“Deck there, land in sight way far off to the east, where the sun is risin’, sir. Smoke column from the land, too, sir. Two points off the starboard bow. Big black smoke. There’s another one, sir. Just startin’. Down further to the south.”
Rork climbed up the starboard ratlines to the crosstrees, then ascended the upper shrouds to the head of the topmast. Once there he took the glass from the sailor and trained it on the two separate columns of smoke, the first of which was now dissipating.
“Captain, the first is goin’ out, an’ the second is goin’ strong. Oh Mary an’ Joseph, there’s another o’ the little devils further south now, sir. The Rebs have lit off their warnin’ fires.”
Wake yelled up to his bosun, keeping his voice as calm as he could. “Bosun, would you kindly estimate the distance to shore?”
As he spoke, Wake could hear the lookouts on the other ships around them report the smoke columns and the officers below opine on their meaning. Everyone was thinking the same thoughts. Rork’s booming voice came down from above. “Captain! I would say it’s all of five miles. Maybe six.”
“Very well, Rork. You may come down.”
Wake felt the familiar gnawing in his gut again. Men were about to die and he couldn’t stop it. He looked around him at the men descending into St. James’s boat, led by old McDougall who would be their petty officer on this landing party.
The men were weighted down with the equipment of battle, making their descent more difficult: muskets and pistols with the accompanying cartridges and bullets in their pouches, cutlasses and axes, provision bags and water butts and canvas for tents. A box of medicines was carefully handed down into the uplifted hands of silent men who had no illusions about what was to come. The schooners around the St. James had their own boats loading men and equipment in corresponding scenes. All were strangely quiet. There was no yelling of the sailors, no loud thuds or creaks of boxes or tackle, just the muted efforts of a hundred men getting ready for the inevitable.
The boats from the steamers farther offshore were approaching under oars. They were ready after a hard row to accept a tow from the tug David, which was even now readying lines for towing two separate lines of four long boats each, to the river somewhere along the shore to the east. David took several boats in tow, making a wide circle back to the anchored schooners where the other boats secured themselves to the towline astern of those already on it.
Wake stood at the main shrouds surveying the scene around him as Rork came up with his hand extended.
“Captain, good luck. We’ll be here a waitin’ for you an’ the other Saints to come home. As much as some o’ them may complain about the navy life, methinks they’ll fancy it kindly, after some time ashore with those doggo soldiers!”
The statement his father made to him when he decided to join the navy a year and a half earlier came to Wake on hearing Rork’s comment. Wake’s father, an old sea captain, had gently told his son with misty eyes to go into the navy and not wait to be conscripted into the army. “Soldiers live and die in the mud. At least a sailor lives and dies clean, son.” Wake sighed, shook Rork’s hand and locked his eyes with the bosun’s.
“Well, I guess there’s nothing for it but to go now, Rork.”
The bosun smiled down at his friend who had started climbing down the ship’s side.
“Aye, sir, show them elegant New York soldiers how real men do their duty, then come on home, Captain.”
Wake smiled up at Rork from the sternsheets of the boat as she shoved off, then he faced the bow and whatever was in front of them.
10
The Elephant’s Breath
The David had the boats in tow at four or five knots, according to Wake’s best estimate. He could see Erne scowling as he stood on the stern of the tug, arms akimbo, checking on the lines of boats being dragged to the distant shore. It was obvious he was angry.
Wake wiped away the cool spray that occasionally flew back into his face and thought about the speed that was making the spray. Fortunately the waves were small, making only the occasional splash but not big enough to slosh solid water aboard. It was an odd feeling, moving effortlessly through the water. Wake had never been towed in a ship’s boat by a steamer like this before. He was very appreciative they didn’t have to row or sail the five or six miles to the landing place. It would have been exhausting in the heat and humidity.
Trying to determine their position, Wake had a seaman swing the small lead stowed in the boat. At first it was almost two fathoms, but soon it became one, with a rocky bottom. That meant they were nearing the first of the reefs that paralleled the coast and that they should be two miles offshore. But that was impossible, as he could see with his own eye, and that meant the charts were wrong. If the charts were wrong this far out, the depths inshore might be completely different from those expected also. Worry about the depths then logically progressed to thoughts of the tides.
With the incoming flood tide believed by West and Wherley to crest at around eight o’clock in the morning, the operation had little time to get the naval landing party ashore, then go back out the seven miles or so to the steamers to start to bring in the soldiers. Originally, based on the charts they had and the estimation of the tides, the plan had been to get as many of the soldiers as possible ashore on the first high tide of the day. It was hoped they could land four
