Thieves Of Mercy

Then they were on the other tack, the boat pointing almost downriver, the wind coming over the starboard bow. The sail was pressed flat against the mast by the wind, and Wendy thought, That can’t be right…

Somehow the gaff and sail should have been moved to the other side of the mast in order for it to set right on the opposite tack. But, unseamanlike as it looked, it was doing the job, driving the boat along, and Wendy played with the tiller until the bow was as high on the wind as it would go.

Molly did not look confident. She was looking at the sail, looking at the shore.

“We have to sail on this tack for a bit,” Wendy explained, “so that when we tack again we can sail past Norfolk.”

Molly nodded. “Because it does appear we are going back the way we came,” she said.

“I know. But not for long.”

For five minutes they held that course, crossing the Elizabeth River from east to west, and then they tacked again. It went smoother that time, and with the wind back over the port bow, the sail set correctly, which was a relief to Wendy. Seeing the sail pressed awkwardly against the mast made her very uncomfortable.

They cleared Norfolk, made Finner Point where the river opened its wide mouth to Hampton Roads. Craney Island was three miles ahead on the port bow, and beyond that, only the shimmering open water of the Roads, with the low blue-gray coast of Newport News a thin line on the northern horizon.

“I see a boat,” Molly said.

“Where?”

“There.” Wendy could hear the forced calm in Molly’s voice, and in her own. She looked where Molly was pointing. A small boat, not unlike their own, coming upriver under sail.

No reason to be afraid, Wendy assured herself, but she was. “What do you think we should do?”

Molly shook her head. “Sail on. Hope they ignore us.”

Wendy nodded, ran an eye over the approaching boat. They had the wind a little astern and they were coming up fast.

“I wish we had a telescope,” Wendy said.

“I prefer guns,” Molly said. “Where is the pepperbox?”

“We left it behind.”

Molly nodded. “Do you have your gun?”

“Yes. I put it in my carpetbag.” Wendy wondered how much of that morning her aunt recalled.

Molly dug through the bag, pulled out the little gun, examined the chamber and the percussion cap. “We have one shot. We had better make it a good one.”

Four minutes passed before the boat was up with them. From fifty feet away, the women could make out six men sitting on the weather side, and a man who appeared to be wearing an officer’s frock coat at the tiller.

“I hope to God these aren’t Yankees,” Molly said. She adjusted her skirts so they covered the gun in her right hand.

The strange boat turned up into the wind. Its sail came back and it stopped dead, like a carriage with the brake set. The officer called out, “Heave to! Heave to in our lee!”

What does that mean? Wendy wondered. No doubt it involved stopping so the men could determine who they were. Wendy turned the boat slowly up into the wind. The sail began to flog and beat, and the boat lost way, until at last it drifted to a stop ten feet from the other.

“Ladies, I am Lieutenant John Jones, flag lieutenant, Confederate States Navy. May I ask your business?” the officer said. He spoke in the accent of the South. His coat was gray. Dark gray, but nonetheless gray. Wendy felt relief spread like the warm glow from a shot of whiskey.

“We are leaving Norfolk, before the damned Yankees get there,” Molly said. “I am a particular friend of Captain John Tucker, and we are attempting to reach him.”

The officer in the boat nodded. “Tucker is with his squadron in the James. But there are Yankees everywhere. You’d be better to land and go on foot.”

The women nodded.

“What news do you have of Norfolk?” Jones asked.

“The Yankees were not yet there when we left, about an hour or more past. The navy yard is in flames.”

That news seemed to take the officer by surprise. “Are you certain?”

“Yes,” Wendy said. “We were there ourselves. It is quite overcome.”

The officer nodded. “Very well. I wish I could offer you more assistance, but I fear I have urgent business.”

“Sir, you are kindness itself, but we will be fine, I assure you,” Wendy said. She was feeling optimistic, for the first time in a long time. She was eager to be under way.

“Very good, ladies. Good day.” Jones tipped his hat as if they had met on the street, and not bobbing along in boats in the middle of a theater of war. The navy boat fell off and soon was under way, running upriver. Wendy and Molly fussed with the sail and the tiller until they were also under way again, downriver for Hampton Roads.

They did not see another sail for nearly an hour.

Craney Island was broad on the port bow and a mile off when Molly happened to notice it, astern of them, and coming down-river fast.

“Is it Lieutenant Jones again, do you think?” Molly asked.

Wendy glanced over her shoulder, then back at the sail overhead and the boat’s heading, then back over her shoulder. “I don’t know…” She did not think so-the shape of the sail did not look right-but this new boat was nearly a mile away, and she could not be certain. “I don’t know,” she said again.

They tacked once more to gain sea room from the mud flats on the eastern shore of the river, then tacked back. It was an awkward maneuver as Wendy tried to shift the sail around to the other side of the mast, which she managed to do, but only after getting the boat in irons for a few confused moments. By the time they were back on the port tack, the boat coming up astern was much closer.

It was not the Confederate officer Jones.

They could see that now. This boat had a jib and a mainsail, whereas Jones’s boat had only a single sail much like their own.

“Oysterman,” Molly pronounced, “or someone fleeing the Yankees like we are.”

Wendy nodded. She felt as uncertain as Molly sounded.

But why would anyone care about us? she thought. Even if they are Yankees, surely they have better things to do than come after us? Whoever they were, she assured herself, they would not care about a couple of harmless women in a boat. There was only one person she could think of who might want to hunt them down, but she had already put a bullet through his head.

She saw that whole nightmare scene again, played out in her mind as if she were seeing it for the first time. She tasted the revulsion and fear and wild fury all over, felt the kick of the big gun in her hand. She tried to summon up remorse for what she had done, but it was not there.

I feel not that deity on my bosom, she thought and wondered if that should concern her. She wanted to talk about what had happened, what she had done and felt, had a desperate need to verbalize it. She wanted to spill it all to Molly, but she could not broach the subject with her aunt. Not with Molly. She could not bring it up again.

She wished that Samuel were there. Samuel would understand. He would help her understand. These were things that he had faced as well. Men were supposed to perform such acts as killing with never a thought, but Samuel was more introspective than that. She knew he lacked nothing in courage, but not feeling fear was not the same as not feeling at all.

She missed Samuel desperately. It was ironic, but since the moment she had decided to make her way west, there had hardly been two consecutive minutes to think of him. At that moment, however, hand on the tiller, boat tracking north through the small chop at the river’s mouth, quiet save for the water on the hull, she thought, and she recalled how much she loved him and how painfully she wanted to be near him.

“That boat seems to be making for us,” Molly said, soft and calm.

Wendy, pulled from her thoughts, looked over her shoulder. The boat was in their wake, directly astern, about half a mile away. The river was two miles wide at that point, and yet the boat was right there, right behind