Iron Thunder

by Avi

  “He calls himself Quinn, but he may be Parker, too.

  “Please, sir,” I said, “I’m sailing with the navy tomorrow morning. The Monitor.”

  “Are you, now?” the policeman said, looking me over with new interest. “Then we won’t be able to hold them. But hopefully it’ll give them a scare. And we can keep watching them. But if you’re sailing in the morning you’d better skedaddle!”

  With that, the policemen marched off with Mr. Quinn and his friends.

  Garrett and I watched them go. Feeling enormously relieved, I turned to my friend. I said, “I thought he had me for certain.”

  “Then they wouldn’t have been able to sail the Monitor, right?”

  Not able to do much else but grin, I said, “We’d better get going.”

  We went toward my home. When we got to the door, Garrett said, “Are you going to visit?”

  “Just a bit. Got to get back to the boat.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  I tore up the steps and into our rooms. Ma was in the kitchen, working. Her irons were heating on the stove.

  “Tom!” she cried, when I burst in.

  Standing there, suddenly not knowing what to say, I managed, “I … I wanted to say good-bye.”

  She stared at me. “Are you really leaving?” There had been tears when I told her I was joining the crew. But when I explained my reasons, she thought it was the right thing to do. Now her eyes were full of sadness.

  “In the morning,” I said. “If the weather holds.”

  She continued to stare at me without saying anything. Then she went and fetched Dora from the other room. I think my sister had been sleeping.

  “Going, Tom? Truly?” Dora said.

  I nodded.

  “To a battle?” Ma whispered.

  Full of brag, I said, “Hope so.”

  They stood there gazing at me as if I were something strange. Maybe it was my uniform. It was too big for me, with baggy trousers and overlong arms—all turned up.

  Then my ma gave me a hard hug and a kiss on my head. “God protect you and keep you safe,” she said. Dora did as much.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ll come home.”

  I guess we were all thinking of Pa.

  I didn’t know what else to say, but had to work to keep my eyes free of tears. “I have to go back,” I muttered, and turned away.

  Ma called after me. “Tom. Honor to your father’s name!”

  I ran bach and hugged her.

  I ran back and hugged her. “Promise!” I said, and tore down the steps.

  Garrett was waiting. The two of us ran back to the Yard. At the gates I stopped.

  “Thanks” was as much as I could say.

  Garrett punched my shoulder. “Hey! Make sure you win the war! For Brooklyn!”

  I grinned and said, “I will!”

  He headed off, and I went back to the Monitor.

  As I got into my hammock on the crowded sailors’deck, I hardly knew what I felt. Excitement, pride, fear, and, though I hadn’t gone yet, a lot of homesickness.

  Lying there, I could hear mechanics still working on the ship. They would do so right up to the hour of our departure.

  I remembered the captain’s words: No part of her is finished. And I thought, Same could be said of me!

  Yet we were both going—for sure.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I Say Farewell to Brooklyn

  MARCH SIXTH, FIVE A.M., the whistle sounded. Then the cry came: “All hands up hammocks!”

  It was slow going at first. But excitement grew when, the weather checked and it being clear and bright, we knew we were really going to cast off and head south.

  There was lots of uproar as everyone rushed through duties. I served officers their coffee and oatmeal. Everyone ate fast.

  I helped put up our six-foot travel funnel atop the main engine stack and the four-foot funnel on the air blower stacks. As I helped remove the turret awning, the boilers down below were blooming with full heads of steam. The engines were clanking. Our thirty-four-star United States flag hung from the stern while the navy jack—just stars—was at our bow. The commission ensign was atop the turret.

  This picture of the Monitor shows deflecting shields on the pilothouse.

  They were added after the battle.

  By nine o’clock we all were at our stations.

  We were ready.

  Captain Ericsson came aboard and sat with Captain Worden in the captain’s quarters. I had no idea what they said since I was helping to stow gunpowder sacks in the magazine. But as Captain Ericsson was leaving, he came through where I was, paused, and shook me by the hand.

