Thieves Of Mercy

several buildings that might be ironworks, black smoke roiling from forge chimneys, a dock with a small tug tied alongside.

There were two ships on the stocks, sister ships, around one hundred and seventy feet in length, thirty-five feet on the beam, and perhaps twelve feet in depth. Bowater could see elegant curved fantail sterns, a shallow deadrise, a nice run fore and aft. The casemates rose straight up from the sides, nearly vertical like the sides of a house. Only the fore and aft ends of the casemates were slanted, the way he had come to think an ironclad’s casemate should be.

They were good-looking vessels, identical in proportion, very different in their state of completion. One of them was finished in her planking, her casemate covered in thick oak, pierced for guns, two aft and three on the broadside that Bowater could see. The shafts of her twin screws were in place, parallel to her waterline, the big propellers already mounted on either side of the barn door rudder. She had her first few runs of iron on as well, the plating covering her sides nearly to the level of the main deck.

She was far from complete, but she was well on her way, and a month or so of diligent effort might see her launched and commissioned, an operational man-of-war.

The other ship was not nearly so far along. She was no more than a wooden frame, the skeleton of a ship, with the first few runs of planking along her bottom. The stacks of wood on either side of her would no doubt become the rest of her planking, but as it was they were just stacks of wood. Through the space between frames Bowater could see there were no engines, no shafts, no boilers.

“There she is, Captain, the ironclad Tennessee!” Sullivan made a wide gesture, taking in the entire yard.

“I see two vessels, Sullivan. Which is the Tennessee?” As if he had to ask.

“It’s the one with the good ventilation.” He pointed to the ship in frame. “You’re a lucky man, Captain. Ventilation’s real important in a hot climate like we got here!”

Sullivan was enjoying himself. He turned, shouted orders at the helmsman, grinned, and stuffed a cigar in his mouth as the helmsman cursed him and spun the wheel. Sullivan rang up turns astern and with a creaking protest the paddle wheels stopped, then thrashed astern, and the General Page settled against the dock, the barge of coal trailing away downstream at the end of the towrope.

The brow had just gone over the side when the horseman rode up, hard pounding across the shipyard, making the yard workers pause and look up. He dismounted in a flourish, ran the length of the dock, and leaped aboard. A minute later he was standing, breathless, on the hurricane deck.

“Captain Sullivan, a good job you come now,” the man said when his breath returned. A young man, he had the look of the river on him.

“What’s up?” Sullivan asked, cigar in mouth.

“Captain Montgomery says best get your hide upriver! Council of war for the captains tonight. Most of ’em are hot to go after the Yankees at dawn!”

“Well, damn! That’s some damned good news!” Mississippi Mike was wearing his dime-novel grin. “What say you, Captain Bowater? You and your men want to join us in the fun?” His eyes flickered toward Shirley’s yard. “Or do you want to take your own boat to the fight?”

NINE

May 8.- Meridian to 3 P.M.: Steamed up abreast of Sewell’s Point batteries, preceded by the Naugatuck, Monitor, Seminole, and Susquehanna. The squadron then opened fire. President Lincoln passed us in a steam tug. At 5:45 mustered at quarters. The Merrimack returned to her anchorage off Craney Island.

LOG OF THE USS DACOTAH

Wendy Atkins had been in a play once. She had played Ophelia in a production of Hamlet staged

by the Culpepper Community Players. Her performance had not been so bad, she believed, fending off the melancholy Dane’s lewd suggestions, staggering around with a wild-eyed look, strumming her lute. There had always been a little extra burst of applause as she stepped onstage for her curtain call.

Of course, there were always a number of suitors in the audience who had wanted to make love to her, and they no doubt accounted for some of the enthusiasm. That was before she had alienated half the eligible young men in town, and frightened off the remainder. Still, she was not bad.

She recalled the many sensations that had come with her time onstage. The sick fright, waiting for her moment to step from behind the curtain and into the light, where all eyes would be on her, every ear listening to her speak her speech.

“Do you doubt that?”

It was the first line Ophelia spoke, and as the line passed from her lips, it carried with it all that fear and doubt, as if the emotions had been shackled to the words, and, bound together, they were all expelled at once. After the first words were out, she became the master of her domain. The stage was her home, as comfortable as her sitting room, and she moved about it with ease, spoke her lines with confidence, and even on occasion stepped in and helped one of her fellow players find their way when they had lost the thread of their speech.

She thought of that as she mounted the side of the tug, the young lieutenant taking her hand, because that was how she felt now. With those first words, her step onto the stage of deception, she had felt the fear melt away, and with it, a new confidence arise, a feeling that she was as much the person she pretended to be as she was Wendy Atkins.

Lincoln ’s presence had thrown her off her game, and how could it not have? The most famous man in the Western hemisphere, the most reviled man in her new nation, the man whose policies had led to the bloody conflict in which they were engaged, leaning on the rail of the deck and drawling as if he were leaning on one of his split-rail fences back home, making idle talk about the weather.

How could she not have been taken aback? But she recovered quickly, and her surprise was well in keeping with her character. Anyone, even the woman she was pretending to be, would have been surprised.

She stepped down on the deck and turned to assist Molly- Ingrid Nielsen-in negotiating the step up. Her eyes brushed over Lieutenant Batchelor. He wore a gun in a holster and Wendy had to imagine he considered going for it, but the dozen rifles pointing at his chest would have dissuaded him. Instead he was sitting with arms folded, hands in plain view, an amused look on his face. Wendy looked quickly away. She did not want to seem too interested.

Molly came up over the side with an ease that befitted a seasoned traveler, stepped on the deck with a huff. She was, by all appearances, still mad as a wet hen. The boatmen handed up their bags.

There was a bustle on the side deck, men moving quickly aside, and Abraham Lincoln stepped through, like Moses through the Red Sea.

“Ma’am.” Lincoln made a short bow to Wendy.

“Mr. President.” Wendy curtsied. “This is indeed an honor, and a pleasant surprise.”

“A surprise, anyway, I shouldn’t wonder. I am flattered that you recognize me.”

“Oh, sir, how could one not?”

“But you’ve only just arrived here, after several years abroad.”

“Oh, sir…” Wendy said, alert to a trap, despite Lincoln ’s innocuous tone. “Perhaps, Mr. President, you are not aware, with all due respect, of how well known your likeness is in Europe.”

“Perhaps not. They always have had queer taste, on that side of the ocean.” He turned to Molly, and this time bowed deeply, took her hand, and kissed it in a courtly fashion.

“Miss…?” Lincoln looked at Wendy.

“Atkins, sir. Wendy Atkins.” It was as good a name as any, Molly had explained. Less chance of a slip of the tongue.

“Miss Atkins, please introduce me and tell your aunt that I am dreadfully sorry for what you two have suffered,