Thieves Of Mercy

He felt the Page shudder again, heard a grinding and snapping sound behind. The Yankee was backing away, opening up the hole that they had punched, and then stoppered, with their bow. He could see the water rising faster around him.

Well, this is fucking ironic. After being worried sick about a boiler blowing up, he was going to drown.

Guess I wasn’t born to be hanged… the old man was wrong about somethin. Damn, Guthrie, you killed me after all. He pushed with his arms and tried to kick his feet but there was no chance of his moving the cast-iron crank.

The ship rolled and made a wave in the water filling the hold. It splashed into Taylor’s mouth. He could taste mud and oil and coal dust. Damn… reckon I don’t care to drown, either.

The light in the fidley dimmed, as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. Someone was standing in the doorway. Taylor heard them climb down the short ladder.

“Hieronymus Taylor, son of a whore, ain’t this a fix!” Mike Sullivan loomed over him. He was breathing hard, hunched over.

“Didn’t see ya topside, I was wonderin what become of ya.”

“Sullivan, ain’t you dead yet?”

“No, lucky fer you.” The Page took a hard roll, ten degrees, and a ton and a half of coal shifted a foot to larboard. “Not yet.”

He stepped past Taylor, a staggering, painful walk, bent over and grabbed the crank.

“Sullivan, go git someone! You can’t lift that damned thing!”

“Come on, pard. River rats gots to look after their own.” He fixed his fingers around the crank. He was panting, his eyes wide, and Taylor saw the great patch of blood soaked into his shirt.

“All right, Taylor, all right…” Sullivan clenched his teeth, straightened his back, pulled.

“You dumb bastard, yer gut-wounded, you can’t hardly lift your own fat ass!”

Sullivan’s eyes went wider and Taylor saw his jaw tremble. A shout built in Sullivan’s throat, a protracted sound that started like a moan and built to a crescendo scream as he lifted the dead weight of the crank. Taylor felt the weight coming off his legs. He kicked, almost free. “Go on, Sullivan, go on!”

Then Sullivan fell, dropped straight down as if he had been hit on the head. The crank came down on Taylor’s legs again and he shouted in agony, but Sullivan did not say anything. He did not move.

“Sullivan? Sullivan! Goddamn…” The son of a bitch is dead!

“Chief? Chief Taylor?” Now it was Bowater, standing in the door.

“Bowater, goddamn it, git down here!” The water was up to Taylor’s chest and he was having a hard time keeping his head above it.

Bowater scrambled down the ladder. “Sullivan? What the hell?”

“Fainted or dead, Cap’n, don’t know, don’t care!”

Bowater stepped across the deck, arms out to maintain his balance on the tilting deck plates. He rolled Sullivan out of the way, rolled him on his back. Eyes open, dead eyes staring out of his white face.

“You got to git someone to help lift that,” Taylor was shouting but Bowater had a slice bar in his hand. He shoved it under the crank and pulled up and Taylor felt the weight come off his legs once again.

Why didn’t Sullivan think of that? Taylor kicked his way out from under the iron shaft. “I’m out, Cap’n!” he shouted and with a crash Bowater let the crank go. The deck shuddered as the iron hit the deck plates and the Page took a hard roll to larboard.

Bowater offered Taylor a hand and Taylor took it and stood. Together they hobbled to the ladder.

“On the workbench!” Taylor shouted. “The wooden box, grab her!”

Bowater opened his mouth as if to protest, but instead scrambled the ten feet to the bench, grabbed the box, raced back. He grabbed Taylor by the shoulders, pushed him toward the ladder, hefted him halfway up.

“I can climb the damned ladder!” Taylor shouted, though a second before he had been wondering how he would do that very thing. He pulled himself up another rung with his arms and good leg, and from there was able to crawl out onto the boiler deck.

It was brilliant sunshine on the deck, and the planks were warm under his hands. He crawled along a few feet, dragging his splinted leg, which he was pretty certain was broken again. It hurt like hell. Every bit of him hurt like hell.

Bowater came up behind, helped Taylor to his feet. He draped Taylor’s arm over his shoulder and Taylor wanted to object, but he knew he would not be able to walk otherwise, so he did not argue.

Bowater tucked the box under his other arm. “What the hell is this, Chief?” They stepped off, walking aft. “Fiddle. I didn’t reckon you could afford to buy me another, with what they pay you.”

THIRTY-THREE

The battle continued down the river out of sight of Memphis, and it is reported that only two of our boats, the Bragg and Van Dorn , escaped. It is impossible now to report casualties, as we were hurried in our retirement from Memphis, and none but those from the Lovell escaped on the Tennessee side of the river. So soon as more information can be collected, I will report.

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

Wendy Atkins was riding the same emotional seesaw as the thousands of others who crowded the levee and the heights of Memphis and watched the fate of their city being decided on the river in front of them.

It was pure elation to see the River Defense Fleet steam out to the fight, nimble warriors against the overbearing Yankees gunboats, which were hanging on their anchors with bows upstream to facilitate a quick retreat. She had heard enough stories about Plum Point Bend to understand that this was not entirely folly, the wooden boats going up against the ironclads.

The gunnery had started slowly, but soon it was murderous, and the town was in the line of fire. Shells screamed past overhead, and Wendy recalled with horror the time she had clandestinely sailed into battle with Samuel Bowater, and the Union shelling of Sewell’s Point. It was frightening. The ironclads seemed omnipotent, and she felt her faith in the Confederate boats’ ability to stand up to them wavering.

But still the Confederates advanced, boldly advanced right into the storm of shot.

“There, that one.” Shirley, standing beside her on the levee, pointed with a straight arm. “That’s the General Joseph Page. Good likelihood Bowater’s on her.”

Wendy stared at the side-wheeler, hardly distinguishable from the other boats in the River Defense Fleet. She wondered about the captain, this fellow with whom Samuel had become such close friends. She was curious to meet him. She knew already that he must be a fellow of good taste, learned, well read, and erudite.

Four ships of the River Defense Fleet were pressing the attack, but the General Page was not one, for which Wendy was grateful. The ironclads fired and the Confederates fired back and no one moved. For some minutes, nothing seemed to happen. Stalemate. And then from out of the thunder and the smoke surrounding the ironclads came a single Yankee ship, unarmored, and everything began to happen at once.

Like metal filings to a lodestone, the Confederate boats were drawn to the Yankee ship. Then another Yankee came out of the smoke. The Yankees and the Rebels circled, slammed into one another, pandemonium on the water. Wendy saw one of the Confederate ships sink, slip away under the water as if the hand of God had pushed it under.

She felt the mood change on the levee, and a massive groan went up as the Confederate ship disappeared, a sense of despair that touched them all as if they were of one mind. She moved her attention to the General Page, still not in the fight. She began to pray.

Boats were crawling for the shore, including the first Yankee ram, but the second was unhurt, and making for the General Page.

There was another boat between the Yankee and the Page, which Shirley said was the General Bragg, but the Yankee brushed her aside and struck Bowater’s ship bow-