Thieves Of Mercy

Scout boats had reported a single Rebel ram tied up north of the guns at Fort Pillow. The night before, Ellet had determined to act.

He devised a ruse: steam within gunshot of the Rebel, and when the Rebel attacked, retreat upriver, where more of his ram fleet waited to spring the trap.

But, like Agamemnon at Troy, Ellet had decided that before going into battle he would put his crew’s temper to the test.

He called the men together, told them his intentions. “It’s a dangerous thing we’re doing here,” he said. “Steaming right up to the Rebel fleet, right under the guns of Fort Pillow. I won’t make a man of you go against your will. If any don’t care for that kind of risk, he can just step over to the starboard side, and we’ll see you put off on another boat.”

He had folded his arms, triumphant in his speech, but felt the triumph melt like ice as more than half his men, including the captain, two out of three of the pilots, the first mate, all the engineers, and nearly all the crew, shuffled to the starboard side and stared up at him with blank faces. A good part of the morning was lost as the unwilling men collected their gear and the second mate brought the Queen alongside a barge to let them off.

He was Agamemnon, old and foolish, but he had no Odysseus to correct his blunders. So instead he begged men from the rest of his fleet and got under way, the Monarch following in his wake.

He stood now in the wheelhouse, watching the banks of the Mississippi slide by. This was as personal as it could be. He had conceived the idea of the ram fleet and through undaunted will had pushed it through the bureaucracies of Washington, pushed and did not stop until it became a reality floating on the Mississippi River. His passion for the rams was so powerful that it had sucked a significant portion of his family into its vortex. Between brothers, nephews, and son, there were six Ellets sailing as part of the ram fleet.

Just ahead of them, but unseen around the river bend, the day’s first mortar fired, arched its shell high into the air to drop unseen on Rebel heads. Ellet felt his muscles tighten. He tapped his fingernail on the sill of the wheelhouse window. The Rebel steamer would be not too far now, and Ellet prayed to God that it would still be there, tied to the bank, ready to show the same kind of grit the Confederate fleet had shown the month before.

He turned and caught a glimpse of Monarch before a bend in the river hid her from sight. Monarch was commanded by his brother, Alfred W. Ellet. Alfred had also given his men the option of going ashore, but every one of them had elected to stay with the boat, and Charles wondered why that was, when his own men did not.

Glad to weed out that bad material, in any event, Ellet thought and then thought no more on the matter. He stepped out of the wheelhouse and looked fore and aft and saw that everything was in readiness. Not that there was much to do to prepare. The rams had not a single gun on them, beyond small arms. Ordnance was not what they were about.

“Sir?” An ensign called down the deck from the wheelhouse and Ellet hurried back.

The Queen’s new captain, standing by the big wheel, pointed downriver. “There, sir.” Half a mile away, a Rebel steamer lay against the western bank, the thread of smoke creeping from her chimneys. To the east, and still out of sight, the water batteries of Fort Pillow, and climbing up the steep shore the higher gun emplacements that could drop plunging fire on them.

“Excellent. Let’s slow to one bell and give them a chance to get under way.”

The captain grabbed the cord, rang one bell, got a jingle in response. The Queen of the West slowed as the engineer below let the steam pressure drop. Ellet looked astern. He could just see the Monarch farther upstream, which was as it should be. Alfred would be waiting, ready to dash out and hit the Rebel broadside as the Queen lured it upriver.

They stood on. Field glasses revealed little about the Rebel ship. Stern-wheeler, walking beam engine. Some sort of bulwark on the bow with a gun there. That was about it. There were men on the hurricane deck, or so it seemed, but the appearance of the Queen seemed to generate no excitement.

“Rebels aren’t too damned observant,” Ellet growled at the captain. “I wonder if they’re even awake.”

The captain was nodding his concurrence when the first of Fort Pillow ’s guns fired from one hundred and fifty yards away. The sudden blast in the still morning made Ellet start. The shell screamed past, missing the wheelhouse by no more then twenty feet.

