Love and War

face disintegrating —

As the wagon rattled on toward the lamplit hills, Cooper wondered about the time. It would be quite late when he got home. Judith would be angry. Again. Well, no matter.

In the city, Chickering was first to jump off. Late for a rendez­vous with some belle, Cooper assumed. Cooper's nose was dripping. It hurt to swallow. 'Be at your desk by seven,' he said to his assistant. 'I want today's report written and out of the way by the start of regular working hours.'

'Yes, sir,' Chickering said. Cooper heard him muttering as he disappeared in the dark.

The wagon driver let him off in front of the Mechanics Institute on Ninth Street, bidding him a surly good night. Cooper didn't give a damn about the disapproval; the clod failed to understand the desperate straits of the Confederacy or the problems of the department, which Mallory summed up in two words: 'Never enough.' Never enough time. Never enough money. Never enough cooperation. They improvised and lived by their wits. That brought a certain pride, but it was killing work.

Cooper presumed Mallory would still be in the department's second-floor offices, and he was. Everyone else had gone except one of the secretary's trio of assistants, the dapper Mr. Tidball, who was locking his desk as Cooper walked in.

'Good evening,' Tidball said, tugging each of the desk drawers in turn. He then squared a pile of papers to align it with a corner. Tidball was a drone with no imagination, but with exceptional organizational skills. He complemented the other two members of the triumvirate — Commodore Forrest, a blustery old blue-water sailor who understood the ways of seamen, and Cooper, who served as an extension of Mallory's inventive nature. Those two men preferred 'Let us try' over 'Here's why we can't.'

'He's been waiting for you,' Tidball said with a nod at the inner office. Tidball left, and Cooper went in to find the secretary examining engineering drawings by the light of a lamp with a green glass shade. The wick flickered as the scented oil burned. The gas mantles were shut down, and the perimeter of the cluttered office was dark.

'Hallo, Cooper,' Mallory said. He was a roly-poly man of fifty, born in Trinidad and reared mostly in Key West by an Irish mother and a Connecticut Yankee father. He had a tilted nose, plump cheeks, and bright blue eyes that often sparkled with excitement. He reminded Cooper of an English country squire.

'What luck?'

Cooper sneezed. 'None. The design for the cradle and canister are good enough; the problem is the one we saw when we first examined the plans. A torpedo attached to driftwood will do one thing predictably — drift. Without guidance, it's as likely to blow a hole in Fort Sumter as it is to sink a Yankee. Most probably it would float around Charleston harbor for weeks or months, un-detonated and potentially dangerous. I'll put it all in my report.'

'You recommend we forget about it?' The secretary looked extremely tired tonight, Cooper observed.

'Absolutely.'

'Well, that's definitive, if nothing else. I appreciate your conducting the test.'

'General Rains proved the value of torpedoes in land operations,' Cooper said, sitting down in a hard chair. 'The Yankees may think them inhuman, but they work. They'll work for us if we can find the proper means to deliver them to the target and make certain they fire.'

'All true. But we're making precious little progress with them.'

'The department's overtaxed, Stephen. Maybe we need a separate group to develop and test them on a systematic basis.'

'A torpedo bureau?'

Cooper nodded. 'Captain Maury would be an ideal man to head it.'

'Excellent thought. Perhaps I can find funds —' Cooper sniffed and Mallory added, 'You sound terrible.'

'I have a cold, that's all.'

Mallory received that skeptically. Perspiration glistened on Cooper's forehead. 'Time for you to go home to a hot meal. Speaking of which, Angela remains determined to see you and Judith. When will you take supper with us?'

Cooper slumped farther down in the chair. 'We've already refused three invitations from my brother. I'll have to satisfy that obligation first.'

'I appreciate your industry, certainly. But you must take more time for yourself. You can't work every moment.'

'Why not? I have debts to repay.'

Mallory cleared his throat. 'So be it. I have something else to show you, but it can wait till morning.'

Cooper unbent his long body and stood. 'Now will be fine.' He circled the desk and peered into the soft oval of lamplight. The top drawing showed a curious vessel indicated as forty feet end to end. In the elevation, it reminded Cooper of an ordinary steam boiler, but in plan the bow and stern showed a pronounced taper, much like a cigar's. The vessel had two hatches, indicated on the elevation as only a few inches high.

'What the devil is it? Another submersible?' 'Yes,' Mallory said, pointing to a decorative ribbon in the lower right corner. Elaborate script within the ribbon spelled H. L. Hunley. 'That's her name. The accompanying letter states that Mr. Hunley, a well-to-do sugar broker, was responsible for the concept and some of the first construction money. She was started at New Orleans. Her developers rushed her away to Mobile before the city fell. These gentlemen are finishing the job.' He tapped a line beneath the ribbon: McClintock & Watson. Marine Engineers.

'They call her the fish ship,' the secretary continued. 'She's supposed to be watertight, capable of diving beneath an enemy vessel'— his hand swooped to illustrate  'dragging a torpedo. The torpedo detonates when the fish ship is safe on the other side.'

'Ah,' Cooper said, 'that's how she differs from David.' The department had been laboring to develop a submersible for coast and harbor operations. The little torpedo vessel he had just mentioned carried her explosive charge in front, on a long bow boom. 'That and her mode of attack. She is definitely designed to strike while submerged.' David, though a submersible, was meant to operate on the surface when ramming with her boom.

An underwater boat wasn't a new idea, of course. A Connecticut man had invented one at the start of the Revolution. But few government officials, and certainly not the President, believed that the idea might have a current application. Its only proponents were Mallory and his little cadre of determined dreamers. Brunei would have understood this, Cooper thought. He would have understood us.

After a moment, he said, 'Only testing will show us which design's the best, I suppose.'

'Quite right. We must encourage completion of this craft. I intend to write the gentlemen in Mobile a warm and enthusiastic letter — and forward copies of all the correspondence to General Beauregard in Charleston. Now go home and get some rest.' 'But I'd like to see a little more of —' 'In the morning. Go home. And be careful. I trust you've read about all the murders and street robberies lately.' Cooper nodded, unsmiling. The times were dark with trouble. People were desperate. He bade Mallory good evening and trudged to Main Street, where he was lucky enough to pick up a hack at one of the hotels. It rattled up to Church Hill, where they had leased a small house at three times the peacetime price. Judith, a book in her lap, raised her head as he came in. Half in sympathy, half in annoyance, she said, 'You look wretched.'

'We splashed in the James all day. To no purpose.'

'The torpedo —?'

'No good. Anything to eat?'

'Calf's liver. You wouldn't believe what it cost. I'm afraid it'll be cold and greasy. I expected you long before this.'

'Oh, for God's sake, Judith — you know I have a lot of work.'

'Even when you were trying to build Star of Carolina, you seldom stayed out this late. At least not every night. And when you came home, you smiled occasionally. Said something pleasant —'

'This is not a pleasant time or a pleasant world,' he replied, cold and aloof suddenly. A droplet hung quivering on the end of his nose. He disposed of it with a slash of his soaked sleeve. 'As Stephen says, it is no laughing matter to have the fate of the Confederacy in the hands of soldiers with swollen vanities in place of brains.'

'Stephen.' She snapped the book shut, held it with hands gone white. 'That's all I ever hear from you — Stephen — unless you're cursing your sister.'