Glory In The Name

as if they could divine something from looking at it.

For a long time they stood like that, staring up at the deckhouse roof. The Parrott went off again, with its visceral roar. It was more than just sound. It was sound and reverberation down to the ship’s fiber, a shudder in the deck, the smell of spent powder in the air, sucked below by the boiler’s air intake, mixing with coal dust and oil, a full sensory experience as up in the sunshine the gun crew blasted away at the Yankees.

“Goddamned…” Taylor muttered, not certain who or what he was damning. He pulled his eyes from the overhead, paced back and forth, paused in his pacing. “Burgess, ya Scots ape, get some oil on them drive gears, they’re squealing like a couple of rutting pigs,” he shouted-a problem the Scotsman was well aware of-then set in pacing again.

The gun crew, raw as they were, were getting their shots off every two minutes. Taylor kept count without realizing he was doing so-three, four, five; he wondered if they had found their target, if he was justified in going topside to see.

Gettin’ to be like a damned old woman… Taylor thought, and then a crash from above, the shattering of wood, an explosion as some part of their ship was blasted apart.

The Cape Fear shuddered again, an entirely different sensation, and Hieronymus Taylor was on the ladder, racing topside, shouting, “Burgess, you’re in charge here! Look to the bells!” as he burst through the fidley door and onto the deck.

Taylor stepped into a scene of confusion. He looked forward. Men were crowded on the side decks, staring around. No one moved.

He looked aft. Wendy was there, by the door. She looked frightened. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could Taylor said, “What happened?”

“A…bomb…of some sort hit. Up there.” She pointed to the wheelhouse.

“All right. Come with me.” He turned and ran forward, heard a few hesitant steps before Wendy caught up. He did not know why he had told her to come along. He would figure that out later.

A quarter mile ahead, a paddle wheeler was bearing down on them, pushing aside the smoke from her bow gun, churning the water white under her bows and her paddle wheels. One of the ad hoc Yankee river fleet, slapped together to combat the ad hoc Confederate fleet. The Yankee fired again, flame and smoke shooting from her forward gun, the shell screaming so close overhead that Taylor flinched and ducked, involuntarily.

Where the hell is Bowater? Taylor pushed through the stunned and stupid men toward the bow and the ladder to the top of the deckhouse. Could the vaunted Samuel Bowater be frozen in terror, unable to issue orders, stammering with indecision?

Son of a bitch patrician son of a bitch… Taylor raced up the ladder and when his head cleared the deckhouse roof he paused. The entire after end of the wheelhouse-the master’s cabin-was blown to splinters. There was nothing more than jagged bits of bright-painted wood sticking out at odd angles, and the cabin roof, caved in in the middle and draped like a shroud over the wreckage

Taylor took the last few steps slower. What was left of Able-Bodied Seaman Littlefield was flung half out of the wheelhouse and was hanging on the window frame, shredded clothing and skin draped over a spreading pool of blood on the deck below him. Lieutenant Harwell was lying toward the starboard side, a pool of blood spreading around his head. The blue-gray heap to port was Bowater, apparently. There was no one moving on the upper deck.

20

SIR: I deem it proper to bring to the notice of the Department the inefficiency of the battery of this ship…as was clearly shown in the attack…by a very small steam propeller, armed only with one large rifled gun.

– Captain J. B. Hull, USS Savannah, to Hon. Gideon Welles

For a second, Taylor did not move either. He had dealt with any number of emergencies-fire, taking on water, boilers on the edge of exploding-but this, fighting a ship, was something new to him, and he knew no more about it than he did about celestial navigation or requisitioning barrels of beef.

On the port side of the boat deck, Wendy was kneeling and vomiting, and that did not help his concentration.

Just stop…got to just stop and sort this here mess out… They were steaming head on toward the Yankee gunboat, and that did not seem like a very good idea. Taylor reached through the wreckage of the wheelhouse windows and grabbed the bell cord, jerked it for one bell, slow ahead.

First time I ever pulled that damned thing… Hieronymus mused. From ahead, another shot, and the shell screamed by so close he felt he could have caught it like a baseball.

What the hell now? And then he heard a voice, Bowater’s voice. It lacked that clear and commanding tone that Taylor associated with Bowater and all those who felt they ruled by birthright, but it was strong enough, and Taylor was glad to hear it.

“You men!” Bowater shouted down to the men on the deck below. “Do you want to be blown out of the water? Quarters! Load and run out!”

Bowater had pulled himself to his feet, was leaning heavy on the rail, but even as he shouted his strength seemed to come back to him. He stood straighter, then pushed himself off the rail, took a step toward the wheelhouse, moving carefully, as if the tug was rolling hard, and not in a near dead calm.

He noticed Taylor for the first time. “Chief, what in hell are you doing here?”

“Reckoned someone had to run the damned boat.”

“Where’s Harwell?”

“Starboard side. He’s out, don’t know if he’s dead. I’ll check.”

“No, leave him, no time for that.” Bowater was standing straighter now, the strength and presence of mind returning. He stepped into the wheelhouse, seemed not to notice the wreckage. He laid a hand on the big polished wheel, miraculously preserved, and gave a half turn to starboard. “What is the state of the engine?”

“All’s well. I rung slow ahead.”

Bowater said nothing. He grabbed the shredded jacket of Seaman Littlefield and jerked the body off the windowsill. He spun the corpse around, and as he did Taylor was presented with the full view of the horror of what had happened to the man and he thought he might be sick. Then Bowater tossed the body aside as if it was so much dunnage, rang up full ahead.

The Cape Fear began gathering way. Taylor could see the water slipping by as the big prop churned a wake under her counter. One, two, three knots, they were building speed, running straight toward their attacker.

“You gonna run her right up to the Yankee fleet, Cap’n?” Taylor asked, genuinely curious. He was feeling chastened by his own inability to think tactically. He wondered if Bowater would do any better.

“Got two shells left. We’ll make the best use of them.”

The Yankee fired again, but the shell flew clear. Bowater grabbed the wheel, looked over at Wendy for the first time. “Who is that, Chief?”

“Coal passer. Brought him with me, case we needed a hand.”

“You there!” Bowater called, and Wendy looked up. Her face was streaked with soot, her eyes red. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

Least she sure as hell don’t look like a woman, Taylor thought.

“Take the helm! Chief, go forward and see the gun crew ready to fire. Williams is captain of the gun, if he’s still alive. We have two shells. That’s all.” Bowater issued the orders clear and calm, as if he was calling for the tug to be washed and the brass polished.

“Hell, Cap’n, I don’t know nothing about cannons.”

“Just see the gun crew doesn’t panic.” Bowater looked over at Wendy, frozen with fear and uncertainty, and for a sick moment Taylor thought he would see through the clothes and the dirt. But instead, Bowater shouted, “I said,