Thieves Of Mercy

davits standing and the torn ends of the boat falls swaying back and forth.

“Damn,” Sullivan said.

Bowater looked forward. The smoke was thicker around the ironclads, the gunfire more furious. This is idiotic, he thought. We can’t do this. It was insane for the River Defense Fleet to remain where they were and swap gunfire with ironclads. They could never win on that ground. And the fleet had already proved that their rams could be effective against the Yankee gunboats. It was time for a cavalry charge.

He turned to Sullivan. “We can’t stay here. We’ll be murdered.”

“You sure got that right.”

“We should ram them, go right at them.”

“Ram them? Hell, I was gonna say we should skedaddle to Vicksburg.” Sullivan gulped a few deep breaths, winced in pain. “Naw, I’m jest joshin ya. You do whatever you want, Cap’n, an I’m with ya. Ain’t like I got much choice.”

Bowater studied the Union ships. They were all but lost in the smoke; it was hard to see which would make the best target. The General Page’s bow gun went off again, rattling the lightly built vessel as if it had struck a rock.

“How much water is up there, where the Yankees are?” Bowater asked.

Before Sullivan could answer, a ship burst from the bank of smoke, right between two of the Union ironclads, a side-wheeler charging downriver. It looked like a ghost come from the grave, as if it had appeared out of thin air.

“Damn!” Sullivan shouted.

“It’s one of the rams!” Bowater shouted, forgetting to temper his excitement. Then, in a more controlled voice, added, “One of the rams we saw upriver.”

“Well, now we got us a fight, ram to ram,” Sullivan said.

Colonel Lovell and Sumter were steaming up to the enemy, line abreast. They altered course with the appearance of this new threat, and made for the Yankee ram. The smoke rolled thick and black out of their chimneys, striking four dark lines against the sky, and Bowater wondered what the engineers were throwing on the fires. He frowned. He wanted to be at the enemy, or at least get a clear cannon shot, but the other ships were blocking his way.

He turned to Baxter. “Follow Sumter!” he ordered. Perhaps there would be something left over for them.

And then a second ram burst from the fog, a roil of white water around her bow as she poured on the steam. Most of the River Defense Fleet was concentrating on the first ram; there was only the

General Bragg between Bowater and the second Yankee. You’re my meat, Bowater thought. “He’s our meat!” Sullivan shouted. God help me, Bowater thought.

THIRTY-ONE

I saw a large portion of the engagement from the riverbanks, and am sorry to say that, in my opinion, many of our boats were handled badly or the plan of battle was very faulty. The enemy’s rams did most of the execution and were handled more adroitly than ours…

BRIGADIER GENERAL M. JEFF THOMPSON TO GENERAL G.T. BEAUREGARD

The Union ironclad fleet had let loose with a full barrage, the shots coming one upon another, by the time the Union ram Queen of the West cast off from the bank and backed into the stream. Colonel Ellet himself ran to the after end of the hurricane deck and hauled the ensign up the staff, the prescribed signal for the ram fleet to go into action. Monarch was moving off the bank, and upstream, Lancaster and Switzerland had not even put their lines ashore.

Ellet rushed back to the wheelhouse. The others would follow. They would understand, as he did, that this was their moment. It was time for the rams to go into battle and show the world that the weapon of the ancients was back, and ready to do great execution.

“Right between the ironclads, pilot, get us right downriver,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir.” The pilot paused. “We’ll be right under their guns, sir.”

“Who, the enemy?”

“No, sir, the ironclads.”

“Oh, they won’t fire on us. Depend on it. Right between them, right for those Rebels.” He reached up himself and rang three bells. When they slammed the Queen’s iron-shod bow into a secesh gunboat, they would need speed and momentum, all they could get.

Memphis was gone, lost from sight behind a great wall of gray gun smoke, the cumulative output of the Union gunboat’s fire. Ellet could see the ironclads, low and dark, stretched across the river, and then in front of them a gray cloud that hung on the water and roiled up with every successive blast of the guns, and then nothing else. The smoke blotted out everything downriver, save for the blue sky, high overhead.

The Queen of the West was building her precious momentum fast, racing for the line of Federal gunboats. The flashes of the ironclads’ guns lit up the smoke, orange and red, belched more smoke into the cloud.

The Queen charged on, right between Carondelet and Benton. Ellet could see startled faces looking out from gun ports as the ram swept past and plunged into the wall of smoke.

For a moment they were blind, like being in thick fog, a world of gray and dim, diffused light. Joseph Ford, first master of the Queen of the West, began coughing hard, doubled over, and Ellet coughed too. He wondered how thick the wall of fog might be. He could not ram if he could not see.

And then they were through, bursting out of the far side like coming out of a tunnel, from gray smoke and blindness to brilliant morning-blue sky, brown water flashing in the rising sun, the steep hills on the Memphis shore, and the Rebel Defense Fleet, steaming for them.

“Here we go!” Ellet shouted. Upstream, the ironclads kept up their fire, the shells screaming past, and Ellet wondered if the gunners could see at all through their own smoke. If not, there was as good a chance of them hitting the Queen as anything, but he was too gripped with the thrill of the thing to care.

“Sir!” Ford pointed downstream. Two of the Rebels were coming up fast, side by side, their bows aimed straight at the Queen of the West.

Ellet stepped back into the wheelhouse, stood between the pilots, Richard Smith and Joe Davis, their eyes locked on the action under the bows.

“Which one, sir?” Davis asked. The Queen and the two Rebels were closing fast, bow to bow. If they hit that way, it would shatter them all.

“I don’t know…” Ellet said. They were charging right at one another. We’ll make a damn lot of widows this way…

One of the Rebels began to turn, the one on the Queen’s starboard bow began to sheer off. Ellet stepped out of the wheelhouse. Behind them, the Monarch had broken through the smoke, was coming down on their starboard quarter. Ellet could hear the men on the ironclad gunboats cheering, cheering.

He pulled off his hat and waved it at Monarch and then at the Rebel who had sheered off. “That one’s for you!” he shouted, though he knew Alfred would not hear him. “The other is my meat!”

The Monarch began to turn, to line herself up for a charging run at the second Rebel steamer. Satisfied, Ellet returned to the wheelhouse. Two hundred yards separated the Queen from the onrushing Confederate, two hundred and dropping fast, and still they came on, bow to bow.