with the sound of the Parrott going off. Three shells…
And then there was a crashing sound overhead and Taylor looked up and a shell blew apart in the fidley, fifteen feet overhead. The boat deck-the roof over the engine room, two decks up-was torn apart and the air was filled with the explosion and the higher-pitched noise of shrapnel streaming past, smashing into the engine, the boiler, the steam pipes, pinging and ricocheting off metal.
Dull afternoon light streamed in, lit up the cloud of coal dust and steam and black smoke from someplace. Tommy was shrieking, lying on the deck plates, but the rest of the black gang stood frozen and Taylor stood frozen and all he could think was that the boiler was about to blow and there was not one damned second left to get their dead asses topside.
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As the enemy’s force was overwhelming, we commenced the action at long range, but as our shells fell short, whilst his burst over and around us, we were eventually compelled to lessen the distance.
– Flag Officer William F. Lynch to Stephen R. Mallory
The boiler did not blow, the panic passed, and Taylor shouted, “Moses! The boiler hit?”
He could not see the black man. A shell fragment had ripped a hole in the stack, three feet above the boiler. Black smoke came roiling out, filling the engine room. If the boat deck that formed the roof of the fidley had not been blown out they would have been completely blind, and quickly overcome.
The main steam pipe was fractured and a plume of steam was shooting out, whistling like a banshee’s moan as it poured its white cloud into the engine room, right between Taylor and Jones. It made an impassable barrier of invisible steam and scalding hot-water vapor the width of the ship.
“Boiler near knocked clean off her mounts, but she holding!” Jones shouted.
“Tommy, what the hell’s wrong?” No answer, just screaming. “What the hell’s wrong with Tommy?”
“He got hit. Inna leg!”
Taylor tried to see through the geyser of steam. “Can’t ya help him, for God’s sake?”
“Boss, I’se holdin dis boiler up wid a slice bar! I let go, da whole damn t’ing gonna go!”
Goddamn it…
Steam was hissing out of the fractured pipe in a great white cloud. Taylor could feel the hot, condensed water on his face, like a thousand biting gnats. If the pipe burst, they were dead in the water. If the boiler blew, they were just dead.
“All right, all right…” Taylor inched toward the steam, ducked under the pipe, squeezed between the side of the coal bunker and the jet of hot vapor. He looked over his head at the pipe, hanging precariously. Don’t break, don’t break, don’t break… He eased himself under and then he was on the other side of the steam.
Moses Jones was standing beside the boiler. One of the mounts was shot through, and he had shoved a slice bar under, levered the boiler up. The muscles stood out proud on his arms, sweat w
as dripping off his face. He couldn’t hold it much longer.
Tommy was screaming, thrashing on the deck plates. Taylor could see a jagged piece of metal sticking out of his leg, another in his stomach.
“Jefferson!” Taylor shouted. He could not see the other coal passer. “Jefferson!” Taylor ran past the boiler, looked down the side of the big metal tube. Jefferson’s body was tossed forward, sprawled out on the deck plates. One hand was on the firebox. Taylor could smell the burning flesh. Where Jefferson’s head was, he could not tell.
Goddamn it! Just when I get these sons of bitches trained up… He raced back, said, “You’ll have to wait your turn, Tommy.” If the boiler blew, then two shrapnel wounds would be the least of his problems. Taylor grabbed on to the slice bar, took up the pressure. “I got it! I got it!”
With a groan Moses let go and Taylor took the full weight, and he could not imagine how the coal passer had held it that long. Son of a bitch… “Burgess! Burgess!”
The Scotsman was there, ducking under the fractured pipe, and in his hand a jack. He ducked low, shoved the jack under the boiler, twisted the screw. Taylor felt the weight coming off the bar, off his arm muscles, and he breathed deep in relief.
All right…all right… The sound of the battle was louder now, with the roof of the engine room blown off, and it was rattling him. He heard the anchor chain rumbling through the hawsepipe. Drifting toward the Yankees. Bowater had dropped the hook. All right…think…
“Chief! Chief!”
What the hell…
“What!”
It was Tanner, looking down through the great hole that was the boat deck. “Captain needs a report, Chief! Will you be able to get steam up again?”
Steam? Got steam coming out our ass. Good thing that whore’s son didn’t ring the bell, I’d wring his fucking neck…
Think…think…
“Tell Bowater, turns on the screw in ten minutes!”
“Ten minutes, aye!”
Taylor looked around. The engine room was dark, a hellish place of choking black smoke and deadly steam. The main steam line was cut through and the return water was leaking as well, and steam was jetting out where a shell fragment had taken a steam pressure gauge clean off. There was hissing back by the engine, but Taylor could not see what was causing that.
It was all secondary to the main steam line. If the steam continued to jet out of the fracture rather than make its way to the cylinder, then the Cape Fear was going nowhere.
“Moses, rig up that fire hose and charge the line. Burgess, get me a mess of them croker sacks up by the ash hoist.”
“Wadda ’ell’s a croker sack?”
“Croker sack, croker sack, you know, them burlap bags up there!”
Burgess nodded, disappeared into the smoke. Taylor skirted the jet of steam, worked his way to the starboard side, the workbench. Steam and smoke swirled around, the smell of condensing water vapor mixed with the output of the firebox. The cloud twisted and swirled and sucked out of the hole in the boat deck above. Dull light from the sky overhead filtered down through the haze. The battle sounded loud, shells flying, bursting, big guns going off. Tommy was whimpering now.
Taylor bumped into the workbench before he saw it, reached out with his hand. The steam from the main steam line was hitting the bench square, but after flying the full width of the ship it had cooled enough that he could reach into it, quick.
