“Please forgive me, oh, Lord God, please forgive me!” he wailed and pulled the trigger. The gun jolted his shoulder, filled the place with the sharp crack of the gunshot, a good, honest sound. Burgess jerked once, lay still. The screaming was cut by one third.
Taylor grabbed up the lantern, turned toward the boiler. Two bodies, lying still, killed mercifully in the blast. Taylor could not tell who they had been.
He moved around the port boiler, still intact. Two men were tossed up there, one of them, or what was left of him, a coal heaver named Collins they had picked up in Yazoo City. Flayed alive, and still alive; Taylor could see white teeth through the horror that was his face, the dark hole of his mouth as he screamed. Taylor lifted the gun, aimed, closed his eyes, squeezing the tears out, fired the gun.
The blast of the shotgun, then quiet. He swung the lantern around, around to where the third screaming voice had been. One of the men sent by Mallory, Travis something. His pants were shredded, the skin nearly gone, nothing of his leg but half-boiled muscle and skin draping off. He looked at Taylor, his eyes wild, a trapped animal look.
“Don’t kill me, Chief! Please, God, don’t kill me!”
Taylor looked at the boy. He lowered his gun. “I won’t kill you, boy. Gonna hurt like a son of a bitch, getting you outta here, but I won’t kill you.”
“Chief Taylor! Captain wants to know what’s goin on!” The voice from the hatch. Taylor turned, saw Ruffin Tanner drop from the ladder to the deck plates, saw his eyes move around the shattered engine room.
“Lost the starboard boiler, whole black gang’s dead, but me and him.” Taylor jerked a thumb at Travis. “We need some hands to get that poor bastard out of here.”
Tanner nodded. “Fire hose is working, they’re getting the fire down some. You need more hands down here?”
Taylor looked around. One boiler, one engine. “How much longer you think we gonna keep up this fight?”
“Not long. We ain’t long for it now.”
Taylor nodded. “No. You don’t want to send any of them poor bastards down here.”
Tanner nodded, stuck out his hand. Taylor took it, shook. Tanner disappeared up the ladder.
Taylor looked around. The firebox on the one remaining boiler was gaping open, the fire glowing red. Red meant too cold; it should be white-hot. He grabbed up a shovel, dug it into the pile of coal on the deck plate, heaved it into the boiler.
Coal passer. Twenty-five years ago he had begun his engineering career as a coal passer, the first lesson in years of education, formal and otherwise. Runaway from affluence, lured by a passion for machinery that his parents could not understand. Changed his clothes, changed his accent, been playing the peckerwood so long he did not know how to play any other part.
He dug up another shovelful, tossed it in, spread it around, watched with satisfaction as the fire began to change color. Twenty-five years, coal passer to chief and back to coal passer, and now it would end like this. All right, then. He would die like a man, with a coal shovel in his hand. That would do. He did not want to live anyway, not with the things he had in his head now.
They were really getting pounded this time. One of the big Yankees alongside, Bowater did not know which. Brooklyn, perhaps. It did not matter. She was moving slow upriver, giving back double what the Yazoo River could deal out.
The fire was raging in the forward end of the casement, Babcock leading his pathetic bucket brigade against it, the fire hose lying limp and useless on the deck. The ironclad shuddered with the impact of shells against her sloped sides, shuddered with the recoil of her own guns as Tanner kept his men at it, despite the fire and the carnage around them.
And there was carnage. Like nothing Bowater had ever seen or imagined. He once thought, having fought in Mexico, that he knew what war was. That memory embarrassed him now. He had had no notion. At Elizabeth City he had had a taste. Now he was having the main course, more bitter than he could have imagined.
Black smoke and the stink of burning paint and burning men roiled out of the blaze, the light from the fire revealed it all; the half-bodies, the sprays of blood, the odd limbs. Men lying as if asleep, save for the fact that their heads were gone. Bowater could not count the dead, the bodies were not intact enough for that, nor could he tell how many were being consumed by the flames. His officers were gone. He had seen what was left of Quillin. He had not seen the second officer or Worley for some time.
