Iron Ships, Iron Men

by Christopher Nicole

  Jerry closed the door again, wiped a bead of perspiration from his brow. Now he was more reluctant than ever to continue his search. He had no idea what he would find. He stood at the balustrade and looked down into the hall, where Wilbur Grahame waited, watching him. ‘They’re sick,’ Wilbur explained. ‘They’re all sick.’

  Jerry reached the last door on the gallery, hesitated, and then threw it open. Inside the room a woman sat on the bed, and a little boy was standing by the window. But both were facing the door; they had anticipated his entry.

  Marguerite stood up. She wore an undressing robe, and her hair was loose. Save for the expression of faint defiance on her face, she was the girl to whom he had said goodbye four very long years before. That brought a sigh of relief. But in that time ... he gazed at the little boy.

  ‘Joey,’ Marguerite said. ‘This is Daddy. You’ll remember I have spoken to you of him.’

  Joseph McGann blinked at his father, and then took some uncertain steps towards him. ‘Daddy,’ he said. It was only half a question.

  Jerry swept him from the floor and held him close.

  ‘Great man,’ Joey commented. ‘Mama says.’

  Jerry kissed him on the forehead, and looked past him at Marguerite.

  Who still seemed to be drawing breath. ‘Rod is dead,’ Jerry said. He did not know any other way to say it.

  Marguerite sat down again. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘When the firing stopped, and he did not come, I knew he was dead.’

  Jerry went towards her, still holding the little boy. ‘Did you love him very much?’

  ‘I loved him,’ she said.

  He sat beside her on the bed, placed the boy between them, put his arm round her shoulders. Once he had wanted to hate her, with every fibre of his being. But once was also a very long time ago. ‘And now?’

  Her shoulders rose and fell. ‘I am a prisoner of war, Mr McGann.’

  ‘I have spoken with Admiral Buchanan. Did you really spy for the North?’

  ‘No,’ she said, and raised her head to look into his eyes. ‘No. I betrayed the North. And you. And then ...’ her shoulders sagged. ‘Claudine. So she in turn bore false witness against me. It was nothing more than I deserved.’ She turned away. ‘The boy is yours. I have never pretended otherwise.’ Her head turned again, sharply. ‘That too is a lie. I nevertold him otherwise. That I swear. But I supposed it was all over between us.’ She checked, still staring at him, but as he did not speak or lower his gaze, she went on in a rush. ‘I could not ... your family were very kind, but they were my enemies, in the circumstances. I could not ... God forgive me.’ For the first time her voice broke. ‘I could not remain with them.’

  ‘And you loved Rod, and not me,’ he said.

  ‘I loved Rod,’ she acknowledged, her shoulders drooping.

  Jerry got up, walked to the window, and looked out at the street. Then he turned, to look back at her. She remained the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And also the only woman he had ever loved. ‘Rod is dead,’ he said again.

  Her shoulders might have twisted. Little Joey picked up her hand; he had obviously seen his mother weep before.

  ‘Does that mean anything?’ Jerry asked.

  Marguerite raised her head. ‘It means, if you wish to know, Mr McGann, that I have lost everything.’

  ‘And the South is defeated,’ he went on. ‘This morning’s victory sounded the final death knell of the Confederacy. Oh, your General Lee may wriggle and fight and prolong the misery with all the genius he commands, but now there is simply no way he can obtain guns and munitions, even food. The sea was his life line, and that line has now been cut, forever.’

  ‘You are fortunate,’ she said. ‘To be the victor, Mr McGann.’ She stood up. ‘I cannot stop you reclaiming your son. Nor would I wish to. I know I have committed a most terrible crime.’ Her chin rose. ‘I will not admit to having sinned, either for my people, or for the man I loved, because it is not possible to sin, for those you love. I am your prisoner, I know, and must submit to your power. I would ask you only to forgive the boy, as he is totally innocent of any crime.’

  Jerry nodded. ‘As are you,’ he said.

  She frowned at him.

  ‘Save for crimes of passion, and loyalty, and patriotism. We are all guilty of those, whether we are caught out, or not. I do not think Rod was guilty of any greater crime than that, save that his was the most sublime kind of loyalty and patriotism, for where he owed nothing, he swore allegiance, and gave his life in an alien cause.’

