He wiped the nib of his pen dry and took out his penknife. He preferred old-fashioned quill pens to the new steel ones. He carefully cut a new point on the quill while he ordered his thoughts. The attack up the Thames was surely aimed at London. He realized that his first priority was to look to the defenses of the capital. The household regiments had to be alerted. The Seventh Company of the Coldstream Guards was in its Chelsea barracks — they would be the first soldiers sent to the defense of Buckingham Palace. There were troops in Woolwich Arsenal; they must be sent for at once. Special trains had to be dispatched to Wiltshire for the troops encamped on Salisbury Plain there. The Prime Minister had to be awakened and informed. Thank goodness that it would be the PM’s task to inform Buckingham Palace — not his.
He drew over a fresh sheet of paper and began, clearly and slowly, to write out his commands. Only after they were dispatched would he have the Duke of Cambridge awakened. Time enough after the proper orders had been issued to suffer his choleric wrath.
Admiral Spencer knew exactly what must be done as soon as he read the telegram. Enemy fleet including warships now entering the Thames. They were there with only one possible target in mind. London. A strike at the heart of the empire would have a terrible effect if it were successful. It was obvious now that the various other landings and acts of harassment around the country had just been diversions. Ever since the attack on Plymouth every ship under his command had been manned and on the alert.
Now, at last, he knew where they must go. The enemy could get no farther upriver than London Bridge. Undoubtedly their troops would be disembarking there. The household regiments would see to them all right! There would be warships protecting them, he was certain of that. They would have to face the guns of his own ironclads. The enemy was stuck in a bottleneck — and he was going to drive in the cork. There would be no way out for them: they faced only destruction.
General Bagnell ordered the sergeant who had brought the telegram to throw open the curtains, then squinted at the sheet of paper in the morning light. He was still half-asleep and it took him some moments to understand the purport of the message.
An attack.
Even as reality struck home he heard, through the open window, the bugler sounding assembly. The officer of the day would have read the message and have had the intelligence to sound the alarm. The general’s servant, who had let the messenger in, was already bringing his uniform. The many parts that formed the military machine were moving into place. Whenever the attack came — they would be ready. He pulled on his trousers and was stepping into his boots when he thought of the late Lord Palmerston. It was through his intervention and enterprise that Tilbury Fort had been rearmed and expanded. As had the many other fortresses that defended England. It was that great man’s foresight that might save England yet again.
It was a clear, fine day. General Bagnell stood beneath the flag, on the topmost battlement of the Water Gate, looking downriver at the placid Thames. The curtain walls of Tilbury Fort, to the east and west bastions, were built on arched counter forts, solidly constructed of Portland stone. The stout walls and parapets beyond were made of brick and had been reinforced with dirt ramparts strong enough to resist an enemy siege barrage, while the large guns concealed in the forts returned their fire. And there were the other defenses; the gun lines outside the walls, safe behind their own parapets, stretching out to east and west of the Water Gate. Six-inch and twelve-pounder guns. All manned, all ready.
There was the sound of heavy guns firing downriver. It must have been the batteries at Coalhouse Fort. The thunder became intense — then died away. A few minutes later the enemy came into view. Coming around the bend in the Thames between East Tilbury and Cliffe. Strange-shaped armorclads like black beetles that crawled on the surface of the water. They had high, sloped sides with armor plate covering above that. But no gun ports that Bagnell could see.
“Prepare to open fire as soon as they are in range,” he ordered his aide, who passed the message on to the waiting gunners.
The four ships were closer now — but separating. One of them was moving away from the others, toward the gun positions at Gravesend, on the other side of the river. Good, the gunners there would make short work of her — while he could concentrate his fire on the remaining three.
The gunnery officer shouted “fire” and the Tilbury Fort guns roared out. The peaceful surface of the Thames turned suddenly into a maelstrom of waterspouts as near misses crashed into the river. And there were hits — many of them. Solid shot that hammered into the enemy’s iron armor.
And bounced away. Bagnell saw the blur of the ricocheting balls as they hummed into the air.
