Then it all stopped at once as Noah’s Ark struck the snowfield at the six-thousand-foot level, which meant that the great ship had traveled more than eleven thousand feet. Before anyone knew what was happening the two hundred tons of petrified wood buried its broken bow into the snow and earth. The Ark stopped so hard and fast that John Henry was thrown forward through the cold air and then he felt his body go numb as he slammed into the snow.
The world finally stopped moving and then went silent.
THIRTY-FIVE MILES NORTH OF TRABZON HARBOR, THE BLACK SEA
The captain of the Carpenter was still fighting a losing battle. As soon as the pumps seemed to be catching up, another oaken plank would separate from its kin and they would have to start shoring up all over again. They were down a total of eight feet and were now in imminent danger of foundering. As for Argo, the Carpenter had not seen her since cutting her towline four days before. As it was, the captain figured they may be right in the middle of a major conflict, even going as far as believing that it was now a possibility that Chesapeake was lost, and also the long-overdue Yorktown. If the French had the gall to disable them, why not both of the other American frigates as well?
“Captain, if we don’t receive assistance soon, we’ll lose her,” said his first officer, who was standing on deck soaked from leading the efforts of the crew to save his ship.
“It seems the Russians are sitting this one out.” The captain lowered his head as he paced the quarterdeck. “I had hoped that they would at least make an appearance seeing as we’re in their backyard with foreign warships in the Black Sea.”
“It does look like they’ll just sit back and watch how this plays out, sir.”
The captain saw the calm sea and the clearing skies. He had not made sail for three days as he needed every man available to battle the flooding from the collision with the French.
“Warship, dead on, one mile!” came the call from above. “French flagged!”
“Damn,” the captain said as he raised his spyglass toward the eastern horizon. There she was. The Especial was making a run at them again.
The last time they had come on like this was the day before, and that time she had come so close that her bow wake nearly swamped the Carpenter.
“Damn them, this time we are going to at least make a show for the bastards!”
“Captain?” the first officer said, confused.
“Battle stations. Have the gun crews ready both starboard and port guns. Don’t run them out, but raise the gun ports. We’ll at least make them sweat a little.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Moments later the tired crew of the Carpenter broke from the bowels of the large ship and made ready battle stations as the Especial sped toward them.
“She’s lowering her battle flag, Captain!”
“Why would the Especial do that?” the first officer asked as he too raised a set of binoculars.
“I can only think of one reason. She’s going to finish the job this time, and they refuse to fly their colors while committing the despicable act.”
“Or,” the first officer said as he lowered his glasses, “they want to surrender.”
The captain could not help but admire his first officer for his false bravado.
“Here she comes!” a lookout called from the bow. Men lined the railing as the Especial was only three hundred feet from the Carpenter. The open gun ports didn’t seem to have the desired effect. The captain could see that this time the Frenchman was going to contact them, and that would just about shake the last of the Carpenter’s life from her. How sailors of any nation could stand by and watch as another warship was in danger of foundering was beyond the American’s comprehension. The Especial would be a special guest in the maritime center of hell.
“Sound collision warning!”
“God, give us strength!” the first officer said as he started looking for a handhold.
The ship’s bell started clanging and every man tensed up, awaiting the final “accidental” blow that would send the proud Carpenter to the bottom of the Black Sea.
The Especial was only sixty yards away as she started a slow turn to port to “avoid” the damaged American warship, but all knew they would come so close that the mere passing of the French frigate would send a pressure wave into her hull that would undo every repair they had made.
Suddenly five splashes erupted in front of the Especial as she began her turn. The five shots from the American-made Cumberland cannon came so close to the Carpenter that one of the shells struck her topmost rigging.
The captain turned and saw that help was finally there. The Chesapeake with her massive twenty-pounders had fired her warning shots and any sailor in any navy knew that the next shots would be right down Especial’s gullet.
Suddenly the French frigate veered away sharply, cutting it close but deciding that egress was better than calling the crazed Americans’ bluff. The French battle flag started rising at her stern as she cut away.
The crew of the American warship erupted in cheers as the Chesapeake became a wall of firepower between the Carpenter and the Especial.
“Thank God,” the captain said as he raised his hand toward the Chesapeake. The crew of their savior all lined the rails of their ship as they waved, saluted, and shouted.
* * *
An hour later crewmen were transferred along with more pumps to the Carpenter. The captain of Chesapeake joined them for a meeting with his opposite number. The mood aboard the seemingly doomed ship was upbeat. But the rumor was about that Chesapeake had come alone because the Yorktown may have been lost. That dampened the mood quickly as the two officers met on deck and shook hands.
“Jimmy, I see you’re having some trouble here?” the captain of Chesapeake joked as the men shook hands.
“It seems someone has differing ideas about the rules of the road.”
The captains stood apart and were happy to see three large portable pumps being lowered into Carpenter’s hold.
“I’ll have my ship’s carpenter meet with yours and we’ll see if we can get this old girl patched up without dry-docking her.”
“You know, you took a chance firing on the Especial like that.”
“We honor them with a five-gun salute for assisting our sister ship, and you misinterpret that as opening fire? I resent that, sir!”