  Still she stared at him, as he crossed the floor towards her, and held out his hand. ‘I have come to take you home, Mrs McGann,’ he said. ‘If you would care to accompany me.’

  *

  It was eight months after the Battle of Mobile Bay, on 9 April, 1865, that General Lee finally laid down his arms at Appomattox Court House, and the saga of the Confederate States of America came to an end. He had fought, as Jerry McGann had prophesied, with all the genius at his command, against overwhelming and steadily increasing forces, and, with the last Confederate ships taken or sunk, with steadily decreasing resources of his own.

  The war in fact ended with much less bitterness than had been feared, at least on the part of the victors. The South had fought too long and too gallantly not to have earned the respect of its conqueror. But yet a civilisation, however wasteful, however abhorrent, had been destroyed. The slaves were freed, and aware of it, even if it was going to take them another hundred years to approach equality with their erstwhile owners. The great plantations were no more. Jerry, again on duty in the Gulf of Mexico during the summer following Lee’s surrender, landed at New Orleans and paid a last visit to Martine’s Plantation, having now to fight his way through the once magnificent garden with a machete, while the bayous which surrounded the once lushly green acres of sugar cane seemed to have grown, as if intent on reclaiming this land for their own. It was not an experience he wished to repeat.

  But duty called him to Mobile, where the house was shuttered and empty. Inquiries brought the information that Mrs Grahame, and her widowed daughter, had been removed to an institution for the insane, the day after Wilbur Grahame, the last of his money gone, had shot himself. Jerry walked down to the docks, beginning to come to life again, and looked out at the still waters of Mobile Bay, seeing not only them, but the fast running Mississippi, and the slow swell of the English Channel. For this, old friend, he thought, you fought on all these waters, and died. For this!

  Then he rejoined his ship, which had been recalled to Norfolk to be paid off. From there he took a train to New York, for the first real furlough he would enjoy in six years. Captain Stephen was there now, about to retire from the Navy he had graced so well. And Grandmother Felicity, a sprightly eighty-two, and Mother Caroline, and Ambrose and his wife and children. And big jolly Meg. And the dogs, all eager to greet him.

  He had come home with some trepidation, not only on account of the news he brought, but because, although he had been granted compassionate leave to take his wife and son home, it had been a brief visit, and then he had had to leave them, with the people from whom they had fled, three years before. In the event, he need not have worried. Marguerite’s flight might never have been, as far as the McGanns were concerned; they could understand her feelings. And she herself?

  Joey was now an active five year old, and could already sit a horse. His mother was more beautiful than ever. Jerry took her for a walk down by the stream on his first evening home, her hand lying in his, and there he told her what had happened in Mobile. She gazed across the woods, where the whippoorwills were just starting to call as the dusk settled over Long Island Sound. ‘I think I knew that was inevitable, from the moment shots were fired at Fort Sumter,’ she said. ‘I think they knew it, too.’ She glanced at him. ‘Had you left me there, no doubt I also would be in an institution by now.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ Jerry said. ‘No other member of your family possessed your strength. But I cannot rid my
mind of the horror, of such a total waste of humanity.’

  ‘Isn’t war always a waste?’ she asked, and half smiled. ‘But not to those who think they have too much to lose, by not fighting. If there were to be another war tomorrow, involving these United States of America, would you not go off to fight without hesitation?’

  ‘It would be my duty to do so.’

  ‘But also your desire.’

  He hesitated. ‘I suppose you could say that man is a fighting animal.’

  ‘And is at his best when he fights. Well, then, Mr McGann, as our time may be so limited, had we not best make the most of it?’

  He looked into her eyes. He had not touched more than her hand since reclaiming her; there had indeed been little time to do otherwise, until now. ‘I am not seeking surrender,’ he told her.

  ‘I loved,’ she said. ‘Two men. I lost one, to war, and foolishly thought I could perhaps save the other. So I lost them both. Now one has come back to me. I would like to give that man everything he has so generously given to me, my self-respect, my forgiveness, my very self. If that is surrender, Mr McGann, then I am surrendering. But I would call it love.’ Together they walked back across the sloping meadow to the house, where the lights were already burning brightly.

  If you enjoyed the In High Winds omnibus check out Endeavour Press’s other books here: Endeavour Press - the UK’s leading independent publisher of digital books.

  For weekly updates on our free and discounted eBooks sign up to our newsletter.

  Follow us on Twitter and Goodreads.