From this distance the ironclads seemed to be unharmed. And something strange was happening to them as they anchored, their chains running out fore and aft. They were facing broadside to the fort with their upper armor moving, apparently rising. No, not rising, opening up as the metal plates that covered the vessels were swung wide.
His cannon were firing again, but the raised plates deflected the cannonballs as well as did the armor. Then the first ship seemed to shiver and sink deeper into the water, throwing whitecapped waves out in all directions. A dark cloud of smoke welled up and he had a brief glimpse of a large projectile rising high into the air. Drawing a dark line in the sky that ended on the bastion beside the Water Gate. There was an immense explosion, and when the smoke cleared away, to his horror, the general saw that three guns had been dismounted and destroyed, the guncrews obliterated in that terrible explosion. A single shell had wrought this carnage.
And more of the large shells were falling, until there was an almost continuous roar of detonating high explosives. Unlike normal cannon that fired shells directly at a target, these mortars arched a giant missile high into the air, to plunge down almost vertically onto the target below. Battlements and walls that faced the enemy were no defense against this kind of attack.
But General Bagnell was not aware of this debacle. He, and all of his officers, had been blown to pieces by the third shell that had landed on the fort. He did not live to see either the destruction of his fort or the obliteration of the gun emplacements across the river by the fourth mortar ship. In thirty intense, destructive minutes, all of the defenses of the river at Tilbury had been destroyed. Even as the firing ceased, the first of the long line of ships nosed into sight around the bend in the river and moved, unharmed, toward London.
USS Atlas had been idling her engines to keep position in the river against the tidal current. When the mortar ships had ceased firing, her captain saw that the boat that had been shielded by the bulk of the Thunderer was now pulling away from her flank. Good. Admiral Farragut was transferring his flag to the Mississippi — and taking the Thames pilot with him. Everything was going as planned. As soon as the boat reached the ironclad, Captain Curtin ordered the engines slow ahead. Three blasts on her steam whistle signaled the rest of the waiting ships to follow her upstream. As they got under way, USS Mississippi surged forward, passing the slower cargo ship and taking her position in the lead. After the successful landings at Penzance, she had proceeded to the mouth of the Thames to join the attacking squadron. Now she raced ahead, guns loaded and ready, to seek out any other river defenses.
Beside Curtin on Atlas’s bridge, General Sherman looked at the smoking ruins of Tilbury Fort as they moved slowly by. “Utterly destroyed in less than half an hour,” he said. “I have never seen anything like it.”
Curtin nodded understandingly. “That is because you are a soldier and see war as something to be fought on land. But you must remember the success of General Grant’s mortar ships in the Mississippi at Vicksburg. No railway gun can match one of these sea-battery mortars for size — and no team of horses could ever move one. But put them into an iron ship and you can cross oceans with them. Just as they have done. But it took the genius of a nautical engineer to design and manufacture them as well.”
“I agree completely. Mr. Eri
csson is an asset to our country — and most certainly will lead us to success in this war. Are you pleased with the ship you command, Captain? This is also his design.”
“Not pleased — ecstatic, if you will permit me to use a word with many connotations. I believe that Atlas is the most powerful ship that I have ever commanded. With twin engines and twin screws, she is in a class by herself. And like her namesake, she cannot quite carry the world on her shoulders — but she comes mighty close to it.”
The Thames curved in great loops as they made their way upriver. As they came into the Dartford reach, there was the flash of guns from the Mississippi ahead of them.
“That will be the arsenal at Woolwich,” Sherman said. “They have some batteries facing the river there, but nothing much to speak of. Tilbury Fort is the major defense of the Thames, and no hostile fleet was ever expected to get by her armaments or reduce her by siege.”
“Perhaps that was true of yesterday’s wars,” Curtin said. “But not today’s.”
Mississippi was already at the next bend in the river when they passed Woolwich. A few battered and burning gun emplacements on the shore were all that remained of her defenses.
