by Day Taylor
Tears streamed down her face, but she didn't care. "Never!" she sobbed, and ran pell-mell toward her cabin.
She remained in her cabin for the rest of the trip, venturing out only for meals or in the company of Beau or Claudine. Though he tried at first, Adam couldn't get a moment alone with her. After two days of trying, he decided things were best left as they were. He had recovered from his ill humor; he would forget Dulcie soon enough. Hadn't he always known that virginal girls were the most romantic and least satisfying of all women?
Once Dulcie was delivered safely to her father, he would be free of her, free to seek his pleasure with more accommodating partners.
The last day of the voyage seemed endless. Beau couldn't head the Ullah toward port until dark. A lookout was constantly posted, searching the horizon for ships. Adam didn't worry overmuch about Mr. Lincoln's blockade. At last report the Atlantic Squadron could boast only twenty-two ships to guard the entire coast from Fort Monroe to Key West.
What did worry him was overconfidence. Only carelessness would cause the UUah to be fired upon. It was difficult to keep oneself aware that their worst danger lay in the apparent lack of danger. Neither he nor Beau had any experience in running at night without lights, piloting the river channels with nothing to guide them but the water soundings taken in the dark.
The UllaKs engines kept a steady thrum, the noise
absorbed by the lapping roar of the waves beating against the shore. He had been told that one ship could pass within fifty feet of another in the dead of a moonless night without being seen or heard. He believed it, but he didn't want its truth tested this trip.
Adam acted as pilot. None knew the peculiarities of Southern waters better. With countless adjustments, the Ullah churned toward the black shore, slipping without a scrape into the channel of the Savannah River.
Late as it was, eager faces on the pier gazed up at the ship in hopeful anticipation of a cargo of munitions from England. Told the Ullah carried only passengers, the welcoming committee vanished back to their cots to await the next arrival.
At first light Dulcie and Claudine stood on deck ready to meet Jem. Adam sauntered up to Dulcie's side, offering her his arm. She hesitated, her face stubborn and defiant, then she smiled the closed, polite smile reserved for stuffy dinner partners. She placed her gloved hand on his arm, allowing him to escort her down the gangplank.
"Do you see your father?" he asked as they stepped onto the pier. The wharf area was crowded with drays, carriages, and dock workers. "If we haven't located him within a few minutes, I'll hire a carriage. He may not know when we were due to arrive."
"Don't you bother to keep schedules on the Ullah?" she asked bitingly.
He grinned, appreciating the spirit she showed. He had half-expected her to act the helpless, well-bred young lady. But she had her own sense of pride and honor. "We keep schedules. Miss Moran," he said with measured formality. "But ships like the Ullah run to a schedule of the moon and tides, not the appointment calendar of gentlemen farmers."
"Come, now, Captain Tremain. Are you tryin' to impress me with the danger of our voyage? If so, you needn't bother. We were in no danger whatever. Not once did I see another ship anywhere near to us."
"That, Miss Moran, is the desired object of running at night. Had we seen another ship, most likely it would have been a Federal cruiser eager to blow a sizable hole in th6 Ullah's hull."
"Twaddle."
He laughed. She glanced up at him, then scowled, looking with renewed purpose for her father.
Jem Moran was not certain how to greet his errant daughter, particularly now as he realized she was not only beautiful as ever but she was grown. She was every inch a woman. Seeing her beside the tall, dark-haired captain shook Jem more than he liked.
Dulcie released her hold on Adam's arm and ran to him. "Daddy! Oh, Daddy, I'm so glad to be home!"
Jem held her close, cherishing one of the last moments that she'd ever recognize her father as the man in her life.
After he had kissed her cheeks and wiped away her happy homecoming tears, he greeted a teary Claudine. He thrust out his hand for Adam to shake. "You must come to Mossrose, Captain. We haven't seen you for a long time. Let Mrs. Moran and me thank you properly. Was it an easy voyage?"
"Oh, Daddy, we had to . . . run at night without lights. There were Federal cruisers that might have shot holes through us if they'd seen us. Captain Tremain guided us through all the dangers."
Adam looked at her, one eyebrow raised, a smile playing at the corners of his attractive mouth. "It was an uneventful trip, sir."
