Thieves Of Mercy

to look in on Captain Sullivan, but he is not to be removed from the ship unless absolutely necessary. And please get Guthrie’s body to the morgue. You may report his death in any manner you see fit.”

“Awright, Cap’n,” Tarbox said.

“Very well. Carry on.” Bowater was still astounded that these river rats would listen to him. But men like that, he knew, really craved leadership and discipline, deep down, and would latch onto it when it was offered.

Before stepping ashore, Bowater climbed down into the engine room, looking for Taylor. He found him at the feed water pump, a wrench in his hand, a coal passer standing by with half a dozen other tools. The fires were banked, the steam pressure down to three pounds, and Taylor looked much more relaxed.

“Chief?” Bowater had been dreading this moment. He was still burning with embarrassment over his humiliating confession to Hieronymus Taylor. Why he had done that, why he had let the words come unchecked from his generally guarded mouth, he could not fathom. He wondered what breed of self-indulgent idiot Taylor now took him for.

“Chief, how’d the engine do?”

Taylor turned and looked at him, and his face revealed nothing. “Not bad. Ran. Boilers didn’t blow up. Don’t reckon we could ask for much more.”

“Good. I am going over to the shipyard. Would you care to join me?”

“I best get this here feed water pump goin, or we ain’t gonna be so lucky next time. I’ll come by later.”

“Very well. Thank you, Chief, for taking over here.”

Taylor smiled, shrugged. “You keep gettin my engine rooms blowed up or sunk, I got to find work where I can.”

Bowater left the General Page as the sun dipped away and the sky was lit blue and orange with the last rays of light coming over the horizon. He walked fast down the waterfront street to the open place that Shirley had turned into a shipyard. He felt guilty, as if he had abandoned his family.

He was brought up short by the crowd of men in the shipyard. At that hour he would not have expected more than half a dozen, finishing up for the day, with John Shirley rushing around as ever. But all the men were there now, his men, the yard workers. A small knot of soldiers in gray and butternut. An officer with a frock coat and gold swirls on the cuff.

Whatever was going on, Bowater suspected it was not good.

He hurried across the hard-packed ground to where the soldiers stood, about ten feet from the Tennessee’s port quarter, the focal point of the men sitting and standing around. He could see now that the officer was talking with Shirley, the short man hidden behind the crowd around him.

“Mr. Shirley, what is going on here?” Bowater said, pushing through, insinuating himself into the discussion.

The army officer turned to him slowly, with an imperious look. “And you are?”

“Lieutenant Samuel Bowater, Confederate States Navy. I am the commanding officer of the ship building on the ways here.”

“Indeed?”

“It’s bad news, Captain, damned bad news,” Shirley chimed in. “Telegraph just brought word. Fort Pillow’s abandoned. The Golden Age went up to get the last of the men out. Now there isn’t a damn thing but sandbars and snags between the Yankees and Memphis.”

Bowater felt his stomach drop. “Is there any word of the Yankees? Are they coming?”

The army officer, annoyed by Shirley’s interruption, now commandeered the conversation. “We believe they are on the move now. We don’t know when they will be here, but we suspect soon. As Mr. Shirley has said, there is little holding them back.”

“The River Defense Fleet’s falling back to the city,” Shirley butted in again. “The army officers are holding public meetings all over the city, see about organizing some defense, but it don’t look good, not good at all.”

“Yes, anyway, that is not what we are concerned with,” the army officer said.

“And you are?” Bowater asked, not willing to be outdone in the imperious department.

“Captain van Reid, second assistant provost marshal. I am here by order of the provost. I…”

“He wants to burn the ship!” Shirley chimed in, like jumping on the punch line of a joke. “He come here to order us to burn the damned Tennessee!”

“Is that true?”

“Lieutenant,” van Reid said with elaborate weariness, “I have already argued the point with Mr. Shirley, and I do not intend to argue it again. Unless you can launch this ship and tow it away before, say, sunrise tomorrow, it will have to be destroyed. It cannot be allowed to fall into Yankee hands.”

Bowater pressed his lips together, scowled, tried to think of something to say. Something insightful that would alter the situation. He could think of nothing, so he said, “Can’t the city be defended?”

“We have something in the neighborhood of two hundred troops to defend the city. You tell me, Lieutenant. Now if you will excuse me, I have a great deal to do. Launch your ship, and if you cannot, burn it. If it is not floating or burning by midnight, I will return and do it myself.”

He turned and marched off and the clutch of soldiers marched after him, leaving Bowater and Shirley and the rest to stare, open-mouthed.

Bowater looked at Shirley and Shirley looked at Bowater. There was not much to say. They might have launched the Tennessee in a few days, but not a few hours.

“There’s some turpentine up in the paint shed,” Shirley said at last. “That’ll get things going along.”

Bowater knew the words he had to speak. Gather up flammable material, pack it around the ship, douse it with turpentine. But they would not come. “Tanner, please see the ship ready for burning,” he ordered instead, and let Ruffin Tanner make the preparations.

The men did not move fast, not one of them was enthusiastic about the job at hand. But slowly, bales of cotton and straw and scrap timber were piled around the ship, the bare wood of her hull showing like white bone in the torchlight. Like burning her at the stake, Bowater thought. The ship was dying for his heresy.

Hieronymus Taylor appeared, walking on a crutch, and stood back in the shadows and watched.

It was full dark when the provost marshal arrived, expecting to find the men unwilling to burn the ship, or so Bowater suspected. But preparations were far enough along that the provost said nothing, beyond an introduction and “Very good. Carry on.”

And then it was ready, there was nothing left to do, no excuse for delay. “All right, you men.” Bowater turned to his crew behind him. “Go ahead.”

The men with the torches stepped forward, solemn, as if they were part of a religious service. Up and down the ways they put flame to turpentine-soaked tinder and the fire roared to life, sprang up out of the cotton and hay and wood as if it had been there all along and was only waiting to be released.

Bowater stepped back from the heat, and the others did as well. Soon the shipyard was lit with the dancing light, yellow and deep shadow.

Oh, God, what a waste, what a waste… Bowater did not know if he should feel guilty about his less than stellar effort at getting the ship ready, or angry that he had wasted precious time on such a lost cause.

They remained in the shipyard for a little more than two hours, watching the great wooden edifice collapse into a pile of glowing coal, and then they left. Bowater took his men back to the General Page. Sullivan would get his wish in the end-Bowater’s men would join his crew, Hieronymus Taylor would run the engine room. Bowater wondered if Sullivan would be alive in the morning so that he could enjoy his final victory.

But not a victory, not really. Sullivan might have got Bowater’s men, but Bowater had Sullivan’s ship. That thought stirred something else in Samuel Bowater, something deep. The Yankees would be there soon, perhaps in the morning. But he had a ship. He could fight them. He would not be watching from the shore, or holding his tongue as Mississippi Mike Sullivan gave orders.

And that, at least, was something.

TWENTY-NINE