  “So you go at last, Tom,” said he. “Godspeed.”

  “We’ll lick them, sir,” I said. “I know we will.”

  “Of course,” he said. If any man had more confidence in the Monitor than Captain Ericsson, he wasn’t of this world.

  I went with him as he returned to the deck. As he stepped off, the navy pilot, a Mr. Miller, whose job it was to guide us through the narrows of New York Harbor, came on.

  Miller joined Captain Worden in the pilot box, along with the helmsman. Orders were given to cast off.

  Thing was, right up to then, men were still working on the ship. I saw one man stuffing oakum in the crack beneath the uplifted turret. Oh, if I’d only understood what that would mean!

  About ten thirty in the morning we threw off our mooring ropes. Propeller churning, turret screwed down on its brass ring, we eased away from the Navy Yard docks and into the East River.

  We were going at last! Maybe the crew was calm, but I’d never been more excited.

  I guess everybody did know we were going, because when we pulled from the Yard, we saw crowds of people watching us from both banks of the river.

  When the Monitor slid down into the water that first time, the crowds had been cheering and shouting. But there we were, finally sailing off to save the Union, and I didn’t hear the smallest hoot of applause—just silence. I guess they didn’t think we could do much.

  We moved out of the East River, passed the Battery, and cruised into Lower New York Harbor, then through the Narrows. Four ships joined us: two armed paddle steamers, the Sachem and the Currituck, to give protection as we headed south; a cutter to bring back the harbor pilot; and the steam tug, the Seth Low, keeping close in case we got into trouble.

  When we got to Sandy Hook, off New Jersey, we paused. The cutter came, and the pilot took his leave.

  Captain Worden thanked him with a handshake. “Mr. Miller,” he said, “may I request that when you get back to the Yard in Brooklyn, you send a telegraph to the Department of the Navy. Tell them that we are well off and heading for Hampton Roads.”

  Mr. Miller said he would, and took his leave.

  Then the captain had us signal the Seth Low. Because the Monitor was going so slow—only five and a half knots—he asked the tug to take us in tow so we could go faster. A four-hundred-foot rope was attached, and we moved better. Soon we were in the ocean. All sight of land was gone.

  “Please, sir,” I said to the captain, “can I go atop the turret? I’ve never seen the ocean.”

  The captain’s eyes rested on me with interest. “I’ll go with you,” he said.

  Soon as I climbed out and looked around, I was stunned: the sea was so huge it drew my breath away. In all directions the rolling iron-colored waves made me think of our ship being held in molten iron! The Monitor seemed so tiny.

  Under tow, the Monitor moved steadily. The weather was clear, if cold; the sea easy. As I stood atop the turret, the sun went down, becoming huge before it vanished. A pale moon rose, shining light bright enough to see white sails of distant ships. Closer in were the green running lights of the Sachem, the Currituck, and the Seth Low. We weren’t so alone after all.

  The paddle-steamer tug, the Seth Low, which towed us from New York down to Virginia

  “Well, Tom,” the captain said. “What do you
think?”

  “Sir, I’m feeling pretty small.”

  “Tom,” he said, “on the sea, I assure you, everything is untried and unknown.”

  “Do you mean the Monitor, sir?” I asked.

  “The ship and us,” he said.

  By way of celebration, a fine dinner was provided for the officers’mess. The cook stayed sober. Though Captain Worden was not feeling well—a touch of his prison fever—he was jolly, telling tales of his midshipman days.

  At that moment I wanted nothing more than to spend my life at sea.

  During dinner that first evening, Chief Engineer Newton proclaimed he’d never experienced a vessel easier on the sea. No one disagreed. It was true: the motion of the ship was such that nothing on the table so much as shifted a hair.

