Glory In The Name

them until their dark silhouettes disappeared.

“Let’s get the hell out of here, sir!” McNelly shouted, but Bowater shook his head.

“We’ve got to put out the powder train!” he shouted and started running. At the edge of the dry dock the cobbles gave way to smooth granite stones. Bowater approached the edge of the dry dock carefully, peering through the smoke, trying to see the powder train and avoid falling over the edge.

“Sir!” McNelly whined. “It’s gonna goddamned blow…”

“Shut up, sailor!” Bowater shouted, staring down through the smoke.

He saw it at last, a bright dancing light, crawling along near the bottom of the dry dock, moving toward the unseen barrels of powder. “Go find Chief Taylor, tell him I’ve gone down to put the powder train out!”

He turned to see if McNelly had heard him, but the sailor was nowhere to be seen, and Bowater could do no more than hope he had run off to obey the order.

Samuel Bowater raced along the length of the dry dock, his eyes moving between the burning train and the edge of the dock. The dry dock was constructed in a series of great granite steps or ledges angling down to the bottom, like a long, narrow coliseum. Bowater took the first, three feet high, and the next, climbing fast to the bottom of the dry dock, trying not to slip or tumble on the granite ledges.

It was black in the dry dock, and many degrees cooler, as he climbed down and down, and the flames of the shipyard were now no more than an orange glow overhead, and the omnipresent roar.

Down, it seemed a terribly long way, and then his foot came down in water and he stepped down another step and another and the water rose around him. It had not occurred to him that the dry dock could be partially flooded, but if the water was over his head he would have to swim for it, and he was none too sure of his ability to do so.

Another step down and his foot hit the slick, granite floor of the dry-dock. The water was up to his waist. He pushed forward, breasting the water, which dragged at him and slowed him down as he tried to race for the distant moving flame.

The powder train, he could see, had been laid along the far side of the dry dock. He would have to push his way through the water and reach it before it reached the powder. He forced his legs to work harder.

Goddamned…damned…nightmare… Bowater pushed on through the blackness and the water. It was just like one of those hellish dreams, in which he would run harder and harder from some nebulous evil and get nowhere.

The spark hissed and leaped and flared and raced toward the powder as Bowater raced toward it, and it seemed as if the entire world was compacted down to that space between himself and the flames. With his mind so focused he did not hear the grating, mechanical sounds at first, did not register the rush of cool water, he just forced himself on.

“Captain! Captain Bowater!” The voice came through his fog, but far away, barely audible above the roar of the flames and his own heaving breath.

“Captain Bowater!” It sounded like Taylor, Hieronymus Taylor.

Bowater stopped long enough to suck a lungful of air and shout, “Down here, in the dry dock!” He paused and realized that the mechanical sound he had heard was getting louder now. He staggered as an eddy of water caught him in the midriff.

“We’re opening the damned gates, Captain! Get the hell out of there!”

Opening the gates… Then Bowater understood that the mechanical, grating sound was the sound of the floodgates being cranked open, which also explained the sudden eddies of water rushing in. Taylor was flooding the dry dock.

Good, good… Bowater thought as a fresh surge of water knocked him off his feet. He flailed at the water, kicked with his feet, but his shoes could not find a foothold on the slick bottom.

The water rolled him over and he sucked in a mouthful and then managed to get his feet down and stand. He spit, gagged, thrashed his way toward the side of the dry dock from which he had come.

Son of a bitch…son of a bitch… He could see nothing in that black pit. He looked up and could see the edge of the dry dock, impossibly high overhead, framed against the orange, burning sky. The water swirled above his stomach, up his chest. It was cold, coming in from the Elizabeth River.

Another step and his foot was out from under him and the water tumbled him again, pushed him under and swirled him along. His arms grabbed out for something, but there was nothing but water. He kicked, reached out again, and this time his hand came up against cold granite, the side of the dry dock.

He steadied himself, tried to get his feet down, but there was no bottom anymore, the water was over his head. He tried to lie back, float, but the surge of fresh water coming in would not allow it. He slammed against the side of the dry dock, bumped and scraped down its length, completely at the mercy of the roiling river water.

And then his hand hit something, something jutting out from the wall of the dry dock, a ringbolt for tying off a fast. He grabbed it, held himself in place, climbed up one of the granite steps, then another, found another ringbolt to grab. The water swirled around and tugged at him, but he held fast to the bolt, pressed his face against the cold granite, and breathed.

“Captain? You down there?”

Bowater wanted to respond but he could not. He gave himself a moment, heaving for breath, and then when he had his wind called, “I’m here, Chief! Coming up!”

“I suggest you hurry, sir!”

The powder. With drowning imminent, he had forgotten all about the chance of being blown to hell. He swiveled around, stared across the black space toward the powder train. He could still see it, that hateful flame, creeping toward the unseen charge. Bowater gritted his teeth, hating the thing, waiting for the blast.

And then it winked and then it was gone.

The spark had drowned, and he, Samuel Bowater, had not.

He turned his face back toward the side of the dry dock, pressed his cheek against the granite, closed his eyes. The fire that had burned in him earlier was out, the head of steam that had propelled him with such fearless energy was gone. He could feel his hands trembling. His knees began to vibrate. He squeezed his eyes tighter shut, clenched his teeth.

Then he opened his eyes, looked up, said, “Oh, Lord!” then turned and vomited into the water swirling around him.

For a long moment he lay there puking, until nothing else would come. He spit out, again and again, lowered his face into the water to wash the vomit away. He could not let anyone see the shame of it.

“Captain?” Taylor’s voice again.

“Coming up!” Bowater shouted back, and took the steps one at a time, his confidence and his strength returning as he climbed up out of the pit.

At last he came up over the edge, not where he had first climbed down, but near the far end of the dry dock. The inrush of water had pushed him nearly the length of the thing.

He straightened and looked around. The blast-furnace heat from the ship houses felt good on his wet clothing. Shapes moved out of the smoke, and they materialized into Hieronymus Taylor and Eustis Babcock.

“Hell, Captain…” Taylor said. He shook his head. He was grinning.

“Hell, indeed. Where’s McNelly?”

“Ain’t he with you?”

“No. He must have run off.” Bowater forced McNelly out of his thoughts. “Good job, Chief, opening the gates.”

“Thankee, sir. Sorry ’bout near drowning you.”

Bowater shook his head. “It couldn’t be helped.” Now that his thoughts were settling back into place, he was feeling a bit sheepish about not having thought of the floodgates himself. “Let’s get back to the ship.”

Wearily they trudged off, making their way back in the direction they had come. With the bulk of the flames at their back they had an easier time of it, the shipyard before them brilliantly illuminated, the light making a million little bright spots and shadows over the rounded cobblestones. But the smoke was a dense fog, and their visibility was down to a hundred feet or so, and after a few moments Bowater found himself questioning his own sense of direction.

“Chief…” he began and then from behind him an explosion jarred the ground, tossed bright volcano flames high in the air. Bowater and Taylor and Babcock were flung forward, part from the shock and part from a desire to get