"You're just being modest, Captain! You told me before—"
"As you suggested, Miss Moran, I was merely trying to impress you." He grinned lazily.
"Well, you're safe now, and home. That's all that matters," Jem said, interrupting the silent communication that flashed between Adam's and Dulcie's eyes. "How lon^ will you be in port, Captain Tremain?"
"A day perhaps two. We'll take on whatever cargo we can and go out as quickly as possible. The dictates of the moon, sir."
"Then you must be our guest while you're here."
"I'd enjoy that," said Adam regretfully, "but I'm anxious to be on my way. The Ullah is too slow to make an effective blockade runner. My ships are being delivered to Nassau any day. Soon as I leave Savannah, I have a stopover at New Orleans, then I go to Nassau. My return trip will be my first true nm with war supplies. Perhaps then?"
His eyes never left Jem as he. spoke. Then, too soon, they had made their good-byes and Jem's hand was at her elbow, guiding her to the carriage. Dulcie looked back.
"May the road rise with ya, Adam," Jem shouted.
Dulcie waved at him. She wanted to see him again with all her heart, but he'd never have consented to visit Moss-rose had she been the one to invite him. The knowledge left her bewildered and unsure. She had always been victorious in her romantic conquests. Now, when it mattered more than it ever had, cotton and a war had defeated her.
Chapter Twelve
As Adam boarded the XJllah, he was acutely aware of the subtle difference in this trip. When it was over, not only would the Ullah be signed on as a Confederate privateer, but Adam would have officially begun a career as a wartime blockade runner.
It was a dangerous occupation, for the blockade runners used unarmed ships. A hardy, adventurous breed, their most effective and immediate bond was the network of information they shared. In any Southern port, as well as Nassau, Bermuda, Mexico, or Cuba the scuttlebutt was gathered and remembered, the information used to evade prowling Federal gunboats.
Only ten Federal ships patrolled the Gulf of Mexico, guarding Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston. But they were more dangerous than the larger Atlantic fleet, for there were not the one hundred eighty-nine openings for commerce in the Gulf that there were on the Atlantic Coast.
Adam's greatest security rested in the fact that the Federals were as inexperienced at blockading as he was at running through. They worked in the same pitch-blackness, and on a moonless horizon one ship looked much the same as another. Already tales were told with great hilarity of cruisers who had been tricked into firing upon each other.
In the last moments before they weighed anchor, Adam stood on the bridge with Beau, every muscle tensed, as he waited for time and tide to be right. Except for the comforting thrum of the engines, there was no sound aboard.
. There were only the thoughts of what might happen. The Ullah was loaded to her upper decks with Jem Moran's cotton. Everything Adam and Beau owned would be won or lost on this trip.
Adam gave the last order he could shout aloud. "Weigh anchor!"
They slipped through the first tier of the blockade without unusual incident. Federal lookouts in small rowing barges, moving unseen on the waters, waited to alert the cruisers by rocket flare of the appearance of a blockade-running ship. Adam had vowed he'd make no effort to avoid hitting the small craft should one enter his path; but when the time came, he touched the
helm, moving it the two strokes required to avoid the boat. A flare shot up immediately, bursting nearer to one of the cruisers than to the Ullah. Guns peppered the night with grape and canister. A Parrott gun boomed so near, it seemed to be aboard the Ullah with them. Adam held the ship near the coast, then arced her course straight out to sea.
They had successfully passed the first barrier, but dawn brought renewed danger. There was no release from constant vigil. The Ullah steamed steadily at ten knots, sitting low in the water because of her heavy load of cotton. It was a crowded sea and dangerous waters. Several times the lookout spotted a ship. Each time tensed muscles relaxed when it turned out to be a merchant vessel and not a cruiser.
By noon the sky was overcast, a bluish gray haze lowering to the water's surface every hour. Throughout the early part of the day Adam and Beau were alert, expecting to be attacked momentarily. By late afternoon, when they had not sighted the cruising blockaders and the weather grew steadily worse, their nerves were raw with tension.
"I can smell the son of a bitch. Beau. Where the hell is he?" Adam squinted at the vast expanse of moving gray haze. He strode to starboard, peering at what seemed to be a deserted ocean.
