Glory In The Name

take the helm!” and Taylor, behind his back, pointed at the wheel and jerked his head in that direction.

Bowater followed her with his eyes as she stepped into the wheelhouse, laid her tentative hands on the helm. Her eyes were wide. The vomit was imperfectly wiped away.

“And send up someone who knows what the helm is.”

It was unreal, far worse than any nightmare. Wendy Atkins felt the warm, oiled wood of the wheel under her hand, had absolutely no notion of what to do with it. From the corner of her eye she could see the shoes and legs of the boy who had held the wheel before her, she could see the horrible thing that had once been his face. Her gorge rose again and she focused on other things.

Samuel Bowater! It was too much to believe! It had never occurred to her to ask Hieronymus who the captain of the boat was, had never dawned on her that it could possibly be Bowater. But now, as she made herself concentrate on things remembered, made herself not think of the dead boy or how she would look when the next shell hit, or what she would do if Bowater gave her an order, she could recall they had both said “gunboat,” but since the term was largely meaningless to her, she had ignored it.

Samuel Bowater. Standing at the forward rail, hands clasped behind his back, looking out at the approaching enemy as if he was taking in the view of the gardens at Versailles. How could he be so calm in all this? She thought of the way he had tossed the boy’s body aside. What kind of monster is he?

“Come left, two spokes,” Bowater said. She heard him clearly, as there were no windows left in the wheelhouse. She wondered to whom he was issuing these imperious orders.

He hands down orders like Caesar on the throne! Wendy thought. She had always envisioned naval officers of steely calm, but now, presented with real calm in the face of such carnage, she was not so sure. Surely some sense of humanity was appropriate? She thought perhaps she despised Bowater, so callous with human life.

Then suddenly he turned on her, as if she had done something wrong. “Come left, two spokes, damn it!” he said, his voice near a shout.

“I…I…” Wendy had not even realized he was speaking to her. Then with a sound like disgust in his throat, he stepped into the wheelhouse and grabbed the wheel, turned it, just a bit, said, “Just hold it like that!”

She grabbed the spokes hard to keep her hands from shaking. She had never been so afraid. Bowater had looked her right in the face-how could he not recognize her? But apparently he did not, because he turned his back on her once more, looked forward.

Somewhere beyond the edge of the deckhouse the big gun fired, so loud that Wendy jumped, let out something like a scream, which was thankfully muffled by the thunderous cannon. She thought she might vomit again, if there was anything left in her to vomit. It was such insanity, such confusion. Noise, bloody death, smoke, shouting, screaming, how could anyone think, how could anyone do anything but cower in a corner and hide?

But she was not cowering, she realized. Frightened as she was, she was not hiding from the gunfire, but rather standing straight in the very spot where another had met brutal death just minutes before. And with that she felt an odd calm come over her.

A sailor came bounding up the steps, paused and saluted Bowater. “Tanner, sir, here to relieve the helm!”

Bowater jerked his thumb over his shoulder, did not look back.

Tanner stepped into the wheelhouse, said in an official tone, “Here to relieve the helm.” He paused, as if waiting for a response, and when Wendy could think of none he said, “What course?”

“Course?”

“Where are we heading?”

Wendy shook her head. “I have no idea.”

Damn, damn, damn… Taylor watched their penultimate shell pass close over the side-wheeler and plunge into the sea three hundred yards astern. Close. Not close enough.

He was standing behind the gun, having raced down the steps from the wheelhouse. Harwell was moving a bit, he noticed, was not dead yet. A gash on his head, blood matting his hair. Taylor could not tell how bad it was and did not pause to investigate. He had grabbed the rails of the ladder and slid down to the deck, pictured Bowater tossing Littlefield’s body aside. Cold son of a bitch…

The gun crew was swabbing out, ramming home, going through the drill which Mr. Harwell had tortured into them.

“Ready!” Williams stood back, lanyard taut.

From on high, Bowater’s voice. “This is your last shot, Mr. Taylor!”

Last shot, Mr. Taylor? How the hell did this become my responsibility? He stepped up to the gun, sighted over it. I should have stayed in my damned engine room!

The side-wheeler, bow on, was right in the sights. But, Taylor recalled, it had been before, and the shot had gone over. He grabbed the elevating screw, cranked it up, depressing the muzzle, thought, If this gun goes off now I am one dead bastard…. Heard Williams make some noise, but the devil take him.

“Give me that lanyard, Williams!” Taylor demanded. Williams paused, could see resistance would be futile, if not dangerous, handed the fancy line over. If Bowater was going to make him responsible, then he was not going to let anyone else make a hash of it.

He looked over the barrel again. The Cape Fear and the Yankee were coming bow on, both armed the same, both equally vulnerable.

But not quite. That Yankee whoremonger has side wheels! Gotta take out one of them side wheels! “You there!” he shouted to the men with the handspikes. “Move this here around to starboard, just a hair!”

The handspike men jammed their bars in the deck, levered the gun over. There it was!

“Git back! Git back!” Taylor shouted, and he jumped back and the handspike men jumped back and Taylor pulled the lanyard. The gun went off with a terrific roar, painful, since Taylor had forgotten to clap a hand over his ear. It leaped back against the breeches but Taylor’s eyes were on the side-wheeler alone, the side-wheeler steaming down on them, the side-wheeler whose port wheelbox suddenly burst into a spray of shattered wood and broken buckets and twisted metal, flung up in the air.

“Sum bitch! Sum bitch! Yeeeeha!” Taylor shouted, and he knew he was shouting as loud as he could, and so were the men around him, but he could hear only a muffled version of the noise, as if he was listening from underwater. No matter. They had hit him, right where it hurt.

The side-wheeler slewed around to port as the starboard wheel drove her on, then stopped dead as her captain rang out all stop to sort out the damage.

Now what? Taylor wondered. His blood was up, he was ready to go and board them like pirates of old. He looked up, grinned up at Bowater, but Bowater was staring forward at the disabled Yankee, hands behind his back, expressionless. He was not shouting.

Cold son of a bitch…

Samuel Bowater stepped into the wheelhouse, eyes still on the disabled Yankee, rang slow ahead. Close enough. Decision time.

He wanted to shout. He wanted to yell and wave his hat the way the others had. But of course he did not.

“What’s your name, sailor?” he said to the new helmsman. This one had the hard, casual look of a real sailor, not the whimpering incompetence of that boy Taylor for some inconceivable reason had dragged up there.

“Ruffin Tanner, of Mobile, sir, by way of the Congress, which were my last ship.”

“Welcome aboard the CSS Cape Fear, Tanner. How do you like it so far?”

“I like it fine, sir, mighty fine.” He gave the wheel a quarter turn, brought it back amidships. “Man’s blood gets a bit thick, sittin’ around one of them Yankee men-of-war.”

“Indeed.” Bowater remembered Harwell, lying in a pool of his own blood, remembered his own shocking disregard for the man. In a flush of guilt he stepped out of the wheelhouse and around the front, knelt beside the lieutenant, lifted his head.