CSS Appomattox: A Thomas Devareaux Alternative History Military Adventure (The Thomas Sumter Devareaux Series Book 1)

by Chris Stoesen

  …

  Over the next two days, the Appomattox made a slow traverse of the sea lanes near Wilmington. They turned south to move towards Charleston. The boiler room was under Mark’s watch. He and Seneca were monitoring the gauges with Seneca occasionally shoveling additional fuel into the burner.

  From within his jacket he pulled the small flask. An airship was a small place with little room for luxuries. Yet any naval crew worth the name found ways to have spirits on board. Mark relaxed a moment after he took a long drag from the flask. He glanced around to make sure that he was not seen and returned the flask inside his jacket.

  …

  Devareaux glanced at the scared pocket watch for the fifth time this morning. It was only 0930 hours. He sighed and put the watch back. It seemed as if this day was dragging on. He lifted his telescope to his eye one more time and soon found himself focusing on seagulls. To Devareaux’s left, Midshipman Powell put his hands on the headset to try to block out the noise of the bridge then he began writing. Devareaux’s eyebrow rose. He looked at the pad and saw that what was being written was just garbage. Interesting, the message was encrypted. Devareaux ordered the boiler room to put on more steam and easily outpaced the surface ship below.

  Whytherspoon burst onto the bridge with a paper in his hand. He rushed to Devareaux before Powell had the first line decrypted.

  “Devareaux, look at this. The Germans left New York this afternoon. They have made repairs, but they do not have any airships. Our network has set their departure time at 0700 hours yesterday morning. They should pass us by late this evening or early morning.”

  Devareaux smiled a wolfish grin.

  “I think we would be remiss if we did not pay our respects to our German visitors.”

  He gave orders to his bridge crew to turn and head back north to investigate.

  The Appomattox turned slowly back towards the north. The hunt was on. Devareaux decided that they would not go to altitude until they were much closer to the enemy. The Appomattox was going back to war.

  …

  In the bow gun, Henri and Julius looked up to the repeater and listened to the captain announce the pursuit. Julius smiled grimly while Henri frowned. The two men moved forward to the viewing port as they continued forward.

  “Henri, if theys don’t have any airships, what are we gonna be shootin at?”

  Henri turned to the bigger man.

  “I don’t know. I am not sure what we could shoot at. From what I understand, the last attack we did on surface ships was mostly superficial damage. I don’t think there is anything there we could even break.”

  He chuckled after he thought about what he had said. What a strange world we live in. He slapped Julius on the shoulder. They both turned to see Petrus entering the forward gun room. He passed the other two a canteen of water.

  “It’s gonna get hotter in here in a bit. Drink up. Not sure when we will get another chance.”

  Henri and Julius thanked him with a nod of their heads.

  …

  It was not until 1800 hours that they were able to see the first signs of the enemy fleet on the horizon. A black smear on the horizon showed where their smokestacks sent up plumes into the air. With a quick order, everyone took their masks from the rebreathing sockets where they had been recharging and put them on.

  Tobias sat rather smugly looking around at his handiwork. He leaned over to Devareaux and began to whisper so only he could hear.

  “When you have a positive location of the enemy fleet, please give me their position. I have a surprise waiting for the enemy.”

  Devareaux looked over at him and just nodded. What on earth was Tobias thinking that he could do? But he was a well-connected man who seemed to be competent and intelligent as well. All of the wrong attributes of someone you are looking to bump heads with, career wise.

  As the sun began to drop, it provided the crew with a dazzling sunset over the North Carolina coastline. Devareaux made note of their location with compass and astrolabe. He confirmed it by comparing their location with the visible landmarks to the west and his charts of the coast. Devareaux jotted down their location on a piece of paper and handed it to Tobias, who ran from the room out to his station.

  Powell looked up at him and all Devareaux could do was shrug. A few minutes later, Powell put his hands to his headphones and began listening intently. By the time he had the message written and had deciphered the first line, Tobias returned.

  “Don’t bother decrypting that one. It was mine.”

  Both Powell and Devareaux stared at Tobias and barked out in unison.

  “What?”

  “Oh, did I fail to mention it? I have a transmitter in my room. I will inform the two submarines of the location of the enemy fleet. We should shadow them for a bit and not get too close.”

  Devareaux’s eyebrow rose while his mouth frowned. He started to say something twice and held back. Finally deciding something, he asked the engineer a probing question.

  “Are you now part of my chain of command?”

  Tobias was taken aback by the question. His face registered several emotions, then as if a light came on, he nodded in understanding.

  “Ah, no. I am merely giving you a helpful suggestion. I have no authority nor do I wish to impose on your command. Please accept my apology for overstepping my role.”

  Tobias finished with a bow of his head. Devareaux took the apology at face value and smiled again.

  “Regardless, it is a reasonable idea. Mr. Whytherspoon, please go ahead and do whatever it is that you are going to do.”

  …

  They moved to within sight range of the fleet. They maneuvered to the east of the enemy fleet and shadowed them from a distance. The Germans probably had a good idea that the Appomattox or some Confederate airship was present and watching them. But the fleet did not react to their presence. Well, not as if they could do anything about it anyway.

  They had been shadowing the enemy fleet for close to four hours when the lead ironclad in the formation had its bow lifted out of the water by a massive explosion. The plume of water rose close to ten stories in the air. The ironclad splashed back down. Immediately, the stricken Sachen class vessel began to list to starboard side where the torpedo hit. Smoke poured out from the large gaping hole in the bow and any open hatch on the deck above it. Immediately it had lost speed as the drag of water entered the hull pulled it to the west.