His hand darted like a snake, fell on a wrench, pulled it back. The metal was hot and wet. He lashed out again. His hand hit the empty bench, he felt around, one second, two seconds, the steam was starting to hurt. His hand touched heavy leather gloves, and he snatched them and pulled them from the jet.
He pulled the gloves on. They were hot and wet too. He knelt down, reached back into the steam, felt around in the storage bins under the bench. Through the thick leather he felt fishplates-one for the return water pipe, another for the auxiliary steam, and finally one the diameter of the main steam pipe. He pulled it out, worked his way back to the port side.
Moses appeared like a phantom in the smoke. He held the fire hose. Water gushed out. The pump was driven by auxiliary steam-not affected by the fractured main steam line. He directed the nozzle at the bilge.
Burgess was there with the croker sacks. “Wrap them around my arms, tight,” Taylor instructed.
“Lemme do this,” Burgess protested, but Taylor shook his head and Burgess knew there was no time to argue. He wrapped the croker sacks around Taylor’s arms, tied them in place with lengths of spun yarn.
Taylor turned to Moses Jones. “You keep that goddamned water on me while I’m near the steam. You know the drill.”
“Yes, boss.”
Taylor took the fishplate in hand. It looked like a short piece of pipe, cut in two lengthwise, with flanges on the edges. In cross section they looked like a flattened Greek. The two halves of the fishplate would go over the break in the main steam pipe. They would be secured together by bolts that fitted through holes in the flanges. A simple five-minute fix if you didn’t have to do it in a smoke-filled engine room with a jet of live steam in your face.
Taylor unscrewed the bolts and separated the two halves of the fishplate. He approached the hissing jet of steam and Moses turned the fire hose on him, soaking him down, keeping a constant stream of brackish water on him to prevent his being scalded by the steam.
Taylor blinked hard. The smoke burned his eyes and made it hard to see. The white plume that formed ten inches from the pipe was the water vapor, steam condensing in the air. That was not the problem. The actual steam coming out of the pipe was clear, invisible. It was that steam, which he could not see, that could turn him into a scalded horror, begging to die.
He reached up and clapped the fishplate over the main steam pipe, near the leak, inserted the bolts, threaded the nuts. It was clumsy work with the heavy gloves. Twice he dropped nuts, wasted six minutes finding them in the smoke.
His eyes burned and his throat burned and he felt faint for want of water, and from breathing smoke. The blast from the fire hose made it hard to stand, and sometimes his balance would shift and the water from the hose would knock him toward the hissing steam and he would have to fight to keep from being pushed into it.
And all the time he was braced for the pipe to break clean through, to hit him square with a blast of pure, invisible steam.
At last the fishplate was on, set loose, and Taylor slid it down the pipe toward the break. It moved easy, covered half the fracture. The note of the steam went up in pitch as the hole through which it passed was cut in half. Taylor pushed. It would go no farther.
Damn… He turned around. There was Burgess with a big hammer, holding it out to him. Taylor took the hammer, tapped it on the flange, tapped harder and harder still. He wound up, swung hard, and it occurred to him, midswing, that he could break the steam pipe that way, cripple them for good, put himself in the way of a faceful of steam.
Too late to check the swing; the hammer struck with a clang like a broken bell. The fishplate shifted six inches aft and the fracture was covered. The note went up again, the steam now squeezing out from behind the plate. Steam was a beast, it had to be contained, it fought to get loose, through any tiny place it could find. It was a malleable beast-no hole was too small. It was a deadly beast if you got too close.
Taylor reached up with the wrench, clapped it on the nuts, began to work them around. He could feel the steam-pure, invisible steam-on the leather gloves, and soon he had to jerk his hand away. Turn, turn, pull his hands away, working the wrench with the blast of water from the fire hose playing over his shoulders, his back, his head.
It took twenty minutes, all told, but finally it was over, the beast was back in the pipe. Taylor ran his leather-clad hand over the fishplate. He could feel no jet of steam, could see no white plume where the steam was condensing.
“That should hold us till the next time,” he announced. He stepped away from the pipe, and Moses directed the f
ire hose back to the bilge. The smoke was lifting up through the boat deck. Visibility in the engine room was better now.
“Good job,” Taylor said. He was burned, his eyes and throat raw. He was faint with the heat and he was soaked clean through.
“Burgess, you take over here. See what you can do about patching the stack. I have to go report to the old man. Moses, let’s get her up to about fifteen pounds and see how she takes it.”
Taylor found the ladder up to the deck above, climbed it. He stopped, looked back. “Yeah, and see if you can do somethin’ for Tommy, too.” He took the last rungs, stepped out onto the side deck. He had not realized how choked the engine room was until he pulled in a lungful of fresh air. It was the most wonderful thing in the world. He blinked in the light of the dull overcast, stumbled forward along the deck.
The Yankee fleet was half a mile away, muzzle flashes blinking like fireflies. The water around the Cape Fear and the rest of the mosquito fleet was torn up with the falling shells, and the Confederates were returning fire at a desultory rate. Three shells… Taylor remembered; that was all the Cape Fear had left. The others could not be doing much better.
He climbed up the ladder at the forward end of the deckhouse, stepped onto the boat deck. Bowater was standing there, his hand resting on the remains of a mangled rail, looking out over the fight as if he was watching a sporting event, one in which he had little interest.
Cool son of a bitch… Taylor thought. Bowater looked at him, his right eyebrow shot up.
“Chief, are we taking on water?”
“No, no, had the fire hose turned on me. No fire, no leak. Main steam line took a hard one when that shell exploded, fractured but didn’t break. Got a fishplate on it. It’ll hold for now. We should be able to get underway in a couple of minutes.”
Bowater nodded. “Good, good. Any casualties?”
“Washington got his head took clean off. Tommy’s cut up some, but I was a little busy to see how bad.”
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