Thieves Of Mercy

Molly opened the door, looked inside. Two seats of ease with a freshly built bulkhead between and doors to each, improvements rendered for a President and his cabinet. Wendy could smell the fresh wood. The renovation was no more than a few hours old.

The two women stepped inside and Molly closed the door. “I had no idea we would be in such company as the President,” Molly said. She spoke low, just a whisper, and she spoke in French, her Norwegian accent intact.

“Nor I,” Wendy said, also in French, the barest whisper. With the engine working just below and the slap of the water on the hull, the hum of the shaft and propeller, it was difficult even to hear one another, inches apart.

“Will you… are we to… do something… regarding the man?” Wendy stumbled through the question. Her eyes flickered down at Molly’s reticule.

“Do you mean murder him? No, I think not. I am in no mood for suicide today. Besides, Lincoln is such a fool, the Confederacy is better off with him in command.”

Wendy nodded, embarrassed that she could have harbored such a thought as murder. But Molly had dismissed the idea only on practical grounds. She did not seem to think it outrageous.

“What of poor Lieutenant Batchelor?” Wendy asked.

“The lieutenant will be fine. They will set him free once the Yankees have taken Norfolk. I do not believe Lincoln will make him a prisoner, not when he came out under a flag of truce. Not when he was escorting the wife of the Norwegian minister.”

“Oh, Aunt, do you think we’re discovered? I am so sorry for my stupid tongue.”

“Please, don’t fret. You covered admirably, and you did not explain too much, which is certain death.” She paused for a moment, listened, considered. “I do not know if we are discovered. I know quite a few Union naval officers, but thankfully none aboard this boat. Lincoln may suspect, but he cannot be certain enough to act.”

Wendy nodded.

“However,” Molly added, “if we are discovered, we’ll hang as spies for sure. Or assassins.”

“Oh…” That part had never occurred to her. Somehow Wendy had the idea that if they were caught they would be put ashore somewhere. Admonished and sent away. Even as she had toyed with the idea of putting a bullet in Lincoln ’s head, she had never really considered the reality of their situation.

But at the same time, the possibility of being hanged buoyed her spirits and gave her a renewed vigor. It was not so trivial a thing they were doing. It was life and death, literally.

“So we must not be discovered,” Molly went on. “We have what we came for. We know where the Yankees will land. Now we must get back to Norfolk.”

The two women were quiet for a moment. Wendy waited for Molly to go on. When she did not, Wendy asked, “How?”

“I don’t know.”

Molly was starting to irritate, and that at least gave Wendy some relief from her newfound fears. “We will have to see what happens in the next few hours. At the very worst, assuming we are not found out, we will most likely be deposited at Fortress Monroe, and from there we can talk our way to Washington. After that, who knows?”

Wendy nodded. That did not sound so bad. Molly put a hand on Wendy’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry, dear. You’ll see your beloved Samuel soon enough.”

“Oh…” Wendy flushed. This had all been about getting west to be with Samuel Bowater. She had entirely forgotten that fact.

Molly reached down and grabbed a handful of her skirts. “Now, if you do not mind, I truly do need to use the jakes.”

By the time they returned to the boat deck and the company of Lincoln, Stanton, and Walbridge, the tug had come about and was retracing her wake back into Hampton Roads. Wendy watched the last glimpse of the ocean disappear around the sand spit. She turned at the sound of heavy guns, a mile or so away.

A scattering of ships swarmed like water bugs off Sewell’s Point. Puffs of gray smoke erupted from their guns, lifted up into the air, and then, with the smoke beginning to dissipate, the flat bang of the ordnance reached their ears.

Molly leaned on the boat deck rail, watching the action, bored and disinterested as ever. Wendy joined her, and Lincoln approached the women.

“We are firing on the fort at Sewell’s Point, which is that point of land there,” Lincoln explained, pointing a bony finger like a short sword at the shoreline. “Do you see the odd-looking ship, farthest to the left? That is the Monitor, the savior of the Union.” There was a hint, just a hint, of irony in the President’s voice.

“Indeed?” Wendy said, and stared at the ship with morbid curiosity as she translated to Molly. The Southern papers had been full of Virginia ’s tremendous victory over the ill-conceived Union battery.

“You are familiar with her, then?” Lincoln asked.

“News of the great battle had just reached Europe when we sailed, sir,” Wendy explained. “And while we were with the Confederates, they spoke of little else.”

“Indeed. And what did they say, if I might ask?”

“Well, they said that the Virginia was victorious, sir.”

Lincoln nodded.

“Might I ask…” Wendy continued, “I do not wish to be forward… but did the Virginia win, sir?”

Lincoln smiled. “I suspect that one will be the fodder for another two centuries of argument, at least. I can’t answer, if I’m going to be honest. They both survived, they are both still fighting today. Hard to say how either was the winner.”

Wendy nodded. Lincoln held out the field glasses. “Would you care to have a closer look?”

“Oh, yes, sir, thank you!” Wendy took the field glasses. She translated Lincoln ’s words to Molly, offered her aunt the first use of the field glasses. Molly took them, looked through them for a few seconds, the gesture of a woman who genuinely did not care about such things, handed them back to Wendy.

Wendy held them up to her eyes and adjusted them until the distant ships were in sharp focus. She swept them back and forth until the Monitor came into view and she kept her there.

Incredible… A round turret with a flat deck nearly awash. It was unlike any vessel Wendy had ever seen, and she had made a point of seeing as many ships as she could, since her first childhood passion for such things.

She was having a hard time reconciling what she saw with what she knew. The savior of the Union looked so utterly insubstantial, particularly in comparison with the mighty Virginia, which she knew well, having watched her steam in and out of the navy yard and up the Elizabeth River. How could that silly little Yankee notion have stood up to the Virginia even for five minutes, let alone battled her to a draw after four hours of combat?

“She is a singular vessel, sir,” Wendy said.

“She is that. And yonder comes her old friend.”

Wendy took the field glasses from her eyes and looked where Lincoln indicated. A black plume of smoke was moving up from the direction of the Elizabeth River, beneath the smoke a ship that appeared as no more than a dark slash on the water. Wendy lowered the field glasses. “Is that…?”

“That is the Merrimack ,” Lincoln said. “Or the Virginia , as the Rebels choose to call her.”

Wendy flushed again. “Forgive me, I have never quite known what to call her. The European newspapers call her Merrimack , the Rebels called her Virginia …”

“It’s no matter,” Lincoln said, his tone good-natured. “She is an unwieldy tub by any name.”

“Will they fight?” Wendy asked. “Monitor and Merrimack?”

“I shouldn’t think so. Merrimack comes out in the afternoons like an old bear looking for supper, but she will not fight.”

Wendy nodded, thinking of Batchelor’s report to Tucker, to the effect that it was Monitor