Thieves Of Mercy

Batchelor began his briefing, professional and methodical. He told of Union forces under McClellan overrunning Yorktown behind the retreating Confederates, of Yankee ships moving up the York River, with the James denied to them by the presence of CSS Virginia.

“We are gravely outnumbered on the Peninsula,” Batchelor said. “If there were anyone in command of the Union forces besides McClellan, they would be in Richmond by now. I hope all Yankee generals are as backward as the ‘young Napoleon.’ ”

Batchelor described the Yankee men-of-war, the big oceangoing steam frigates, and the smaller river vessels, and the Confederate river forces that opposed them, mostly small converted civilian craft, save for the mighty Virginia.

“The Virginia draws twenty-two feet, but the pilots assure us that if we lighten her some we can get her up the James River. Right now she’s the only thing stopping the Yankee boats from sailing up the James. That’s why the Yankees are going up the York. Tattnall made a try at getting Virginia up to the York. But he couldn’t do that without sinking or taking the Monitor, and the Yankees won’t let him get close enough to their precious boat to try.”

During the entire lecture, Molly just listened and nodded and seemed to work each bit of information around in her head, like a wine taster ferreting out the subtleties of the drink. At last she said, “Very well, then.”

“Do you have a notion of what you will do?” Batchelor asked.

“No. Is there anything else you have not told me?”

“I don’t believe so. One of our people tells us a Norwegian corvette is expected in the Roads. She is carrying the Norwegian minister to Washington.”

“Really?” Molly said, and she leaned forward. This information, an afterthought for Batchelor, seemed to interest her more than the rest. “What is the name of the ship?”

“The Norvier, I believe.”

“You believe?”

“She is the Norvier.”

Molly leaned back again, and again her eyes moved to the dark glass of the carriage window and she said nothing. They rode in silence for another twenty minutes before Molly turned back to Batchelor and said, “Lieutenant, do you speak Norwegian?”

“No, ma’am.”

“You are formerly of the United States Navy, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Are there many in the United States Navy who speak Norwegian?”

Batchelor shrugged his shoulders. “I knew of a few square-heads in the forecastle. Not many. Certainly no officers that I knew of.”

Molly nodded and looked out the window again.

They arrived at Sewell’s Point somewhere around midnight. The air was thick with smoke, turning the black night sky into a swirling charcoal gray, lit up from below by the fires still burn-ing-great heaped bonfires, ten feet high, with flames rising as high again, piles of burning wood which that morning had been the barracks for the garrisoned troops still left at the battery.

Wendy stepped down from the carriage, her muscles aching, more bone-weary than she could recall ever having been. She smelled acrid smoke and the rotten fish smell of tidal flats. The black men on the driver’s seat hopped down and took their bags and they followed Batchelor through the rough gate of the battery.

The burning barracks threw enough light around the place that Wendy could see the full length of the fortress. Walls of logs and dirt lined the seaward side, facing Hampton Roads. Behind the walls, timber frame gun platforms, crude but solid, made up of thick, rough-cut beams, morticed and pegged, supported a succession of guns. The muzzles peered over the walls, en barbette, if Wendy understood the term correctly.

Men lay sprawled around the guns, and for a horrible second Wendy thought they were dead men, left to rot where they fell, but no sooner had the thought come to her than she realized that they were just sleeping, gun crews sleeping at their guns. In case of action, they would be right where they were needed, and with their barracks still burning, there was no better place for them.

“There’s only a fraction of the original garrison left here,” Batchelor explained as he led the way up a ladder to the gun platform. “Just enough to man a few guns, and I reckon those will be withdrawn in the morning.”

They stepped onto the rough wooden planks of the platform, and across to look over the parapet at the Roads beyond. The fire behind them made it difficult to see into the dark, but they could make out points of light here and there, anchor lights of the Union fleet, Batchelor explained, and the lights of Fortress Monroe across the water, a little less than four miles away.

Wendy pulled her eyes from the water to look at Molly standing beside her. Her aunt’s face was grim, her lips set in a frown, eyebrows slightly pinched together.

“I don’t think there’s a damn thing we can do tonight,” Molly said.

“Too much chance of being shot in the dark,” Batchelor agreed.

“I hate to lose a moment, but there’s nothing for it,” Molly said. “Besides, I am too tired to think.” She turned to Batchelor. “Lieutenant, I assume you have some accommodations that are appropriate for ladies?”

A tent was the best that could be produced, but it was a big one, a wall tent fifteen by twenty feet with two cots and a table, and it was fine with Wendy. She had been ready to lie down with one of the gun crews and sleep on the platform, she was so utterly exhausted. But even the siren song of the field cot was not enough to make Molly pause in her calculations.

“Wendy, dear,” she said as she sat on the edge of her cot, and Wendy sat on hers, and they unbuttoned shoes from aching feet, “I forgot to ask you. Do you speak Norwegian?”

Wendy smiled. “No, I am afraid not.”

“A shame. How is your French?”

“Not bad. I’m far from fluent, but I can get by.”

“Ecoutes, Wendy,” Molly said. “Peux-tu comprendre ce que je viens de dire? Pourras-tu le traduire?”

Wendy smiled again. Molly’s French was perfect, but her accent was very odd. Not French at all, nor that of an American speaking French. “You said, ‘Listen, Wendy. Can you understand what I just said? Would you be able to translate it?’ ”

“Excellent,” Molly said. “Now, come over here and sit by me. I must tell you what we are going to do in the morning, and then I will let you sleep.”

Wendy stood with difficulty, her muscles tight and aching, hobbled over to Molly’s cot, and sat beside her. For the next hour and ten minutes, Molly laid out her intentions, quizzed Wendy, drilled her, instructed her. When she was done, Wendy retreated to her own cot. She lay down, let her muscles relax, and tried to let the sleep she so desperately craved wash over her, but for the next two hours she could do nothing but stare dumbfounded into the dark.

Wendy was dreaming of ships. She was dreaming about walking the deck of a ship under way, the short choppy sea slamming broadside against the hull, making the ship shudder, jarring her body as she tried to make her way forward.

She came from that dream slowly awake and realized that someone was shaking her. She opened her eyes. They smarted with fatigue. In the dim light of a single lantern she could see Molly standing beside her, shaking her gently.

“Rise and shine, dear.” Wendy swung her legs over the side of the cot, rubbed her

eyes. Her body ached; she was exhausted and confused. She had slept in her clothes in the hot, humid tent and she felt as if her whole body was coated in a layer of grime. Her dress was wrinkled and stained from climbing around the gun platforms and all the hard use it had received the night before.

“Aunt, I am an absolute fright. I trust we’ll get some chance to freshen up and shift clothes?”

“No, no. You are perfect, my dear. Remember the part you’re playing, and all you’ve been through. You look just the thing.”

Wendy knew she was right but she did not have the spirit to reply. Instead she stood and walked over to the basin of water on the nightstand and splashed cold water on her face, and that did much to revive her. Molly led her