The Thames here made a great swing around the Isle of Dogs, and when the river straightened again all of the commercial heart of London opened out before them. There were ships tied up at the docks on both shores, merchantmen from every corner of the empire. Fresh fruit was being unloaded at Limehouse — whence it got its name. Behind Atlas the line of black ships followed steadily — an invasion force that was piercing straight into the heart of London.
More firing sounded ahead as the American ironclad began trading fire with the batteries of the Tower of London. But here, as in Woolwich, the defenses were not substantial at all. One of the towers of the famous castle crumbled under the ship’s fire.
One by one Mississippi’s guns grew silent, their work done, as the shore defenses were battered into destruction. Her funnels were riddled with holes, her boats shot away, but other than that, the ironclad appeared unharmed. Smoke rolled up from her funnels as she gained way, moving ponderously toward the riverbank, letting Atlas proceed up the main channel.
The river was clear ahead. Sherman recognized it from the many photographs and maps that he had pored over. On the right was the road along the Embankment, with fine buildings behind it. Beyond the buildings were the Gothic towers of the Houses of Parliament, the main tower with its immense clock face visible far downriver. The hands pointed to noon. Sherman stepped out onto the wing and could hear the deep tolling of Big Ben sounding the hour. It was the beginning of the afternoon of the British Empire.
Atlas’s engines were silent as she drifted toward the Embankment, slower and slower. There were hansom cabs and drays on the road there, private carriages and pedestrians. They were fleeing now as the hulking black ship grated against the granite river wall.
Even before she touched, sailors had leaped over the lessening gap, seized the cables passed down to them, and made them fast to the stone bollards of the waterfront. The sudden rattle of rifle fire sounded; two of the sailors twisted and dropped. Bullets clanged against the metal of the bridge, shooting out one of the windows. A line of red-coated soldiers had advanced from Parliament Square. The front rank stopped to fire — just as the bow battery of Atlas fired a canister shell. Holes opened suddenly in the advancing ranks of redcoats. Then a dark shadow passed over Atlas as Mississippi slid by, her guns opening fire as soon as they could bear.
Captain Curtin was out on the wing of the bridge, ignoring the fire from the shore, issuing commands. The moment his ship was securely moored, he ordered the upper ramp to be extended. The outer door swung slowly aside and there was a mighty clanking as the steam pistons pushed the tons of metal out and down. The information that had been passed on by the Russian agents proved to be correct. At this time of day, on this date, at this particular place, where the tidal river rose and fell by a dozen feet, the ramp was exactly two feet above the granite of the river wall. It clanked down into place; metal screeched as the relentless pistons pushed the ramp forward into position.
Inside Atlas, on the upper deck, the Gatling carriers were lined up in even rows that stretched from bow to stern. As soon as the great ship had entered the Thames, the tank crews began removing the shackles and turnbuckles that had secured them in place during the sea crossing. Kerosene lamps on the bulkheads provided barely enough light to accomplish this task.
Sergeant Corbett, driver of the lead machine, cursed as he barked his knuckles on the last recalcitrant shackle, pulled it free of the eye inset in the deck, and hurled it aside. As he did this, green electric lights in the ceiling came on, controlled from the ship’s bridge.
“Start your engines!” he bellowed. Drivers and gunners, down the length of the columns, jumped to the task. Private Hoobler, Corbett’s gunner, ran to the front of their machine and seized the starting handle. “Battery switch off!” he called out.
“Switched off!” Corbett shouted back.
Hoobler braced himself and turned the handle the required four times, grunting with the effort of pumping oil into the engine’s bearings and fuel into its cylinders; gunners were selected for their strength of arm as well as their accuracy of fire.
“Battery switch on,” he gasped.
“On!” the sergeant shouted back and thrust closed the small bayonet switch on the control panel. He had to raise his voice above the din of the many barking, hammering Carnot-cycle engines that were bursting into life. Hoobler gave a mighty swing of the handle, but instead of starting, the engine backfired. He cried out in pain as the starting handle kicked back in reverse and broke his arm.
