Thieves Of Mercy

The fort fired again. Bowater pulled his eyes from the two men laid out on the deck, looked upriver. The Yankee was coming on through the water battery’s fire, making right for them, the General Page, helpless, tied to the bank, the captain and chief engineer hors de combat.

Someone had better do some damn thing, he thought. He looked across the deck at Buford Tarbox, first mate, who was looking back at him.

“Cap’n Bowater, I reckon you’re in charge now,” he said, the cheroot never leaving his mouth.

“Me?” Bowater argued. “You’re the first officer, damn it.”

“That’s right. First officer. I ain’t a cap’n of nothin.”

Bowater shook his head. This was absurd, the Page was an army vessel, but arguing was even more absurd. “Quarters!” he shouted. “Hands to quarters! Cast off the fasts! What steam do we have?”

He looked around. No one moved.

“Git, you som bitches!” Tarbox shouted and the men scrambled.

“What steam do we have?” Bowater asked again. There were only a few men left on the hurricane deck, and the only one who knew was out cold.

“Mr. Taylor,” Bowater turned to Hieronymus Taylor, who was looking down at the groaning Mississippi Mike. “Could I impose on you to take over in the engine room?”

Taylor looked up, met his eyes. Bowater had expected the halfamused, half-resigned look, a look he knew well, on Taylor’s face. But that was not it. There was something else. He could not place it. On another man it might have been trepidation, hesitation. But not on Taylor. Bowater did not know what it was.

Fort Pillow fired again, three guns in rapid succession. The battery was almost lost in its own gun smoke. And the Yankee stood on.

“Reckon I’ll git below,” Taylor said, and hobbled off.

TWENTY-EIGHT

If not already done, for God’s sake order the River Defense Fleet to defend every bend and dispute every mile of river from [Fort] Pillow here.

BRIGADIER GENERAL M. JEFF THOMPSON TO GENERAL DANIEL RUGGLES, CONFEDERA TE STATES ARMY

For Bowater, stepping into command was like pulling on an old, worn coat. Once he began issuing orders, he forgot about how utterly absurd it was that he should be in that situation. His mind was entirely taken up with strategy.

Yankee, water battery, current, steam, bow gun. His world was reduced to those elements, the only ones that mattered.

He leaned into the speaking tube that communicated with the engine room. “Mr. Taylor, are you there?” he shouted. He waited a moment, opened his mouth to speak again, when Taylor ’s voice echoed back up the tube. “I’m here, Cap’n.” That familiar tone of exasperation, it was good to hear it again.

“What do you have for steam?”

Another pause, a sigh of even deeper exasperation. “Still below

service gauge. I can give you one bell in five minutes.”

“Very well. As soon as you can.” Bowater straightened, looked out the wheelhouse window. They had no steam, but the current was with them. Worst case, they could cast off and drift down to the rest of the River Defense Fleet, anchored below Fort Pillow.

The guns of the fort were blasting away, the low water battery and now the guns higher up, sending a shower of metal across the river, but the Yankee was pressing on through it. He’s a cool one, Bowater thought. It was one of the rams he and Sullivan had seen upriver. A big letter Q hung between the chimneys.

What to do, what to do… Bowater stepped out of the wheelhouse, looked down the boat’s larboard side, the side pressed against the riverbank. The lines were all cast off, save for the bow and stern, and those were ready to slip. He turned to look where Sullivan and Guthrie had fallen. Their shipmates had carried them away, and all that remained of their fight was a pool of Mississippi Mike’s blood, and a splatter of Guthrie’s.

With his mind occupied, Bowater had not given them a second thought, but now he did. He recalled Guthrie’s big knife thrust into Mike’s gut. He had seen gut wounds before. There was not much hope for anything but a quick death, and even that was not likely.

Guthrie? Bowater could not tell. That hit he took to the side of the head might well have crushed his skull. Sullivan was strong enough to do it. In a day or two, they might both be dead.

What a God almighty waste, Bowater thought. The Confederacy could scarcely afford to have its own people killing each other. The Yankees were doing that fast enough.

He heard a creak, a groan behind him. The walking beam made its first agonizing move, up and down, with just steam enough to drive it. The paddle wheels began to turn, slowly, painfully, like an old man getting out of bed.

Good enough. Bowater strode back to the wheelhouse. “Cast off, fore and aft,” he said to Tarbox.

Tarbox stepped quickly to the larboard side. “Cast off, fore and aft!” he shouted and the bow and stern fasts, looped around trees ashore, came snaking through the low brush and whipped back aboard. The distance from boat to shore began to open up, a strip of muddy water between them. Bowater turned to the helmsman. “You have steerage?”

The helmsman grunted, spun the wheel a half turn. “A bit. Enough.”

“Very well. Make for the Yankee steamer.”

“Yankee steamer,” the helmsman repeated, gave a turn to starboard, steadied her up. The General Page could barely stem the current with the steam she had. They were a long way from having the momentum to ram, while the Yankee had a full head of steam and the current to boot. If she got a clean shot with her ram, it might be the end of the Page and Bowater’s brief tenure with the River Defense Fleet.

He grabbed the engine room bell cord, rang up three bells, could well imagine the string of profanities Hieronymus Taylor was pouring on his name.

They were crossing the river diagonally, closing with the Yankee. Fort Pillow was flinging shell and round shot across the water, but it seemed to have little effect on the intruder.

“Tell the bow gun to fire when ready,” Bowater said and Tar-box nodded, carried the order forward. In a minute the first mate was back. “You gonna fight this son of a bitch?” he asked, disinterested, as if the decision did not involve him.

“Perhaps…” As he said it, a cat’s-paw of wind enveloped the fort, lifted the smoke away, revealing the batteries, the turned earth of the redoubts climbing up the bank. And beyond that, another column of smoke, a double column, twisting together to form a single black line, rising from the river, upstream.

Oh, you tricky son of a bitch…

“It’s a trap, Mr. Tarbox,” Bowater said. “There is at least one more of these Yankee rams waiting upstream for us. See the smoke?”

Tarbox looked in the direction that Bowater indicated. He puffed his cheroot, nodded his head.

“Reckon we best get the hell outta here,” Tarbox said.

Bowater nearly said, “Reckon so,” but he stopped himself. “Yes, indeed.”

Forward, the Page’s bow gun fired, adding to the din from the fort. “Tell the men on the stern to fire when they bear,” Bowater said to Tarbox, then to the helmsman, “Bring her around. We’ll make for the rest of the fleet below the fort.”

The helmsman spun the wheel, and with the mounting steam and the current with them at last, the