Both men nodded and laughed.
“Any word from the Yorktown?”
“Not a word. I am therefore assuming we are on our own. We’ll get Carpenter to where she’s not leaking like a sieve and then you’ll continue on to Trabzon Harbor and hope that Colonel Thomas and the others are there to meet us in a few days. In the meantime the Chesapeake will begin a search for the Argo. God, I hope we haven’t lost her also.”
“Tom, you know this isn’t going to turn out so good, don’t you?”
The captain of the Chesapeake only smiled. “What, would you rather be back in home waters where the war is winding down and we’re stuck with blockade duty for the duration?”
The captain of Carpenter smiled and shook his head as he watched the distant Especial holding station at a mile with her tail firmly planted between her legs. She had linked with her sister ship, Osiris, and both were now standing off watching the two American warships from a safe distance.
“Yeah, why not stay out here and stir up another war?”
Both men laughed, but deep inside where men can show fear, they knew the European powers would soon stop playing at war, and start one.
MOUNT ARARAT, THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
John Henry could hear the voices around him but it seemed they came from miles away. The words would echo and then go silent. Finally he forced his eyes to open. It was as if every bone in his body was broken. He blinked in the semi-dark. He heard the wind as it rustled the tent he now knew he was in. He closed his eyes and was in danger of losing consciousness again when he felt the coolness of the cloth as it was applied to his forehead. His eyes shot open and his ha
nd went to his head, where he took hold of someone’s fingers. Another hand soon covered his.
“Easy, easy, John Henry. You took quite a shock to your system.”
Thomas focused on the voice and willed himself to concentrate. He remained holding the hand and cold compress.
“What … what happened?” he said as his eyes came to rest on Claire’s beautiful green ones. She tried to smile but failed miserably. This made John Henry attempt to sit up.
He heard men cry out in pain somewhere and that was when he remembered seeing men flying through the air. Falling to an unknown fate and him holding on for dear life as he was sped to a crushing death. He shook his head, causing the pain to flare, and the colonel concentrated on that.
“We couldn’t find you for two hours. We thought … thought—” Claire stumbled as she lowered her eyes.
John Henry opened his eyes and looked around. They were inside the large mess tent that was now filled with men writhing in pain or speaking about the horrid event that had befallen the cursed mission. The vaguest memories started to flood back into Thomas’s injured mind.
“When we finally found you, you were nearly frozen to death in a snowdrift, which luckily broke your fall.”
“I need a report. Where’s Dugan?” he asked as he again tried to sit up but Claire restrained him.
“You’re not getting up until the corpsman says you can,” she said as she applied the cold compress onto his head. John Henry slowly pushed her hand away.
“Get me the sergeant major,” he said, and this time he did manage to rise from the cot.
“Sergeant Major Dugan is dead.”
John Henry turned his head and saw that Claire was looking right at him. He stumbled and Claire stood quickly to steady him.
“Who else?” he asked when he felt stable.
“Too goddamn many to name,” came a voice out of view. John Henry knew it was Jessy, who finally came into the tent.
“You should have let me cut that bastard’s throat when we had the chance.”
“That’s not fair, Colonel. We can’t be faulted for being civilized,” Claire said, speaking up in Thomas’s defense.
Jessy cursed and then pulled the hood from his head. He sat on the end of the cot and then ran a gloved hand through his black hair.
“How many?” John Henry asked.
“Twenty-six dead, fourteen injured.”
Thomas was stunned as he tried to remember who was standing on the deck of the Ark and who was below when that crazed son of a bitch McDonald blew it up.
“Ollafson?” he remembered.
Nothing was said. Claire lowered her eyes and Jessy was silent as he stood and pulled his gloves free.
“Captain Jackson?” Thomas asked, expecting the worst.
“We were lucky there. He rode the Ark down the mountain while inside the family spaces. He’s been stuttering ever since, but other than that, he’s fine.” Taylor paced over to the next cot and spoke softly with one of the injured Rebels. He returned and then made his report.
“We also lost our official documentarian and all of his photographs and equipment. Things are a real mess. The detonation took out half the damn camp above the Ark.”
“Where is the Ark?”
“Right outside. Well, what’s left of her anyway. We managed to move the camp away from the glacier and relocated here at the six-thousand-foot level.”
“I’m sorry about Sergeant Major Dugan,” Claire said as she watched John Henry waver and then straighten up just as Jessy tried to help. The colonel shook Taylor’s hands from him and straightened his coat and then tried to focus.
“You’ve had a pretty serious blow on the head. You need to rest for a while longer,” Claire said.
John Henry slowly made his way to the tent’s flap and pulled it open. He saw that the snow had stopped and the weather had cleared. The sun was close to setting as he took in the men setting up and repairing what was left of the camp’s equipment. His eyes soon fell on the giant bow of the Ark. It was dug deeply into the snow that had forced it to slow and then eventually come to rest. It was tilted at an angle so severe that Thomas could see onto her sloping deck. The jagged scar where the bow had been separated from the bulk of the vessel ran from keel to the raised housing of the family quarters. Only twenty percent of the Ark stood before them. The remains were a shambles. Broken and cracked petrified wood was proving to John Henry that as tough as Noah’s creation was, it would never stay intact. Spiderweb cracking dominated the great prow of the Ark. Lanterns had been placed on her deck and around her broken hull as the men still searched for anyone caught inside during the treachery of the Englishman. It was a surreal scene of destruction.
