Thieves Of Mercy

Molly worked her way aft. The rope ran through a block on the lower corner of the sail and then back into the boat. Molly pulled and the corner of the sail came more inboard and Wendy made the line fast on a cleat. The boat heeled farther over and a gurgling sound came from its waterline as it raced along. The wind blew fresh on Wendy’s face and she could see the shoreline moving swiftly past. And for all the horror of the past twenty-four hours, she was thrilled.

TWENTY-TWO

The abandonment of the peninsula will, of course, involve the loss of all our batteries on the north shore of James River. The effect of this upon our holding Norfolk and our ships you will readily perceive. Captain Tucker’s command covers our right flank. I am much pleased with his intelligence and zeal.

GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON TO FLAG OFFICER JOSIAH TATTNALL

Flag Officer Josiah Tattnall stared through field glasses at the absence of a flag. He stood just aft of the low conical pilothouse at the forward end of CSS Virginia ’s ironclad casemate. The gentle westerly wind ruffled his thick white hair, made the tails of his gray frock coat tap against his legs. The heavy ship hardly moved at all, even as it tugged on its moorings off Sewell’s Point. It felt more like standing on a rock than any vessel Tattnall had ever been aboard. But at that moment, Tattnall’s focus was on shore. He was examining the Confederate batteries on Sewell’s Point. There was no flag.

Tattnall lowered the glasses, rubbed his tired eyes. He raised the field glasses again, this time swept them along the earthen redoubts. No guards paced with glinting bayonets, no men lounged on the thick walls, no Negroes filled sandbags. No one. Deserted. By the looks of it, the battery was abandoned.

“Sir, you called for me?” The voice of Flag Lieutenant John Pembroke Jones.

“Yes, Lieutenant, yes. Here, have a look. Is it my tired old eyes, or is there no flag flying at Sewell’s Point battery?”

Jones took the field glasses and studied the fortifications, which just the day before had been pounded by Union ships, including the Monitor. “I do not believe there is a flag flying, sir,” he said at last. “I can’t see a soul stirring there.”

Tattnall frowned. Damn Huger was supposed to notify me if he was abandoning his position… The Virginia had been kept at Sewell’s Point to protect Norfolk from the Union Navy, and she had been damned effective in that job. Every time she showed up, the Yankees skedaddled. She had fired only one shot since the great battle with Monitor, and that had been a parting shot in disgust at the Union fleet that would not close and fight. She was the undisputed queen of Hampton Roads.

But if the Yankees took Norfolk and Portsmouth, and once again had possession of the naval yard, then Virginia ’s position there was untenable. She ate coal at a prodigious rate, and her engines were too unreliable for her to be without a dockyard nearby.

But where would he go? There was no ship afloat with guns heavy enough to penetrate Virginia ’s ironclad hide, but Tattnall was not so certain about the big guns at Fortress Monroe. He was not enthusiastic about steaming past that place during the daylight hours, through tricky shallows and the crossfire of Monroe and the Rip Raps, and the pilots would not take her through at night.

Richmond was where the Virginia belonged, up the James River to the capital, fight the Yankees as they tried to use their gunboats to cover McClellan’s flanks. But the James River was tricky, and shallow, and Virginia was clumsy and deep.

Tattnall took the field glasses back from Jones, trained them to the south, toward Craney Island. The island was four miles away, but he thought he could make out the Stars and Bars still flying in the breeze. Jones’s considerably younger eyes confirmed it.

“Lieutenant, take a boat down to Craney Island and see what’s happening there. We have to know if the Yankees have landed, and what Huger is doing with his damned army.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Jones saluted.

“And send up Parrish and Wright.”

“Parrish and Wright, aye, sir.” The lieutenant disappeared down the hatch, and Tattnall was able to enjoy the agreeable quiet once again. From inside the casemate he could hear a dull pounding, someone fixing something, it never stopped. At the far end of the hurricane deck a gang of sailors were overhauling boat falls. But where he stood, it was quiet. Hard to believe they were surrounded on all sides by warring parties, great armies struggling over the fate of two nations.

Tattnall frowned and paced.

“Sir?” It was the pilot, Mr. Parrish, and his chief assistant, Wright. Tattnall did not care for them, did not think them bold enough in assuming risk. Virginia was a man-of-war, she could not be safe all the time. But that was the nature of the breed, with pilots.

“Mr. Wright. It appears the battery at Sewell’s Point has been abandoned. If the Yankees take Norfolk we will have to sail up the James River to Richmond. I wish to confirm with you that we can do so.” They had been over this before. But Tattnall had to know that it could be done.

“Well, sir,” Parrish said patiently, “we can get her to within forty miles of Richmond. If the ship can be lightened to a draft of eighteen feet.”

Tattnall nodded. Virginia drew twenty-two feet. To raise her by four feet would require throwing nearly everything overboard, save guns and powder. It would raise the iron shield out of the water and expose her vulnerable wooden hull. It would render her indefensible. But it would be worth it, to get her upriver. If he could not do that, then he would blast his way into the Union fleet, rip them apart until he was run down by Yankee rams, until the ironclad sank under him with guns blazing and flags flying. That was how a ship like Virginia, and an old sailor like Josiah Tattnall, should die.

“Very well,” Tattnall said. His eyes were following Jones’s boat, which was just leaving Virginia ’s side, heading southwest toward Craney Island. Four men were pulling oars, two were stepping the mast amidships. Jones sat in the stern sheets, a hand on the tiller.

Suddenly, Tattnall felt very unwell. His stomach churned. A headache was building like storm clouds. “Thank you, pilot,” he said and Parrish and Wright disappeared. Tattnall leaned heavily on the rail that ran around the hurricane deck. I am old, he thought, old, old, old.

Roger Newcomb tried to see upriver through the drifting smoke of the navy yard. He stood near the end of the great granite dry dock, coughing, wiping his eyes, trying to focus his telescope on the northern reaches of the Elizabeth River.

There was no telling how far ahead those two bitches were. They might have left two hours before him, or twenty minutes. They might be alone in a skiff, or they might be in a longboat with twenty secesh sailors. He just did not know.

He snapped the telescope shut-useless thing-and cursed out loud. There was only one thing he knew with certainty, and that was that he had to follow them, and run them to ground before they could reach the protective arms of the Confederacy. He needed a boat.

That realization spurred him. He put the telescope back in the haversack and began to work his way north across the navy yard, but he was met with fire that made the way impassable, or with the charred remains of buildings, a few blackened brick walls standing here and there, empty window casements like eye sockets in skulls. It was pointless. Anything worth having there had been taken by the secesh or burned in their wake. He would not find a boat.

Cursing, he ran back across the navy yard, through the smoke and the heat, out the iron gate in the low brick wall. The streets were deserted, the people either hiding or fled. He raced for the north end of the shipyard and the docks he knew lined the waterfront.

His head was a riot of pain, made worse with each footfall, and that only fueled his fury. He had been shot with his own gun, he knew it, but he would not let the words form in his head because the humiliation was too great. Instead he focused on the treachery, the lies, the unfathomable viciousness of that bitch. Both of them. Because the dark-haired one was a part of this too, as guilty as the Luce whore.