  By eight thirty, the Monitor reached Barnegat Light. A little later, the first watch—including me—turned in. Within the crew’s berth, it felt like twilight, the only light coming from dim, rocking lamps. Our lights went out at ten p.m. It was warm and close below. I could hear the constant splash of waves washing over our deck. The steady clank-clank of our engines lulled me. Abe, the cat, meowed once.

  Captain Worden went atop the turret. The iron top being like a drum, I could hear him pacing restlessly above, his sound mixing with the ever-clanking engines. I felt as if I were in another world.

  We had no communication with anyone on shore. That’s why we did not know that two hours after we left Brooklyn, an urgent telegraph had come from Secretary Wells of the Department of the Navy.

  We were not—he said—not to go to Hampton Roads and fight the Merrimac. We were to go to Washington instead.

  The other thing we didn’t know: it was learned that a Rebel spy in New York had sent word south that we were on our way.

  For now, all we knew was that we were heading for Hampton Roads through the iron-gray Atlantic sea.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Disaster!

  I SLEPT. BY THREE in the morning we’d passed by New Jersey’s Atlantic City. Six in the morning—March seventh—when my watch was called, I lay in my hammock thinking, How easy this is! Then I got up, helped stow things, and went to get coffee for the officers.

  But it wasn’t long before a gale started blowing from the east. Didn’t just blow, either. It roared. In ten minutes, that storm had turned things from calm to fury. Pounding rain. Howling wind. High seas. The Monitor began to tip violently. It was as if we’d been ambushed. There was nothing to do about it, either; just wait it out with an awful feeling of helplessness.

  With the Monitor lurching, shaking, and trembling, lots of the crew got seasick. Even the captain, in his rooms, was ill. But the storm only got worse. Waves grew bigger, stronger. It was hard to walk. I couldn’t think of anything but the next heave of the ship—and my guts.

  It got so violent that water shot through the pilothouse viewing slots and knocked the helmsman over. I leaped to the wheel and tried to keep her steady. Couldn’t, really. The soaked helmsman dragged himself up and took over again.

  More and more water began to slosh underfoot. Shoes and boots got soaked. Looking up through the windows, all I could see was the green sea washing over the deck. I swear I saw a fish!

  Everybody was miserable. The ship stank of sickness and nervous sweat. The one place that stayed warm and dry was the engine room, but it hardly had any space.

  Our misery was nothing to what happened next. Remember how I’d seen a workman stuffing oakum into that half inch of space between the deck and turret just before we left?

  This is the way it was explained to me later: oakum—strands of twisted hemp mixed with tar—is what sailors use to fill cracks in boats to prevent leaks. See a crack in a ship—stuff it with oakum. It’s what sailors always do. They use it so much it stains their fingers black. That’s one of the reasons sailors got to be called “tars.”

  Now, the way Ericsson designed his turret, there was no crack. It was so heavy it just squeezed down, watertight. But just before we left, it had been screwed up—for fresh air—making a half-inch gap. When that fellow saw the gap, he stuffed oakum in it. That kept the gap open. When the storm came, seawater began pouring into the Monitor like some Niagara Falls.

  Yes, the Monitor had water pumps driven by our engines to deal with leaks. But there was so much water coming in, the pumps couldn’t get it out fast enough.

  Water in the ship started rising.

  We brought out hand pumps. Not much use.

  Water kept rising.

  Mr. Greene organized a bucket brigade. There were too few pails. Besides, passing sloshing pails from the bottom of the boat, up the ladders, through the turret—seventeen feet—barely worked.

  The water kept rising.

  Even worse happened. Remember how I said there were air funnels for our engines? The ones that stood over the engine just in back of the turret? The main smokestack standing six feet tall? Air-system funnels four feet high? Since we were mostly submerged, we had to have fresh air coming in for the coal-fired engines to work and for us to breathe. Those engines pushed out bad air, too.

  Water in the ship started rising.

  But Captain Worden had been right. The funnels weren’t high enough. High seas and breaking waves brought water pouring down the air shafts.

