Glory In The Name

10

The flag of Virginia floats over the yard.

– George T. Sinclair to Stephen R. Mallory

Beyond the pyre that was the frigate Merrimack , first one, then another, then another of the massive A-framed ship houses burst into flame, the base of each building engulfed, the fire licking its way up the curved sides. At the other end of the yard, where Samuel knew the ropewalk and sail loft and rigging loft to be, now suddenly there was only fire. In a flash the dark night was turned into a brilliant inferno.

Across the river came shouts of rage, impotent gunfire.

“They’re firing the yard!” Samuel said, and even he could not keep from shouting that time.

“Who, sir?” asked Harwell.

“Got to be the damned Yankees,” Taylor said. “Got to be them damned Yankees running away and burnin the yard behind ’em.”

A bell rang and Bowater turned and out of the dark thrashed the steam frigate Pawnee, with her high sides and straight sheer and ugly, foreshortened masts. Samuel Bowater knew her well.

Black smoke poured from her funnel and the water creamed white around her bows as she gathered way. The burning ships and yard washed her in yellow light and weird dancing shadows. Samuel could see men lining her rails and imagined they were marines, ready for whatever else the night would bring.

From her after chocks, a hawser ran straight back, like a leash, and made off to the end was the USS Cumberland, which Pawnee had in tow. Unlike the squat Pawnee, Cumberland had the lofty spars, longer bowsprit, and jib boom and more elegant sheer of a pure sailing vessel. But without steam, she was helpless in the light air.

“Ahoy, the tug!” A voice came from Pawnee’s quarterdeck.

“Ahoy!” Bowater shouted back.

“Come up on Cumberland ’s starboard side and make fast! Go on, get a move on!”

“Aye, aye!” he shouted, then turned to his officers. “We have to go ashore, see what we can do. Mr. Harwell, assemble a landing party. Tell off five steady hands.”

“Aye, aye, sir. And sir, may I lead the party?”

“No, Luff. I’ll go. I need you here.”

“Aye, sir,” Harwell said, and Bowater could see the genuine disappointment. But he could not send Harwell. He did not know himself what he would do once he was ashore.

“Mind if I tag along, Cap’n?” Taylor asked. He had his hands in his pockets and was leaning back some, as if loitering by the woodstove at the general store.

Bowater considered the request. He didn’t like Taylor, but the engineer’s perceptions that night had impressed him. Besides, Taylor had a wolflike, all but feral look in his eyes that his casual stance could not disguise. Bowater suspected the man would be good in a fight. “Very well. Arm yourself as you will.”

Bowater dashed back into the wheelhouse, grabbed the pull for the engine-room bell, rang up half ahead. “I’ll take this,” he said to the helmsman, pushing him aside and taking up the wheel. Tight maneuvering in a small vessel-it was easier for him to do it himself than to give helm commands.

He swung the Cape Fear’s bow off, headed her right for the granite breakwater. The shipyard was in flames from one end to the other, and some of it was lit as if it was noon and some was in shadow. The edge of the seawall made a sharp line where the yard met the river.

Samuel spun the wheel and the Cape Fear heeled into the turn and he rang for engine stop. It was a heady sensation to feel the tug move under his hands, feel the strong boat respond to his hand on the wheel, his hand on the engine-room bell.

The bow swung past the seawall, and Bowater rang engines astern and with a twist of the wheel brought the eighty-foot tug against the granite pier.

One jingle, all stop, and he felt the tug settle down as the screw ceased its thrashing. He leaned out the wheelhouse door. The fire had taken over the ship houses and engulfed them, the flames already reaching hundreds of feet in the air. There was a great roaring sound, the sound of rushing air, as the fires consumed everything: wood, stone, metal, the air itself.

Eustis Babcock was ashore with the forward fast, and he was directing the others to stern and spring lines.

Samuel Bowater took a deep breath, took in smoke and the swell of burning wood and paint and the coal smoke from his own boilers. He felt the excitement rush through him. He thought of how the fire had raced over and consumed Merrimack. That was it exactly. He felt strong, charged, with a head up steam, alive, as he had not felt in years. He was Rip Van Winkle. He was experiencing his own personal Great Awakening.

He turned, raced down the ladder to the side deck, nearly colliding with Thadeous Harwell.

“Sir, shore party is told off and assembled on the fantail, sir,” he said. Harwell could hardly contain his excitement, and it reminded Bowater to get control of his own.

“Well done, Lieutenant. Now see here, you are in command while I am gone. You are to concern yourself with the safety of the vessel above all else, even if it means casting off and leaving us, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Bowater regarded the young man for a moment, saw himself with the guns of Veracruz firing in the distance. He felt sorry for him. “Your chance will come, Mr. Harwell.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Bowater gave him a slap on the shoulder, hurried down the side deck. There on the fantail was Hieronymus Taylor. He had shed his coat and now his braces made two dark lines across his stained white shirt. He held his cigar clamped in his teeth, and on one shoulder rested a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun.

The rest of the party was assembled, with cutlasses hanging from belts and rugged sea-service carbines in their hands. And there was Jacob, who had been though this drill many times, waiting with sword belt, sword, and pistol.

Eustis Babcock was back aboard. He had his back toward Samuel, staring out over the water, and then he turned and Bowater could see tears streaming down his deep-lined cheeks.

“Mr. Babcock?”

“It’s the Merrimack, sir. The dear old Merrimack. Look what them Yankee bastards done to her, sir, just look!”

Bowater nodded. Ten years as boatswain aboard that ship, Babcock would love her as much as he loved his home state. He might as well have been watching Mobile burn.

“Well, let us go and make them pay for this,” Bowater said, a silly, shallow platitude that disgusted him even as he said it. But Babcock nodded and wiped his cheeks with his sleeve. Looked more like a boy in a sailor suit than the grizzled veteran that he was. The words seemed to have bolstered him.

Sailors and their damned sentimental… Bowater thought, and turned his attention back to the rest of the shore party.

“Listen here, men…stick close by me when we’re ashore…” He raised his arms and let Jacob wrap the belt around his waist and buckle it. “We’ll…” He was not sure what else to say. He did not know what they were going to do. Instead he pulled his pistol from its holster, his own personal.36-caliber Navy Colt, a present from his father. It gleamed in the light of the fires onshore, and the engraved vines that twisted around the sides of the weapon stood out bold and the ivory handle glowed orange. He spun the cylinder, checked the caps, reholstered it.

“Let’s go.”

He turned and stepped up onto the tug’s rail and jumped the five feet to the cobbled yard below. The heat was overwhelming, even from that distance, like standing in front of an oven. One by one the men dropped to the ground