"See anythin'?" Beau asked, searching too.
"Nothin' . . ." Then: "Sweet Jesus! There she is," as the cruiser emerged from the fog, five miles astern of the Ullah. "Full steam ahead!"
Beau raced below, bellowing orders to his firemen to build a full head of steam in both Ullah's boilers. His crew was about to be tested for the first time. He checked
the bunkers, trying to guess how much scarce and precious anthracite coal it would take to outrun and outmaneuver the cruiser.
As Beau's crew built pressure in the boilers, the heat grew intense under Adam's feet on deck. The vibration made everything creep that wasn't secured. His men made bales of cotton fast, shifted others aft. With the ship vibrating so hard that Adam expected it to lift from the water, they were making no better than thirteen knots. The cruiser gained steadily on them, rapidly drawing near enough to fire upon the Ullah. The cruiser, having no bow gun, began to yaw, sending hundred-pound shot from the long-range Parrott gun over the Ullah. Then their aim improved. Part of the passenger deck shattered, spraying decorative gingerbread and splintered lumber onto the cotton bales. Losing speed because of the yawing, the cruiser dropped back, th& jshots falling short.
Adam knew as well as the Federal captain that the Ullah couldn't outrun the cruiser. His only remaining course was to pit his knowledge of the waters against the superior speed of his pursuer. As soon as he saw the cruiser enter the Gulf Stream, he angled toward its outer reaches, slipping out of its two- to three-mile current. If the cruiser remained in the stream going against the powerful current, Adam could make up some of the speed the Ullah didn't possess of herself.
Beau, satisfied with the efforts belowdecks, ordered the cotton bales on the foredeck shoved into the sea, lightening the load. The white bundles hobbled along in the Ullah's wake. Lightened and giving everything she had, the Ullah was barely reaching fourteen knots. Her decks shuddered. The flooring was almost too hot to bear standing on. From her stacks billowed smoke and cinders blown from the overheated furnace. But was giving Adam what he needed.
The cruiser, beating against the Gulf Stream and the time she lost by yawing, had dropped about seven miles astern. With dark approaching and the Florida Straits near, Adam began to believe they'd make it. He glanced at the sky.
There was a loud but strangely muffled crumpp! A ragged red hole bloomed in the deck sheathing. Flames burst around them in one great fiery gasp. Pieces of splintered planks, cinders, and large murderous metal
shards flew up to land on the deck. As though by a giant hand, Adam was slammed against the helm, his breath knocked out sickeningly. Beau and the crewmen were flung across the deck amid the debris.
Belowdecks, men screamed.
Adam stumbled to his feet, grasping the helm, testing it gently to see if the UUah still responded. Satisfied, he ordered the mate to take the helm. He catapulted down the ladder to assess the damage to ship and crewmen.
He ordered injured men hauled to the captain's dining hall while those still whole were to keep the remaining boiler full of steam. Beau and the crew worked feverishly to put out the fire that would act like a beacon, spotlighting them as darkness fell. Men worked with scalded skin, uncomplaining and determined as Adam again asked for all the power UUah had left.
With the number two boiler blown, the Ullah's speed was reduced to a maximum of eight knots. He set a course straight for New Orleans, then veered sharply, reversing the engines, coming to a stop in the dubious protection of a fogbank just beyond the western Florida coast. The UUah blew steam beneath the surface, causing no dark billowing clouds to give them away.
Adam, Beau, and the crew stood in rigid silence on the ruined deck and bridges, each man praying that the cruiser would pass them by. Adam held his breath as it neared. Its guns roared and spit fire, certain that somewhere before them lay the crippled, easy prey of the UUah. The Federal ship passed, a ghost more felt than seen, shooting its Parr rott guns wildly at the night air.
At New Orleans the Federal ship Brooklyn guarded the Pass a rOutre. Thirty-five miles away the Powhatan guarded the Southern Pass. In between were the unguarded South and Northeast passes, both open to small vessels, both possible for ships of shallow draft, but not the UUah. Adam thought longingly of the sleek blockade runners waiting for him in Nassau.
