Thieves Of Mercy

The Van Dorn continued on upriver, past the ironclad she had just struck, right into the withering fire from the Yankees farther upstream, but Taylor had no more interest in her. The way was open now for them to hit, a clear stretch of water between the General Page and the Yankee gunboat.

Taylor stepped forward, the madness on him like he had never felt before. He looked up at the wheelhouse. Bowater was there, hand on the rail in his yachting holiday manner. Sullivan was bouncing back and forth.

“Ram that bastard!” Taylor shouted, pointing at the ironclad. “Run that son of a bitch down!”

Bowater looked down at him, an odd expression on his face- part surprise, perhaps, part concern. Odd. Sullivan shouted, “What do ya think I’m gonna do, you stupid bastard?”

Taylor turned and faced forward again. He had no time for Sullivan and his idiocy.

The ironclad was hammering them good, tearing apart the deckhouse above Taylor ’s head. The gun crew were ducking now, behind the bulwark of pine boards and compressed cotton that made a shield on the otherwise unprotected bow. Taylor wanted to tell them to get up, stand like men, load the gun, but he kept his mouth shut, kept his own council.

He glanced over at the Van Dorn. She appeared to be aground and was taking a beating from the ironclad and the others upriver and coming down. Taylor had a sudden sick fear that Sullivan would give up, turn and run, decide they were too outnumbered. He looked up at the wheelhouse again, but Sullivan was standing like a brick wall now, hands on the rail, ready for impact.

The ironclad was fifty feet ahead, no more. Black smoke was rolling from the Page’s chimneys. Guthrie was really pouring it on. Taylor could see the steam gauges in his mind and the thought made him stop, like remembering something terrible that you had managed to momentarily forget.

Twenty feet, ten feet, Taylor could see faces in the Yankee’s gun ports, bare-chested men huddled in the shadows around the barrels of the big guns. A jet of smoke, the roar of a gun, and instantly Taylor was knocked sideways. For an instant he was certain he was a dead man and he was not sure how he felt about it.

Then the General Joseph Page hit the ironclad, hit it square with every ounce of power the walking beam engine could muster. Already off balance from the force of the passing round shot, Taylor sprawled out on the deck, hitting hands first and sliding forward.

He lay still, but just for an instant. As he made certain he was all in one piece, he scrambled to his feet.

The impact of the Van Dorn had swiveled the ironclad around, and the Page struck right on the corner of the casemate, just aft of the bow. And though it owed more to luck than strategy, it was a perfect hit. The Yankee’s broadside guns could not train around forward enough, and the bow guns could not train aft to hit the Page. As long as she stayed where she was, the Page was safe from the ironclad’s cannon.

Taylor raced up to the pine board bulwark and looked over the bow. The Page’s ram had pierced the ironclad’s vulnerable wooden hull below the waterline. For the moment, the two ships were locked together. He heard the Page’s paddle wheels stop, heard them begin the slow turns in reverse.

“No, no, no!” he shouted. Didn’t they see the chance here? Taylor could not stand the idea of backing away, out of danger. There, in the white-hot fire of combat, he could be burned clean, his manhood unassailable.

“Come on, y’all!” he shouted to the men crouched behind the bulwark. “Let’s board the son of a bitch! Come on!”

Eyes met him, unmoving men, uncomprehending. They did not see what he did-the small, half-round foredeck of the ironclad, an easy jump from the General Page’s bow, the gun ports open wide.

“Come on!” No one moved, and Taylor did not have a weapon. He grabbed one of the riverboat men by the collar, jerked him to his feet. Taylor was stronger than most men even when not in a berserker rage, and the man was like a rag doll as Taylor pulled him up and jerked the pistols from the holsters on his belt.

The riverboat man got off a curse, a protest, the beginnings of a roundhouse punch to Taylor ’s head before Taylor shoved him back to the deck.