He looked at the hose. If the water did not start running soon, they would have to abandon ship. He was not sure how they would do that. Run her aground, he supposed.
Another shell struck, not the casement this time, but low, under his feet, somewhere aft. He turned, and as he did he felt the entire ship shudder, shudder in her guts, heard a muffled blast, and a whoosh and gasp, like the last breath of some giant beast. The hatch to the engine room lifted on its hinges, a great rush of gray steam blowing up in a hot wet blast from below.
Boiler… Bowater closed his eyes. A shell had hit a boiler. He could not imagine what horror it had done below. He could not imagine that anyone in the engine room had lived through that.
He heard the note of the engine change, the sound running through the casement drop off as one of the engines faltered and died. He had to get back to the pilothouse, could no longer remain below, directing the firefighting, but all his officers were gone.
“Babcock! Take over here! Do your best-I don’t think we’ll get fire hoses now. Tanner! Drop down to the engine room, see what’s happening, report to me in the pilothouse!”
He had turned to head for the pilothouse when he saw the fire hose jerk and twist, like some animal one had thought dead suddenly springing to life. Water spurted, hissed, then streamed from the end, and Babcock snatched it up, charged the fire like a knight with a lance.
Incredible… Bowater thought. But too late…
He climbed back to the pilothouse. “Starboard engine’s gone, Captain,” Risley said. “Rudder’s hard over, just keeping her going straight.”
“Very well.” Bowater looked out the slot. The ship that had punished them so greatly was pulling ahead, steaming upriver, past them, and in her wake, another ship, of around the same size and class. USS Richmond, Bowater thought, wondered if they had changed her name.
One by one, leisurely, Richmond’s broadside opened up, with the precision of a salute, the shells screaming by, clanging on the armor. Smoke and steam from the fire down below rolled into the pilothouse, obscuring everything, setting Bowater and Risley and the helmsman to coughing, gagging. But still the Yazoo River fired back, one shot to the enemy’s three.
The smoke drifted away, Bowater had a clear view again. The night was on fire, the wild reflections of red and orange, the flames through the smoke, the noise. Noise such as he had never heard. He felt his head swim, felt an unreality come over him. If only it would stop, even for a minute, give him time to think, to organize. If only the noise would stop.
And then, from Richmond, amidships, another gun fired, bigger than the others, a deep roar, a giant waking up, angry.
Eighty-pound Dahlgren rifle… was all Bowater had a chance to think. Richmond carried one, on slides. Eighty-pound Dahlgren rifle.
The shell hit aft, made the Yazoo River slew around, exploded with a noise that stunned Bowater. He was thrown forward with the impact, slammed against the side of the pilothouse, bounced back, flailing for a handhold but finding nothing. He fell, down, down, saw the stairs coming up, reached out a hand to stop himself, and then he was tumbling to the deck below, and then, at last, it was quiet.
47
April 27, 1862- New Orleans gone-and with it the Confederacy. Are we not cut in two? The Mississippi ruins us if lost.
– Mary Boykin Chesnut
Bowater crawled out of the blackness, was dragged out of the blackness, a voice pulling him up by the weight of its authority. Bowater realized, as he kicked toward the surface, that the voice was Hieronymus Taylor’s.
&n
bsp; His eyes fluttered open. Taylor was bending over him, the light of a fire flickering off his stained, soaked shirt, his unshaved face, his plastered hair.
“Come on, Cap’n, wake up now!” Taylor was saying. A command. Bowater kept his eyes open.
He sat up on an elbow. His head was pounding. He looked around. The fire in the casement was not the blaze it had been, but it was not extinguished either. “How long have I…”
“Not above five minutes.” It was Tanner who spoke now. Bowater saw him standing behind Taylor.
Why are they here? Bowater shook his head, to clear it, to indicate he did not understand.
“Last shell took out the starboard paddle wheel. We dead in the water, Cap’n,” Taylor said.
Bowater struggled to his feet and Taylor helped him and together they climbed up the few steps to the pilothouse. The port side of the pilothouse roof was bent up and back, like a tin can wrenched open. Risley was lying on the deck, wide-eyed and dead. The helmsman was gone, Bowater did not know where. They did not need a helmsman anymore.
