Thieves Of Mercy

Blouin! Git some shorin under that before it kills us all!”

The black gang recovered from their trance and scattered. Burgoyne and Luke grabbed up the long iron slice bars used for cleaning the boiler grates and levered them under the boiler, holding it in place. The others grabbed up wood planks and shoved them under the iron cylinder to stop it from breaking free.

Taylor crawled to the reversing lever and used it to haul himself to his feet. The engine room was filling with smoke. He could see the halo around the lanterns, hear the men begin to cough. The boiler that had been knocked out was the one they had shut down, so the steam pressure probably was not enough to blow the thing. That was probably why they were still alive and not scalded to death or shrieking their last few moments away. He twisted the throttle closed.

He was breathing hard, his mind racing, but he was thinking clearly, and the fear was gone. He did not realistically think he would live beyond the next hour, but he was not afraid, and that was something.

“Reckon that’ll hold!” Burgoyne shouted aft, and on top of his report, a jingle and two bells. Oh, hell… Taylor jammed the shifting lever to astern, opened the throttle. Overhead the big walking beam paused and then began to rock the opposite way, with a screech and a clang and a banging sound. Taylor heard something pop.

Goddamn walking beam… Tolerant as walking beams were, they were not meant for that kind of abuse. He wondered if something had been knocked out of alignment. Knocked more out of alignment. The walking beam had been in no great shape even before they started bashing into other vessels.

“Hey, Burgoyne, get back to that feed water pipe!” Taylor shouted. Without water to the boilers they would be dead in the water in fifteen minutes.

The bell rang, four bells. Four bells? What the hell they think’s goin on down here?

Taylor shifted the reversing lever, opened up the throttle, then hobbled to the speaking tube. “Wheelhouse!”

“Wheelhouse, here!”

“Just thought you beats might like to know, things ain’t lookin too almighty grand down here. You can ring that fucking bell all you want, but I don’t know how long it’s gonna do you any good!”

He heard a pause on the other end, then Bowater’s voice. “Very well!”

Very well?

Well, what else was the son of a bitch supposed to say? Taylor grinned. He looked down. There was half an inch of water over the deck plates. He started to cough. Very well, indeed.

The two rams were circling, the General Page and the Monarch, describing a quarter-mile circle on the Mississippi River as each looked for her chance to run at the other broadside. They would not try the headlong rush again.

The gun crew on board the fantail of the General Page had hauled their thirty-two- pound smoothbore around so it was trained over the larboard side, and they were taking shots at the Yankee when she would bear. But the Union ironclads upriver were also contributing their artillery, and the Page was getting much worse than she was doling out. There were gaping holes in the superstructure, and the one chimney still standing was riddled.

Bowater could not help but think of the boilers. In ships designed for this sort of thing, the boilers were well below the waterline. But not on board the General Page, which was built for nothing more dangerous than hauling cotton and passengers up and down the river.

One shot, one shot… The wheelhouse was nearly right over the boilers, with companionways that led right down to the engine room. It was not at all unheard-of for men in the wheelhouse to be scalded to death in a boiler explosion. Taylor would have it easy, never know what hit him. But the men in the wheelhouse? They would get the tail end of the blast. It might take them days to die.

Bowater kept moving. In the wheelhouse, onto the side deck, eyes on the enemy. Mississippi Mike Sullivan had pulled himself to his feet and was leaning heavily on the rail, and he didn’t look well. They stood together, watched the Yankee circling around.

“That walking beam don’t sound too good,” Sullivan said, his voice raspy. A shell from the gunboats whistled by.

Bowater looked upriver. The ironclads were broadside to, turning around. In just a few minutes they would be running downriver, bow-first, bringing their guns to point-blank range, firing from their impenetrable casemates.

He looked back at the ram. “We don’t have time for this horseshit.” He stepped back into the engine room, rang two jingles, all stop.

The paddle wheels slowed, the headway dropped off. Bowater leaned into the speaking tube. He could see threads of smoke wafting out of the brass mouth of the tube, could smell the acrid coal-fire smell. “Chief, get up all the pressure you can. When I ring four bells, let her go!”

“You’ll get every damned ounce I have!” Taylor shouted back, then started coughing as his voice trailed off.

The General Page was stopped dead, and Bowater hoped the Yankee would think she was disabled. He had to make something happen. The Federal ram could steam around as long as she liked, waiting for the gunboats to come down, but if the General Page was going to do anything, it had to be now.

“Tanner, put your helm hard a’starboard. When this bastard gets close enough, we’re going to pour on the steam, twist out of her way, and take her side wheel off. Just put our bow right into it.”

“Take her side wheel off, aye, sir,” Tanner repeated. He turned the wheel its full revolutions. They waited.

A quarter mile away the Union ram altered course, straightening out, turning her bow toward the General Page. He must think we are disabled, Bowater thought. How could he not? There was no other explanation for their stopping in midriver, exposing their vulnerable side to the ram.

The Monarch was pouring on the steam, putting everything into this charge. Bowater stepped out of the wheelhouse and stood beside Sullivan, who was standing straighter now. A few hundred yards separated the two vessels. They could see the water creaming white around the Yankee’s bow.

“Cap’n,” Sullivan began, “I ain’t so sure…”

“I’m drawing him in. When he’s close enough I’ll go to four bells, turn hard, and take out his wheel box.”

Sullivan nodded. He looked as if he was going to say something, but he didn’t. He nodded again.

Two hundred yards, and Bowater considered how fast the General Page could get enough headway on to answer the rudder. That was all he needed, enough headway to turn and aim for the wheel. The Yankee’s momentum would do the rest.

He looked at the onrushing ram. You could not calculate mathematically such a thing as the exact moment to call for steam, the point when the Yankee was close enough that she could not escape, but far enough to allow the Page to turn. You had to feel it. And if you could not, you had no business commanding a ship.

Bowater drifted back into the wheelhouse. “Get ready, Tanner.” Tanner nodded. Bowater walked over to the speaking tube. “Get ready, Mr. Taylor, about half a minute.”

“I’m ready!” Taylor shouted and muttered something else that Bowater could not hear.

Bowater’s eyes were locked on the enemy ram. His hand reached up and grabbed the bell cord. He waited a second, another second, and then every nerve in his body screamed now, now, NOW!

He jerked the cord, four quick bells, and in an instant the deck rumbled underfoot as down below Taylor let it all go, let all the steam he had rush into the cylinder, drive the piston with full force. The walking beam creaked as it began to move, the sound of gushing water came from the wheel boxes as the buckets dug in.

Bowater stepped out onto the side deck. The Yankee was one hundred yards away, but Bowater had timed it perfectly, he could see that. They would swing right out from under the ram’s bows, circle up and hit her as she flew by.

Come on, come on… The Page was starting to move,