Two steps and Taylor was at the pine board bulwark, vaulting over it, a pistol in each hand. He landed on the small part of the Page’s deck forward of the bulwark, leaped without breaking stride across the four feet of water to the deck of the ironclad.

He came down hard, stumbled, straightened, was aware enough to marvel at the fact that he was now standing on the deck of a Yankee man-of-war. He heard screaming, shouting behind him, and the wild, bearded riverboat men came pouring over the bulwark. It was just their kind of madness.

Taylor ran up to the first gun port, pistols held straight out. His thumbs pulled back the hammers. Even over all the noise of the fight he could hear that clean, satisfying click of the action. He looked through the gun port but could see little in the gloomy interior. He fired at motion, something moving, saw another thing that looked like a blue coat and fired the left-hand pistol, cocking the right.

The riverboat men were there, crowding behind him. A pistol went off right in his ear, like a punch to the head. The riverboat men were shouting and storming the other gun ports. The deepwater men were with them.

Taylor stepped forward, pistol out, right up to the gun port. A face appeared and Taylor aimed, and suddenly the man thrust a rammer out, drove it like a lance into Taylor ’s chest. Taylor stumbled, the gun went off, the bullet pinged against the casemate.

“Son of a bitch!” Taylor shouted, thumbed the pistol’s hammer again, drove at the gun port, thrust the pistol into the gloom inside. Something hit his arm-a ram or a club, something-but Taylor did not drop the gun. He swung it around, fired in the general direction of the blow.

The others were crowding the gun ports like dogs around a treed coon, shouting, firing, cursing. But the only way into the casemate was an awkward climb around the big guns, so awkward that the Yankees would have killed with ease any man who tried. Here was the Ark, and they, poor sinners, could only pound on the outside. They could not get in.

Taylor fired again into the darkness. It was no use-the gun crews were shying away from the ports, he could not hit anyone. But a ladder ran up the sloping front face of the casemate to the hurricane deck above. There, perhaps, was a way in.

“Come on! Come on, you bastards, follow me!” Taylor shouted. He had no control anymore. He felt as if his body was barely held together, as if he might fly off in a thousand pieces at any second, blown apart by the rage. He ran for the ladder, raced up, did not see or care if anyone was following. Over the edge of the casemate, and right in front of him, like an eight-foot-high anthill, was the conical pilothouse, pierced all around with small square ports. There, Taylor knew, were the officers.

He stopped, ten feet short, looked over the top of the Navy Colt.36, lined up the notch in the hammer, the brass sight at the end of the barrel, and the face peering out of the port. He pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped dead. He looked at the cylinder. All the percussion caps mangled, all the bullets gone. He threw the gun away, switched the pistol from left hand to right, and with a shout stepped forward, gun extended.

A puff of smoke shot from the pilothouse like the fire from a miniature broadside and a bullet whipped past Taylor ’s head. Sons of whores are shooting at me, Taylor thought, though they might have been waving a greeting for all the impression the bullets made on him. He took another step, gun level, pulled the trigger. The bullet went through the port as if it was a paper target, but if it hit anyone, Taylor could not tell.

An arm appeared through another port, pistol in hand. Taylor adjusted his aim, squeezed the trigger, and then the air was ripped apart by the General Page’s steam whistle, a strident scream, a demand for attention. Taylor turned, looked up at the Page’s wheelhouse. There were Bowater and Sullivan, waving like lunatics, gesturing for him and the others to return. The paddle wheels were turning, backing down, the gunboat trying to disengage from the ironclad.

Over the whistle came the sharp crack of a pistol and Taylor felt a burn in his left leg, midcalf, and a sharp pain. He looked down, thinking that someone had snuck up, slashed him with a knife. That was what it felt like. He had been slashed before, he knew the sensation.

His pants leg was ripped, he could see bloody flesh through the torn cloth, and as he looked at it he realized he could not stand on that leg anymore. He tried to shift his weight to his other foot, but too late. His left leg buckled under him and he fell, hands down on the warm planks of the deck. The pistol clattered away, out of reach.