  What made it so bad was that the engines controlling the air fans were turned by leather belts. When the water flowed down the shafts, those belts got wet. They stretched. They went slack. The pumps slowed. Less fresh air was pulled in. With so little air, the engines—which needed air—stopped.

  The water got even higher.

  At the same time, with no fresh air, our lamp flames all but went out.

  Even that wasn’t the worst!

  The burning coal in the boilers sucked up most of the good air and gave off bad gases. That poisonous gas filled the engine area. Pretty soon the whole ship was filled with bad air. People got mixed up, hardly knowing where they were or what they were supposed to be doing.

  People started passing out.

  What happened? Panic! A scramble for the ladder to get to the turret top—just to breathe, just to live.

  I myself passed out cold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Desperate

  WHEN I WOKE, I was on my back, atop the turret, gasping for breath, lashed by hard rain, doused by waves. Someone—I never knew who—had gotten me to safety. I wasn’t the only one atop the turret. The whole crew was there! No one was at the wheel.

  There we lay, away from the bad gas, but at the maniac mauling of crashing waves and the tossing, turning Monitor.

  I managed to sit up and look about. No one was talking.

  Then Isaac Newton, our chief engineer, plunged below, trying to find a way to put out the boiler fires, start the pumps, and get rid of those gases. He passed out. Paymaster Keeler, struggling to breathe, somehow managed to haul him out to safety.

  Inside the Monitor, water was still rising.

  No one said it, but everyone knew: we were about to sink. Over the roaring wind and crashing waves, I heard Captain Worden and Mr. Greene talk of abandoning the ship. Should they cut the towrope?

  Mr. Greene dashed below and came back with a still-lit red lantern. He tried to signal the Seth Low. He shouted through the speaking horn, “Help!” But the weather was so wild that the Seth Low wasn’t able to see or hear us. She kept hauling us forward.

  I was wet, cold, and scared. Everybody was. There was fear on most faces—including officers. I thought of my ma and Dora. I thought of my pa, too, and wondered how he had died.

  When Mr. Newton recovered, he and Mr. Stimers tried to think what to do. First they figured out what had to be done to repair things. Then they sent men down to the engine room. Each was supposed to do just one task, then get back to open air before they passed out.

  I volunteered. They told me to go down to the officers’ berth and shut any open doors. I was given a soaking-wet cloth to cover my nose and mouth
.

  I got to my feet, pressed the cloth to my face, then went down the turret ladder one-handed. It was very dim. The water was up to my knees. I saw things floating about—a book, a cup, and a shoe.

  The Monitor during the storm.

  With one hand to a wall to steady myself, I sloshed forward. In the officers’ quarters I saw four doors swinging back and forth like dogs’tails. Staggering forward, I tried to shut one of them. The water held it back. Without thinking, I used my second hand to push. My nose cloth dropped away. As I pushed the door, I began to feel groggy. Summoning all my strength, I shoved. The door shut.

  Feeling worse and really wobbly, I started to shut a second door. I became dizzy and frightened. Suddenly frantic, I plunged back toward the ladder. Someone rushed past me, going the other direction.

  Eventually I reached the turret top—in the end I was hauled up by someone—and knelt down, gasping for air while a wave dashed over me, soaking me anew.

  But slowly, with each crew member doing one task at a time, things began to work. First one air pump, then a second, began to slowly work. With the air blowers doing what they were supposed to do, more men could work below. That meant more repairs. Repairs got the pump engines going better and better.

  At the same time, the storm began to ease off. Captain Worden was finally able to signal the Seth Low. He got her to tow us closer in toward shore, where there would be calmer seas.

  By four in the afternoon, things became easier. We were exhausted, wet, and cold, but the Monitor had survived. As best we could, we relaxed, ready for the next night.

  Then, about midnight, even as we tried to rest and clean up, the tiller ropes that controlled our steering slipped—they must have gotten wet like those leather engine belts. We couldn’t steer the ship.

  It was Mr. Stimers who fixed it.