He headed for the Pass a I'Outre, both he and Beau braced for the guns to begin roaring once more. Rain came down in a steady drizzle, threatening a coming storm. Thunder rumbled, nearer with each drumming roll. Only the thick cloud covering near the shore saved the UUah from being dangerously illuminated by the distant flashes of lightning out at sea. Unable to risk the storm coming
nearer, Adam again called for all the speed the ship could muster. Low on coal, Beau dismantled the wood fittings from passenger cabins to burn. He broke into one of Jem's cotton bales, saturating it in kerosene and adding that to the firebox.
As they neared the Pass h. I'Outre the Brooklyn's rockets shot up into the air, warning the Powhatan a blockade runner had been spotted. Adam tensed at the helm. There was little evasive running the Ullah could do now. He watched awestruck as the Brooklyn sailed with a full head of steam away from her post, leaving the Pass k I'Outre clear.
"God bless the poor bastard she's chasing." Adam laughed in relief. He steamed through the pass into a two-mile square of water called the Head of Passes. From this point they were safe. Exhausted, he turned the helm over to a crewman, clasped Beau's arm, and steered him to the captain's cabin, where they broke open a bottle of French brandy Adam had brought back from Europe and drank until both were too sleepy to lift the glasses to their lips.
By morning the Ullah had limped the remaining ninety-five miles to New Orleans proper. They docked at Poydras Street. The injured were transported to the hospital Repairs on the ship were begun.
The New Orleans docks rang with the melodious yell songs of the dock workers as they loaded and unloaded cargo:
Bend yo' back, tote it to de lift. White boss hollers if you ain't swift.
Beau and Adam hired a carriage, a room at the hotel, and a hot bath. After that their first stop was Brennan's Restaurant on Royal Street. For the first time in more than a year they ate a New Orleans meal: pompano toulouse, roasted quail in a potato nest, grillades in Creole sauce.
Sighing contentedly, they left Brennan's, their minds back to business. The courthouse was open daily until 6:00 P.M. to accommodate any man wishing to sign on as a privateer with the Confederacy. Adam signed the open book of subscription, designating the Ullah as a privateering ship manned by fewer than one hundred fifty men. He placed before the registrar the papers proving her a cleared vessel, then paid the five-thousand-dollar bond.
Others waited their turn, talking of ships already com-
missioned and plying the
ir trade: the Triton, a schooner; the Phenix, a steamship of 1,644 tons and 243 men to man her; and a privateering submarine, the Pioneer. There was no limit to the imagination, daring, or hopes of the men who signed the subscription books.
Adam placed the commission papers in his pocket. Beside him Beau's eyes sparkled, filled with an eager love of this city. For Beau New Orleans was home. In no place on earth did he feel so alive or so much himself as he did here.
With some dismay he discovered that many gaming houses were closing because of the war. The gamblers had formed their own regiment, pledged to protect the city. "We're goin' on the town tonight, Adam. Look there— they've scribbled *Aux Armes, Citoyens!' on the wall. Before we know it. New Orleans'U be as closed down and stodgy as—"
Adam laughed deeply. "New Orleans could never be stodgy. Close down the city, and the bordellos'!! open business in the bayous."
"We're still goin' on the town. We've done our business, and I'm not takin' no for an answer. I haven't seen a good comique at the opera house for over a year."
"Wrong night for that." Adam chewed absently on the tip of an unlit cheroot. "Just vaudeville for the hoi polloi.'*
"I feel like the hoi polloi," Beau said, undaunted. "We'll see my mother, meet my future brother-in-law—jeez, Adam, can you fathom that? Barbara's gonna be married, my little sister. That damn Morgan Longworth better be the best damn husband a man ever was."
"With that clan of yours looking out for Barbara, the poor bastard's probably afraid to piss for fear he does it wrong."
Beau laughed gaily, feeling considerably kinder toward Morgan.
The front door spewed an assortment of demonstrative LeClercs, kissing, hugging and crying over Beau and Adam. Mrs. LeClerc insisted they stay for supper.
Morgan Longworth III was a handsome man of nineteen. He stood straight and proud beside Barbara in a spanking new gray captain's uniform. But his best credential was that he loved Barbara with a winsome, tender adoration.
Barbara, basking in Morgan's love, turned shy, enraptured brown eyes to her brother. "You won't miss our weddin', will you. Beau?"
