Glory In The Name

true, then Bowater knew he could be nothing more than a spectator to the greatest military undertaking he was likely to see in his lifetime. The thought made him desperate.

Samuel Bowater stood and stretched. He was certain that the others, Harwell and Taylor, blamed him for their inaction, thought that perhaps he was backward in his effort to join the fighting. They did not know about his constant requests of Forrest that the vessel be mounted with a gun for offensive action, his letters to the navy office at the new capital in Richmond for new orders, the repeated instructions to remain at Norfolk under Forrest’s command until instructed otherwise. They did not know and he would not tell them, because it was not their business.

He smoothed his pants and pulled on his blue frock coat. Generally he ate by himself in his cabin, but today was the crew’s day off and his weekly Saturday dinner with his officers. On so perfect a summer day, the roof of the deckhouse made a wonderful spot to dine.

Landsman Dick Merrow walked around the front of the wheelhouse and rang the bell, two sets of two. Four bells in the afternoon watch, two o’clock in the afternoon. Dinnertime. Bowater stepped out of his cabin, stepped through the door to the boat deck, which formed the roof of the deckhouse. Lieutenant Harwell was already there, trying to look casual but not too casual as he waited for his captain. Taylor was not yet there.

“Please, Mr. Harwell, sit,” Bowater said, and the lieutenant nodded his eager head and sat to the right of the captain’s place. The boat, hanging in its davits, cast a shade over the table, and that and the soft breeze made the setting most idyllic. The table was set with the silver and bone china service and crystal glasses that Samuel had brought with him for his captain’s table.

Jacob stepped forward and poured wine for the two officers. “So…” Bowater began, but he was interrupted by the sound of Taylor’s shoes pounding the ladder and he climbed up to the deckhouse roof.

“Forgive me, Captain, for my tardiness,” he said, his tone just shy of insubordinate. He was dressed in his uniform coat and hat, though the coat was unbuttoned and hanging open, and the visor of his hat was creased and pulled low over his eyes. But he had made an obvious effort to clean up, and that was something, though he had stopped short of shaving.

“Damn.” Taylor looked around, breathed deep. “It is a fine day indeed for dining al fresco,” pronounced as if referring to a man named Alan Fresco. “I have got to get out of that damned engine room and up here on the boat deck more often.”

“Please, Chief, be seated,” Bowater said. “Have you decided to grow a beard?” He recalled the promise he had made to himself to be more tolerant of Hieronymus Taylor. He was a fine engineer, for what that was worth.

“Thankee, sir.” Taylor sat. “Beard? Perhaps I will.” He picked up the wine bottle before Jacob could get to it, poured himself a glass. “I’ll just have a taste, here, if you don’t mind, sir,” he said.

“Please, Mr. Taylor, help yourself.”

More shoes on the ladder, and the coal heavers Billy Jefferson and Nat St. Clair appeared carrying silver trays with silver covers, their white gloves in sharp contrast to their dark skin. Behind them, imperious, Johnny St. Laurent fussed and directed, like an overzealous lieutenant dressing his lines.

When at last the trays were set to the cook’s satisfaction, Billy and Nat stepped back while St. Laurent whipped off the covers with a magician’s flourish. Underneath, a leg of lamb, roasted to a brown perfection and nestled in a bed of new potatoes. St. Laurent allowed them only a glance before he returned the covers and Billy and Nat distributed bowls of soup.

“We start wid a fine malecotony soup today, and for de main course, roast leg of lamb on a bed of pomme de terre a la Maitre d’Hotel and fresh asparagus, followed by a claret jelly and fresh fruit.”

“Excellent, Cook,” Bowater said, and the chef nodded, as if there was no question, then snapped his fingers and the servers disappeared down the ladder, with St. Laurent following behind.

“Well, hell, Captain, I don’t know how I managed to find the one darkie cooks all this Frenchified stuff. Don’t even know how to make a decent gumbo or fried chicken,” Taylor said.

“Hardly a failing. Was he really the chef at the Chateau Dupre Hotel?”

“Aw, hell no. He was the fella mixed up the sauces or something. He’s jest putting on airs. I reckon he learned a thing or two about cooking, jest watchin them real chefs.”

“He did indeed. So how did he happen to come with you?”

“They was some mess he got himself in. Something to do with the wife of one of the cooks there at that hotel. I never did get the whole story. Just knew he had to get the hell out of New Orleans, but fast. I was heading to Wilmington, took him along.”

Bowater nodded. “You were friends?”

“He used to shovel coal for me. Paddle wheeler we used to work, New Orleans to Vicksburg on a regular run.”

“I see.” Samuel could sense the layers upon layers of story that formed the bedrock of their acquaintance, Hieronymus Taylor and Johnny St. Laurent. He wondered briefly if there was anyone who would come to him if they were in dire need of help. No one that he could think of.

“Sir?” Harwell interjected. Bowater looked at the luff and could see that he had something to say and was ready to burst if he did not say it.

“Yes, Mr. Harwell?”

“When I was ashore this morning, sir, I found out what they are planning for the old Merrimack.”

“Oh, yes?” Judging from the lieutenant’s expression, it was something more than just rebuilding her as a steam frigate.

“Go on, Lieutenant,” Taylor said. “I am like to perish with anticipation.”

“Well, sir,” Harwell said, addressing himself only to Bowater, “it appears they are going to rebuild her as an ironclad.”

“Do you mean like that French monstrosity, Le Gloire?”

“No sir. No masts at all. More like a floating battery, but with engines. They will use Merrimack’s old engines. An iron casement and bows and stern, submerged I believe.”

For a moment, no one said a thing, and in silence they considered that. An ironclad, with no sailing rig. A self- propelled floating iron battery.

“She’ll look like a damned turtle,” Taylor observed and grinned at the thought. “Be just like a turtle, slow and strong.”

“She will be a vulgar monstrosity,” Bowater said. Merrimack, with her shortened masts and her tall, black, ugly stack, was no beauty herself. All of these steam vessels, these hermaphrodites, half sail, half steam, lacked the grace and beauty of the old sailing navy. Was there any steamer that could compare to the beauty of a sailing frigate?

Once, not long after his graduation from the Navy School, Bowater had seen from the deck of his ship the USS Constitution underway, a full press of canvas to topgallant studding sails. The image was clean in his mind, like an etching. There was nothing else made by the hand of man that could compare to that for grace, beauty, and silent and unassuming power. She was from a different time, a more elegant time, and the men who sailed ships like that were very different from the men who mucked about in dark and filthy engine rooms.

“She will be ugly, Captain, but she will be lethal as well,” Taylor said. “I’ll take power over beauty any day.”

“Of course you would, Mr. Taylor.” It was what Samuel Bowater would expect from the engineers and mechanics of the world. A new direction for mankind, a rhumb line to the end of civilization.

“Anyway, they should have guns enough for her,” Taylor said through a mouthful of lamb. “Don’t reckon we’ve hauled away everything the Yankees left behind.” Then, in another tone, sotto voce, he added, “Reckon there should be guns enough for any boat in the navy…”

Bowater stiffened. It was not the words-he had not heard for certain what Taylor said-but the tone. Insinuation? Was the engineer hinting at something backward in Bowater’s nature?

“What are you saying, Chief?” Bowater saw Harwell tense.

“I’m saying, if there was a gun on this here tugboat, we might stand a chance of getting into some fightin’.”