Thieves Of Mercy

“You’re going to be a dead hero, you keep on the way you are, and that is the one and only thing the Confederacy has enough of already. And while I might be entirely indifferent to the possibility of your death, I would not care to try and find another engineer.”

“Cap’n, I’m touched. But what the hell you need an engineer for? You got no engine.”

“We’ll get it back.”

“Well, you best hurry. Boilers and shaftin, too. You gonna feel mighty damn foolish, you get that casemate built and realize you forgot to put the engines and such in first.” The perspiration was still building on Taylor ’s forehead and Bowater wondered if he was feverish. His casual act was taking it out of him.

“How did you manage-” Bowater was cut short by a booming voice just outside his door. His heart sank as he heard Mississippi Mike Sullivan shouting, “You doin good work, boys, damn good work! Y’all keep her up, now!”

Sullivan flung open the door, his massive frame filling the space. Like Taylor, he had a cigar clenched in his teeth. Unlike Taylor, who hobbled sick and wounded, Sullivan was a typhoon, as always. “Cap’n Bowater! What the hell you doin to that fine ship? I told you ya needs ventilation in this part of the world! Now if you go and put planks on the whole damned thing, she’s gonna be hot as Beelzebub’s barbecue down below. Next thing you gonna do some damn fool thing like coverin her up with iron plating!”

“Fear not, Sullivan, I think she is in little danger of being plated with iron anytime soon.”

“I’m happy to hear that! Now, Captain, it occurred to me, you ain’t got what I would call an ideal situation, your men housed all over the damn town. You know how sailors can be, let ’em run wild like that. Just look at ol Hieronymus Taylor, here. One night on the town and he looks like somethin the devil brought in in his carpetbag. So I thought I could do you a friendly turn, let your boys bunk on board the General Page. Plenty of room, good quarters. Keep ’em all together. Free of charge. What do ya say?” Sullivan withdrew his cigar and held it in meaty fingers, grinning wide.

“That’s very kind of you, Captain, and I certainly would feel better knowing my men were under the vigilant eye of the hardest drinking, hardest driving, most dangerous son of a whore riverboat man on the Western Waters. But I thought the River Defense Fleet was remaining at Fort Pillow, a good hundred miles upriver from here.”

“We go up and down. Here and there. Not a problem at all, get your boys to work of a morning.”

Bowater nodded. Sullivan was clearly hoping that once Bowater’s men were aboard the Page, he could begin to incorporate them into his own crew. Give him a month and every one of them would be assigned to the Page, and Bowater would have not a man left.

“Unfortunately, Sullivan, since you are an army outfit, and we are navy, I fear the paperwork would be a nightmare.”

“Ah, paperwork, hell, paperwork don’t stand no show ’round here. We don’t need no paperwork. Just send your boys over.”

“Forgive me, but you know how we professional military types are. Has to be by the book. It’s what makes us so damned insufferable. But thanks.”

“You think on her, anyhow.” Sullivan puffed his cigar. “Say, here’s another thing. I seen a notice for some fancy playactors, thought you might be interested. You bein a man of letters and all.” He fished around in the pocket of his sack coat, pulled out a crumbled handbill. “Here she is.” Sullivan unfolded it, squinted at it.

“ ‘The Theatre Troupe of the South,’ ” he read, “ ‘just recently returned from their triumphant tour of England and the Continent of Europe, where they were lauded by the crowned heads for which they performed, are pleased to announce an encore performance of Mr. William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.’ ”

Sullivan looked up. “Now I wasn’t so sure about this. This ain’t one of them things where they got them fat gals all singin in some foreign language, is it?”

“I don’t reckon,” said Taylor. “Way I hear it, she’s a play, just talkin and such, plus a whole deal of sword fightin and doublecrossin and murder and the like.”

“Well, hell, that sounds just grand! Cap’n Bowater, you ever heard of this here Tragedy of Hamlet?”

“Yes, something, I believe.” He glared at Taylor, wondered what the man knew.

“So what do ya say?” Sullivan asked. “We should go see this here! Go tonight!”

“I’m not sure,” Bowater said. “I have an awful lot of work to finish up.”

“You need some diversion, Cap’n,” Taylor said, a smile playing on his lips. “Been workin too damn hard. We all were kickin out the jams after the battle, an you just carryin on with work, like a busy little beaver.”

“Perhaps. But you, Mr. Taylor, are far too ill to attend. I must insist you go immediately back to the hospital and remain there until your strength returns.”

“Maybe tomorrow I will. But now I’m all worked up to see this here play. Heard some good things about it. Wouldn’t miss her for worlds.”

“Then she’s settled!” Sullivan said. “The three of us, we’re gonna see us some Hamlet.”

Sullivan made his exit, stage right, in the same whirlwind of energy in which he had entered. Bowater could hear him in the shipyard, yelling at the men working on the Tennessee. He turned and glared at Taylor.

Bowater nodded. “Funny that an uneducated mudsill like you should recommend Hamlet, of all things, for Sullivan to see.”

“Why’s that?” Taylor was all innocence, but he could not keep the devil out of his voice, and the bit of a grin that formed around his cigar.

“It would almost suggest some familiarity with the play, which I would not expect from a simple salt-of-the- earth kind of fellow such as yourself.”

“I done heard of the play before. Always thought it was about a little pig.”

Bowater sighed. “ Taylor, you are a great pretender, but I happen to know the truth of you.”

“That a fact? What would the truth of me be?”

“That you’re just acting at being a semiliterate river rat. That you are actually an educated man, a man of arts and letters.”

Taylor continued to grin, but Bowater was sure he saw a hint of uneasiness there. “Now ain’t that the biggest load a crap I ever heard. You tell me, Cap’n, if that was true, why would a fellow with an education pretend to be a low-down dirty peckerwood like me?”

“That is a good question,” Bowater said. “That is one hell of a good question.”

NINETEEN

HORATIO:… So shall you hear

Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,

Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,

Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,

And, in this upshot, purposes mistook

Fallen on the inventors’ needs.

SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET, ACT V, SCENE 2

Samuel Bowater had seen his share of theaters and opera houses. During fourteen years as an officer in the United States Navy, on the European Station, the Mediterranean Station, and the South American Station, Bowater had indulged in some of the finest performances, in the most sumptuous theaters, that the civilized world had to offer. The opportunity to see such performances, along with the chance to take in the museums of England and the Continent, the Sistine Chapel, Venice, Florence, the Parthenon, all the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome, were the singular benefits of belonging to a service that offered little chance of promotion, and even