“Reckon they’re awake now,” the captain said.

It would not have been much of a fight with fists, but knives were something else entirely. With knives, Sullivan’s bulk worked against him, while the quickness that Guthrie enjoyed with his wiry frame more than compensated for Mississippi Mike’s greater reach.

They circled, crouching low, arms out, crablike. They each held in front of them one of the huge bowie knives with the full hand guard so beloved by the Westerners. They took tentative swipes at each other, feeling the other’s distance, the speed of his reaction.

Bowater, watching, recalled when Sullivan and Tarbox had gone at it. Sullivan landed one good kick and it had been over, and Tarbox seemed to have forgotten it by the time he stood up. This brawl did not look as if it would be resolved so easily.

By the wheelhouse, money was moving from hand to hand. Tarbox was taking the bets.

Guthrie made the first move, stepping into the circle of Sullivan’s arms, his left arm blocking Sullivan’s right, his knife flashing out and down. Had he made a proper lunge, Bowater noted, front foot out, back leg extended, arm straight, the way Bowater’s fencing tutor, Monsieur Ouellette, had taught him, Guthrie would have run the knife into Sullivan’s gut. But he did not. It was a quick slash and a jump back out of the way. Sullivan twisted clear of the attack and charged.

He came at Guthrie in a flurry of big arms and steel, knocking the smaller man’s knife aside, slashing with his own blade. But Guthrie was as quick as he looked, and much stronger. He leaped back, recovered, met Sullivan’s knife, hand guard to hand guard, and held it. Guthrie’s foot darted up and caught Sullivan between the legs, and only Sullivan’s lightning fast left hand blocked Guthrie from landing a kick that might have done for Mississippi Mike.

They both staggered back, reassessing, still circling. The men crowding the deck were getting vocal, and seemed pretty evenly divided as to who they wished would run a knife through whom.

Captain and engineer came at one another again. Sullivan feinted with his knife, connected with his brogan, right in Guthrie’s stomach, doubling the engineer up. Sullivan stepped back to deliver another kick and Guthrie charged like a bull, head-butting Sullivan in the stomach. The breath came out of Sullivan’s lungs like steam from an emergency valve but he still managed to bring both hands down on Guthrie’s neck, which dropped the engineer to the deck.

Sullivan might have ended it there, if he had not been stumbling back, gasping, barely able to hold his blade. Guthrie rolled over, and willing hands pulled him to his feet, gave him a restorative shake, and pushed him forward.

By the time Guthrie staggered after him, Mississippi Mike had managed to catch his breath and resume his defensive stance, but halfhearted, heaving, as was Guthrie. They came at each other as if they were half asleep, or drunk, or both. Knives swept the air. Sullivan grabbed Guthrie’s knife hand, and Guthrie did the same to Sullivan, and they stood there, each holding the other’s wrist, forming a circle with their arms, like kids playing a game, teeth bared, faces red, each straining to break the other’s grip.

Close upriver, perhaps two hundred yards, one of Fort Pillow’s guns fired, a startling sound. Bowater jumped, wheeled around. There was a steamer coming downriver, a Yankee steamer. No one had noticed its approach.

Then from behind, a sound like a grunt and a muffled scream, like someone violently ill. Bowater turned back. In that instant of distraction, Spence Guthrie had managed to free his knife hand. Now his bowie knife was buried in Mississippi Mike Sullivan’s gut, almost up to the hand guard. Blood was spilling fresh on the deck.

Sullivan grabbed Guthrie’s hand, pulled the hand and the knife away, pulled the blade clean out of his gut. His right hand made a wide sweeping arc through the air and the hand guard of his knife hit the side of Guthrie’s head with an impact like round shot, point-blank range.

Guthrie flew sideways, limp as a doll, a spray of blood flying off his face. He hit the deck and did not move, just as Sullivan fell to his knees, hand on his stomach. Blood ran between his fingers. His eyes were wide. He fell slowly onto his side and lay there, curled in a ball.