Claire watched as the colonel lowered his head and allowed the tent flap to close. He turned and saw the same Rebel trooper to whom Jessy had spoken a moment before. Thomas stepped up to the bunk, expecting words of venom from the boy about getting a lot of men killed. He would never get used to seeing men under his command dying in front of him.
“Trooper, we’re going to need you soon. Will you be ready when we do?” John Henry thought the boy wasn’t going to answer. It looked like he was thinking something over and then his eyes flicked over to Jessy before returning his attention back to the Yankee.
“Yes, sir, Colonel. It’s only a broken arm and wrist.”
Thomas patted the young Reb’s leg and then started to turn away.
“I just asked the colonel what this was all for, sir. He couldn’t rightly say.”
John Henry froze as he turned to face the boy. He had no words; he just grimaced and then smiled and patted the leg again. He returned to Claire and Jessy and sat on the edge of the cot.
“The sergeant major had a wife and eight children.”
Claire and Jessy were caught off guard as John Henry sat and talked like he was in a confessional.
“He always said that he despised his wife so much he satisfied her with a passel of kids and stayed away at the furthest outposts he could volunteer for.”
Both Claire and Taylor were silent.
“He never knew he talked in his sleep. Sometimes in English, and then the Irish would take over. But one thing I know, that man loved his wife and kids.”
Claire wanted to swipe at the tears she felt forming. The colonel truly admired Dugan, and this made her think of the deceit she had shown to Professor Ollafson before his death and feel that much lower. John Henry had a simple way about him, and Claire knew she was a long way from the integrity of one soldier mourning another.
Taylor cleared his throat when all was quiet except for the soft moaning of the injured. These sounds were clearly heard by John Henry, who looked up at the many occupied cots.
“I say we take as many samples from the Ark as we can and then get the hell out of here.”
Thomas looked from Jessy to the boy lying on the cot. He suddenly stood and walked to the tent’s flap again and then pulled it back. He started thinking. He let the tent’s opening close and then he turned and walked to the young Rebel’s cot and smiled.
“We’re about to show you what this was all about, son.”
Claire exchanged looks with Jessy, who was worried Thomas was still out of it. John Henry turned and faced his second-in-command.
“Get Captain Jackson in here.” John Henry started to slip on his heavy fur-lined coat over his uniform jacket. Taylor didn’t move for a second as he tried to fathom John Henry’s intent. “How far away are the railroad ties that we were using for our little ruse?”
Taylor was caught totally off guard by the question, but started to think anyway.
“We have more than a thousand wooden ties and rail at Talise Station that Parnell was using.”
John Henry finished buttoning his coat and turned to face Jessy.
“That won’t do. That station will soon be back in the empire’s hands.”
“Then the only option is the railroad supplies at the Black Sea line north where our intrep
id band abandoned them. We have more than two thousand railroad ties there. Why?”
“We need platforms and we need crating. We’ll have to strip the wagons of their wheels, but we can do it.”
“Do what?” Claire asked.
John Henry smiled and Taylor’s heart froze.
“The last time I saw that look you charged into a Kiowa encampment with five men and scattered their horses, and as Sergeant Major Dugan told me a few weeks ago, you had this same look when you accused General McClellan of cowardice in the face of the enemy at Antietam. And you had the same look when you were a kid at the Point when you stuffed goose feathers in Professor Jenkins’s boots. That’s not a good look.”
Thomas actually laughed when he thought about Dugan forewarning Jessy about his impending future with the Yankee colonel.
“Do what?” John Henry repeated Claire’s question.
“Yes,” Claire said hesitantly.
“We’re going to bring back the provenance.” He looked at the wounded boy. “We’re going to bring back the proof Mr. Lincoln wanted that the Ark exists and that Americans were the first to find her.” Thomas walked to the tent opening and pulled the flap back, revealing the illuminated and heavily damaged bow section of the grounded Ark.
“Oh, shit,” Jessy said as he lowered his head.
“Precisely, Colonel,” he said as he left the tent.
“I’ve truly hated that man since we were freshmen at the Point.”
27
MOUNT ARARAT, THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
NOVEMBER 4, 1864
John Henry watched as the men started the last of the crating. It had taken two weeks to build the new wagons from the old with the addition of more than two thousand railroad ties to assist in the new configuration of the large twelve-wheeled conveyances. The apprentice carpenter’s mates supplied by Jackson had done a job beyond the normal call of duty.
The communication with Lieutenant Parnell had been sparse but effective the past two weeks. The six hundred strong Seventh Guards Regiment looked as if they had taken up permanent residence at the Talise railway yard. They had taken what equipment Parnell and the men left behind in their haste to follow Thomas’s orders. The force under the command of Parnell was now encamped five miles away waiting for word to unleash the plan that John Henry, with the reluctant help of Colonel Taylor and Captain Jackson, had concocted.
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