He looked to starboard, where the roof had once obscured his view. The round hump of the iron-encased wheelbox was ruined. Where it had stood in its elegant arc there was now a gaping hole with shards of iron and wood jutting out at every angle, the wrecked bits of the paddle wheel, buckets and arms and shaft, tucked inside what was left of the box.
They were adrift, sweeping downriver on the current. Yankee gunboats were passing them by, but the Yazoo River was not firing at them, and they were not wasting powder on an obviously dead ship.
Bowater looked aft. The fight was upriver of them now. He could see the smoke, like a fog bank seen from a distance, the glow of fire rafts, gunfire, the blazing defiance of the forts, and the Union fleet steamed past, as if all the preparations the Confederacy had mounted to defend their greatest seaport were no more than an annoyance, a show with lights and smoke.
He watched for a moment, two, looked at the battle the way he would look at a grand canvas depicting some long-ago sea fight, the Battle of the Saints, or Trafalgar or some such. Because that was what the Battle of New Orleans was to him now. History. He was no longer a part of it, any more than he was a part of the fight against Napoleon’s tyranny.
He turned to Taylor. “No engines?”
Taylor shook his head. “Concussion shattered the main steam pipe, port side. No steam, no fire pump.”
Bowater nodded. They could not maneuver, they could not fight the fire in the casement. Half the crew were dead or wounded. It was over. The Yazoo River was a shooting star which had arced across the dark river in a blaze of violence, burned out on her way to earth.
So how do we get off of her? Bowater wondered. No power…
And yet he was hearing a steam engine, and not so very far off. He turned and tried to look down the port side, but his view was obscured by the twisted metal of the pilothouse roof. He put his hands on the top of the casement, hoisted himself up so he could look around the edge of the wreckage. To his surprise he saw a tug, very like the Abigail Wilson, tied alongside, all the way aft. A voice, sounding very like Theodore Wilson, called, “Ahoy, the Yazoo River! Do you need to abandon ship?”
On Bowater’s orders they searched the casement, located the wounded, made certain the dead men were truly dead. The Yazoo River would serve as a funeral pyre for them, they would go down to their graves with the Confederate flag flying proud on the ensign staff.
Back on the fantail, Bowater was the last to step out of the sweltering, smoke-filled, burning casement. The air was cool and sweet in contrast, the sounds sharper. Someone was holding a lantern, the light falling on the miserable remnants of his command.
On the starboard side, Robley Paine lay on the deck, held in a man’s arms. Bowater stepped over, knelt beside him.
“Robley? Robley?” Paine’s head lolled over. Blood was running out of his mouth, a thin, dark line down his chin. He smiled a weak smile.
“Captain Bowater…” he said.
“We’re going to get you off,” Bowater said, but Paine shook his head and the man holding him said, “He’s bleeding bad…” He choked the words out, was on the edge of sobbing, and the emotion surprised Bowater. He had not believed anyone cared so much for mad Robley Paine. And then he realized he did not know this man.
He looked up sharp, into the face of a young man, but not so young. The face of a veteran, young eyes grown quickly old. He saw a patched army shell jacket, a battered kepi. Bowater squinted.
“I’m Jonathan Paine. I’m his son.”
Behind Jonathan Paine, a young black man was squatting, looking down at the old man as well. The situation was so odd, requiring so many questions, Bowater did not bother. He turned back to Paine.
Robley lifted a long, blackened hand, the fingers like the thin branches of a winter tree, and Bowater took it, gentle. “I am the lucky one, Captain…” he said, his voice so low Bowater had to lean down to hear over the distant artillery fire. “I have got everything I wanted, and merciful God has brought one of my boys back. Despite all my sins, he has brought my boy back…” He coughed, but he was too weak to cough with authority. “I am the lucky one. I can rest now. But you, Captain, you must fight on and on…”
Bowater gave his hand a little squeeze. “Godspeed, Robley Paine,” he whispered. He eased the man’s hand to the deck, stood, gave him his last minutes alone with his son.