At this same moment the bow door opened and the blaze of sunlight revealed him sitting on the deck nursing his wounded arm. Cursing even more vociferously, Sergeant Corbett jumped down and bent over the wounded man; the crooked angle of his lower arm was vivid evidence of what had happened.
The tank deck was now an inferno of hammering exhausts and clouds of reeking fumes. As the landing ramp went down, soldiers rushed forward from the machines to the rear, shouldered the sergeant and his wounded gunner aside, pushed their stalled vehicle aside as well. A moment later the second Gatling carrier rumbled past them and forward onto the ramp, leading the others into battle. Its spiked wheels dug into the wooden planks of the ramp as it gathered speed. Coughing in the reeking fumes, Corbett tore Hoobler’s jacket open and thrust the man’s broken arm into it for support; the soldier gagged with pain. Behind them the carriers rumbled forward to the attack while Corbett pulled open the access door to the deck and half dragged, half carried, the wounded soldier out into the sunshine. Once he had settled the man against a bulkhead, he turned and shouted.
“I need a gunner!”
His words were drowned out by the roar of a cannon firing close by. He ran toward it, dodged the discarded shell casing that rolled toward him. Called out again just as the gun’s breech was slammed shut and the gun bellowed again. One of the two ammunition carriers shouted back.
“I shot one of them Gatlings in training!”
The gun captain seized the firing lanyard. “I can spare one man!” he called back, then fired the cannon again. Sergeant Corbett headed back on the run, with the gunner right behind him. “Get aboard,” he ordered. Checked the bayonet switch and, with a single mighty heave, turned over the engine. It started at once, roared and rattled as he jumped into his seat. He looked over his shoulder at the line of vehicles rumbling by. The top deck was now clear of vehicles. Before the carriers from the lower deck could come off the ramp from below, Corbett sped up the engine, eased power to the wheels, and jerked forward. Into the daylight and down the landing ramp he drove into combat.
The bark of his engine joined the roar of the others, echoed out from the interior of the cavernous ship. A steady stream of tanks, the Gatling carriers, rolled out and down onto the riverbank. Followed by more — and yet still more machines. Wh
ile fore and aft the companionways had been dropped and a tide of blue uniforms flowed down from the ship and onto the English soil.
“Fire!” Corbett shouted as they clattered off the ramp onto the cobbles. His new gunner bent to his sights and cranked the handle of his gun. Bullets streamed out as he swept the gun along the line of red-uniformed soldiers.
The defending troops were mowed down like a field of grain by the rapid-firing Gatling guns. Some of the defenders fired back, but their bullets merely clanged off the armored front shields of the carriers.
On the bridge of the Atlas, high above, General Sherman looked down at the surging battle. The enemy line appeared to be broken, the defenders dead or fleeing the blue-clad troops now moving past the slower gun carriers.
“Cavalry!” someone shouted, and Sherman looked up to see the mounted soldiers pouring out of the streets that led to Whitehall and Horse Guards Parade. Brigadier Somerville had done an exemplary job in alerting the defenses. The American soldiers turned to face this new threat on their flank — but the Gatling carriers surged past them. Their exhausts roaring loudly, pumping out clouds of acrid smoke, they surged forward toward the cavalry. Now, with swords raised, helmets and cuirasses gleaming, the horsemen charged at the gallop.
And were destroyed. Just as the Light Brigade had been when they had charged the Russian lines in the Crimea. But here were rapid-firing guns, more deadly at close range than any cannon could ever be. Men and horses screamed and died, wiped out, sprawling unmoving across the road that now ran red with blood.
None survived. General Sherman went down from the ship’s bridge to join his staff waiting for him on the shore.
HMS Viperous, the pride of the British navy, led the attack. After taking aboard the pilot off Dungeness, she proceeded at a stately five knots into the main channel of the Thames. The other ironclads, in line behind her, followed in her course. Her guns were loaded and ready; she was prepared to take on any Yankee ironclad and give as good as she received. From his station on the bridge wing, the captain was the first to see the waiting enemy as they rounded the last bend in the river before Tilbury Fort.
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