Glory In The Name

Samuel had determined that tricky Diamond Shoals were well astern, dead reckoning with the chart spread on the table in his cabin, it was a near-ninety-degree course change to northwest and the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay.

That was pretty much how Captain Samuel Bowater had figured it. Fifty hours, Wilmington to Cape Henry, and that had them steaming into the bay in full darkness, and running past Fortress Monroe and the naval installations at Newport News and Norfolk in the dead hours, the least watchful hours. They could anchor once they were well up the James River, once they were safely in the bosom of Virginia.

Three hours and ten minutes after he had stepped aboard, they had slipped the fasts and worked their way out into the stream. The chief engineer, Hieronymus M. Taylor-Bowater smiled as he recalled the name-had said five hours to get head up steam, but that was the sort of thing engineers always said. Made them look particularly efficient when they had steam up in half that time.

Engineers…

In the days of sail, an officer learned it all. He could navigate, sure, and work his ship in a harbor or in a storm. But he could also knot and splice, he could lay aloft to stow sail, he could stand a trick at the helm, and had done so. He could set up standing rigging and send spars down to the deck and act as gun captain or sailing master or mast captain. There was no part of any job on board that the captain had not, at some point, done himself.

But with the advent of the steam engine, that all changed. Now there was someone aboard his ship who knew more about its most vital part than he. It was a relationship that Samuel Bowater was still struggling to define.

Goddamned engineers…

He had begun defining it for his present circumstance the second he stepped aboard. It had not been his intention to get underway immediately-first light in the morning would have been sufficient-but one look at Hieronymus Taylor and Bowater knew that the first conversation he had with that man had better end with an order, and an unequivocal one. The relationship of superior to inferior had to be established immediately and forcefully. Bowater knew men like Taylor-rough, uneducated, surly-and knew they had to be handled in the same way one handled a bad-tempered servant.

So he ordered steam up, turned his back on the engineer, ordered the luff to show him the master’s cabin.

Harwell turned to the tasks with a will, overseeing every aspect of carrying the trunks and bags aboard and maneuvering them down the port side deck that ran the length of the deckhouse, fifty feet, to a ladder that ran from the front of the deckhouse to the wheelhouse above.

Harwell gestured for Bowater to go first. “The captain’s cabin, sir, is in the wheelhouse, just behind the wheelhouse. I hope you will find that convenient.”

Bowater stepped through the wheelhouse with its big varnished wheel and bell lanyard for communicating with the engine room, and through the open door into the cabin beyond. The walls of the cabin were also painted white, gleaming and spotless, and the deck was covered in the traditional black-and-white-checkered canvas. The overhead was white as well, with varnished deck beams at regular intervals. There were windows with curtains on three sides, and even in the evening sun the cabin was wonderfully lit.

On one wall was a built-in bunk, against another a washstand. A generous table was lashed down against the forward bulkhead. In all it was a very agreeable space, light and airy as a deckhouse.

The disadvantage, of course, was that this cabin and everything in it would likely be reduced to kindling when the iron started to fly.

“Very good, Lieutenant. Jacob, stow my gear away. Mr. Harwell, let us see if the men are assembled.”

Bowater led the way aft. They came around the corner of the deckhouse and found the ship’s company, all twenty of them, standing at attention by division and department. After years aboard USS Pensacola, with her crew of more than five hundred, it was not an inspiring sight.

The Cape Fears’ uniforms were generally clean and in good repair. Most of the men wore the pullover bibbed wool shirt, loose-tied neckerchief, and flat cloth cap that were the standard dress of sailors the world over. They wore trousers that were tight at the waist and flared out at the feet to pool on the deck in a wide bunch of cloth, the descendants of the slop trousers worn by sailors of the last age. Half of the men had shoes.

The loose-fitting clothing gave the seamen a rangy, casual look, a look that was both military and subtly insubordinate, all at the same time. The clothes seemed to imply a relaxed discipline and at the same time something much more important: professionalism, dedication to the mariners’ arts. The clothes were the unconscious reflection of the sailors’ mind; they said the men who wore them would take their sailoring, their ship, and their fellow seamen seriously, and all and anyone else could go to the devil. It was a look and an attitude that Samuel had come to respect.

If their style of dress was similar, the colors were not. Some were outfitted in cadet gray, some in blue, uniforms they took with them from the old United States Navy when they went south. Some had black, some had combinations of all three.

Some-the landsmen-looked as if they had just left the farm.

“Mr. Harwell, please show me your master’s division,” Samuel said with military formality.

“Aye, aye, sir!” Harwell led the way, six feet to where the ten men of the master’s division were formed up. They were the seamen, the ones who worked the ship when underway. They were nominally under the charge of the master, though the tiny Cape Fear was without such a warrant.

“Captain, this is Eustis Babcock, boatswain.” Babcock stiffened, said, “Suh.” Faded blue uniform, with dark patches where Federal insignia once were sewn, salt-and-pepper beard, face tanned and lined, he looked every inch the old salt.

“Babcock,” Bowater said. “Are you old navy?”

“Oh, aye, sir. Twenty-six years. Boatswain aboard Merrimack for the last ten, when all this present goings-on begun, sir. Bid adieu to them Yankees and come south when dear Alabama left the Union.”

Bowater nodded. “I was second lieutenant aboard USS Pensacola. Reckon we’ve both taken a step down in our accommodations.”

“I reckon, sir. But I sure do admire having some damn thing worth fighting for.”

Samuel smiled. He was pleased to have men like Babcock under his command, men who formed the backbone of any real navy. “I agree, Boatswain. I look forward to serving with you.”

“Suh.”

They moved down the line, but Harwell did not bother introducing the other sailors and landsmen. There would be time later for names and assessment of each man’s ability.

They came at last to the single black man in the master’s division. He was wearing gray pants with a jaunty black stripe down each leg, a frock coat which, if old, was still in fine shape, a bow tie, and a derby.

“This here is Johnny St. Laurent. Cook,” Harwell said. The luff’s tone was odd, part exasperation, part resignation.

“Good day, mon capitaine,” St. Laurent said, and his accent was an odd mix of Southern black and Parisian French.

“Bonjour. Where are you from?”

“New Orleans, sir.”

“Were you a cook in New Orleans?”

“No, sir, I was a chef. A chef at the Chateau Dupre Hotel.”

“How did you get here?”

“I come with Monsieur Taylor, sir.”

Bowater glanced over at Hieronymus Taylor. The engineer was standing at something like attention, staring out over the water, his now-lit cigar waggling as he chewed on the end and puffed smoke like a steam engine. There was a story there, he imagined, but too much curiosity about the men was not a proper trait for a captain.

“I consider a clean galley to be of the highest priority, St. Laurent. I expect you to keep it thus. If you need help, speak to Mr. Harwell and he will see you get it.”

“Merci, sir. Chief Taylor, he allow me some of ze engine-room niggers, when I need help, sir.”

Bowater nodded. “Very good.”

That was the end of the master’s division, so Bowater took two steps down the deck until he was standing in