One by one the men clambered over the tug’s low bulwark and spread out along the deck, helping their shipmates over. They moved fast, every man aboard aware of the fire creeping toward the powder magazine. As far as Bowater could tell there was no more than half of the original crew left, perhaps less. He looked for Babcock but did not see him. The old man would go down with the ship.
When the fantail was cleared of healthy men, they began to pass the wounded over, some able to help themselves a bit, some who seemed near death, who no doubt would be dead soon.
Last of all they passed Robley Paine over to the tug, and when he was over the young black man followed, and then Jonathan. Bowater noticed how very much he looked like his father. He limped as well, as had Robley, and needed a hand getting across to the tug.
And then it was Samuel Bowater, Hieronymus Taylor, Ruffin Tanner.
“Guess I don’t get my headstone,” Taylor said.
“Battle ain’t over yet,” Tanner said.
“War is not over yet,” Bowater said. Together they grabbed on to the tug’s bulwark, hoisted themselves over, as the men crowding the side deck made room for them. Fore and aft the lines binding them to the Yazoo River were let go. The Abigail Wilson turned hard, peeling away from the ironclad, her propeller digging in.
Bowater climbed up into the wheelhouse. Theodore Wilson was there, grim-faced. He seemed to have none of the boy-playing-at-soldiers quality Bowater had associated with him.
“Captain Bowater,” Wilson said.
“Captain Wilson,” Bowater said without irony.
“Don’t rightly know where to go. Can’t go upriver, unless we care to be blown out of the water.”
“Battle’s over. No sense in killing these men. You’ve done what you could.” They were silent for a moment as the tug continued her aimless course downriver. “Have to imagine there’s still a blockade at the Head of the Passes. I don’t imagine we’ll make it to sea,” Bowater continued.
Theodore Wilson nodded, and then the wheelhouse was lit up with the brilliant orange light of the Yazoo River exploding, followed by the deep rolling boom of the blast, as thunder follows lightning, and the concussion of the shock wave, the sudden heat that engulfed them.
Wilson, Bowater, the pilot, all the men in the wheelhouse spun around, looked upriver, beyond the tug’s starboard quarter. A great column of flame was rising up from the ironclad, like Moses’s pillar of fire shining forth in the night. The sound kept coming and coming. The great mountain of flame seemed like a solid thing as it hung there in the air.
The Abiga
il Wilson began to pitch and roll, and debris began to rain down around her, splashing in the water, on occasion hitting the deck or the boat deck, flaming bits that were stamped out by the crowds of men on board.
The column of flame collapsed, fell back down onto the shattered remains of the Yazoo River and burned there, a blazing patch of fire on the otherwise dark river. The funeral pyre of those brave men, the end of a ship for which so many had struggled, died, and still would die. Those men, that ship, they had fought their lives out, and now it was up to history to decide where in the whole story that struggle fitted.
Bowater watched the dying ship. He guessed that the casement had contained the blast, had funneled the shock wave straight up. That must have been the case, because, incredibly, in the light of the burning vessel, he could see the Confederate flag, still run up the ensign staff, still intact, still waving in the land breeze filling in with the coming dawn.
They steamed downriver to a mile or so above Pilot Town, but with the coming light they could see the Federal ships getting up steam, could see the Stars and Stripes waving over the town, so they turned and steamed upriver again. They tied up at a half-forgotten landing fifteen miles south of Fort Jackson. They buried their dead.
Bowater suggested they burn the Abigail Wilson, but Wilson hesitated, demurred, found reasons why that was not the best plan. In the end they left her tied up, hoofed it down the dirt road from the landing to the road running north. They carried the wounded on stretchers improvised from material aboard the tug. They found transportation among the growing convoy of wagons fleeing the coming bluebellies.
In New Orleans they were swept up in the general exodus, the panicked retreat from the city. The wounded were brought to hospital. Half of the remaining men melted away. But Bowater had saved enough money from his cabin, and Wilson had funds enough, and enough gold was found in Robley Paine’s coat pocket, to secure transportation for the rest of them. Samuel Bowater led his men north to Yazoo City. He had no other place to go.
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