  The formation took evasive maneuvers and began to spread out. To the rear of the formation, another huge explosion fountained up near one of the transports. Apparently a deck gun on the transport had spotted the incoming torpedo and stopped it. But one of the escorting gunboats was not as quick. The gunboat just exploded. The torpedo must have torn into an ammunition storage area. The wreckage occupied an area extending from its original location close to 700 or more yards.

  The conning towers of the Confederate submarines were not visible to the Appomattox. The night was lit with the firing of naval guns as the German fleet attempted to avenge its casualties. Apparently, they were firing blindly. They continued firing for ten minutes before their fire slowly died out.

  Devareaux took his eyes off of the telescope and looked over towards Tobias with an unspoken question. Tobias just shrugged.

  A minute later, Tobias shrugged again and while still looking through his own telescope.

  “I have no way of hearing from them. They have receivers but no transmitters. They may have gotten away, but there is no way to tell until they report in to Willmington.”

  They watched as rescue operations commenced among the enemy fleet as they tried to take on survivors from the two stricken ships. The gunboat was a complete loss. The ironclad was sinking but was not destroyed yet. Nonessential crew was being pulled off by two gunboats that had closed on it. One had a deck pump going to attempt to put out the fire in the bow.

  It gradually grew dark enough that telescopes were useless and only a light glow from the dimmin
g fire on the ironclad could be seen and a few sparks from the smoke stacks of the other ships. Devareaux, Tobias and Almond all closed their telescopes and placed them back in the rack. Devareaux could not help but think that this employment of the Appomattox was probably an excellent way to coordinate and probably win naval battles in the future. Yet, he knew that today they were only able to nibble at the enemy fleet and not achieve a decisive victory.

  Devareaux pushed the throttles forward and the Appomattox began to pull ahead of the enemy fleet as he adjusted the heading to the southeast for a landfall at the Charleston Naval Airfield.

  …

  Devareaux was awakened by the repeater at 0430 hours. Midshipman Powell was serving as the officer of the watch. His voice came through clearly. The young man was growing up and beginning to come into his own. He half smiled, thinking about the nervous boy who had joined his crew six short months ago.

  “Captain, we have the Charleston Airfield in sight. Oh, hold on sir, we are receiving a transmission.”

  Devareaux decided not to wait. Instead, he put on his uniform and headed for the bridge. He pushed the hatch open and stepped on the bridge. Powell had his headset on and was writing furiously as the transmission came in. Devareaux waited until Powell had finished copying the message and he had begun to decipher the message.

  He stood over Powell’s shoulder as he was working out the translation from the key. The message was terse and brief.

  “Attention Appomattox,

  5-26-1880 0410 hours

  Yesterday, four submarines of the Hunley Class: CSS Swordfish, CSS Marlin, CSS Pike and CSS Redfish engaged the German fleet. One gunboat and one ironclad were sunk. CSS Pike and Swordfish were lost at sea to enemy fire. The enemy is proceeding to Puerto Rico.”

  Well, that is what Devareaux deduced from the misspellings and missing punctuation that Powell had placed into his translation. He had to erase and start some lines over again. The translation took nearly 10 minutes for the short message.

  Devareaux clapped Powell on the back.

  “Well middy, you beat Tobias to it this time.”

  Powell smiled up at his captain and continued to monitor. Devareaux looked closely at the young man. His eyes were tired. Well, everyone was tired. With such a small crew, everyone had to perform multiple watches back to back. Powell was serving as the bridge officer for the Mid Watch and the Morning Watch (0000 hours to 0800 hours). Almond was to relieve him at 0800 hours for the next eight hours. This was why most airships had short cruises as the men’s bodies could not hold up to the demands for prolonged periods of time.

  “We will continue on to Charleston airfield. You have the helm for docking. Call me a half hour before.”

  He gave Powell another pat on the back and walked back to his cabin.

  …

  When the Appomattox docked, there were a number of engineers and ground crew on hand in the predawn. They reached the airfield by 0520 hours and were secured in less than ten minutes after that.

  By the time that the gangplank had been lowered, an officer with Signal Bureau tabs vaulted up and into the mess deck. What surprised Devareaux was that the SB man saluted him before he saluted Tobias. Devareaux rendered the military honor professionally while the wild haired civilian engineer gave the man what could generously be described as a friendly wave.

  The man walked up to Devareaux and handed him a thick envelope. He could hear something going on under the deck of the Appomattox.

  “Sir, in an effort to stop the approaching German fleet, we are attaching some large bombs under the gondola of the Appomattox. We need to compensate for the weight. We request that any non-essential personnel be removed from the Appomattox. We have a train on standby ready to take them to the Savannah Aerodrome where they will rejoin your airship. In your orders you have the priority of the targets that you are to engage. The crew will complete the load in less than two hours. You will be refueled in that time and the airbag checked by ground personnel. Do you have any questions?”

  During the oration, Devareaux had been going through the contents of the envelope. His orders said the same as this unnamed officer had said. The targets were the troop transports. He shivered inwardly. He felt for those troops. At least as naval personnel you had less of a feeling of being a sitting duck. The soldiers could do next to nothing and would just drown. But this was war and he had his duty.

  “This is a maneuver we have never attempted before. How do we aim a bomb? As for my crew, all are essential. Who can I part with?”

  The man gave his question serious consideration and then nodded when he reached a conclusion.

  “The Bow and stern Winans batteries should be useless for your mission. That would free nine men from the crew and your top gunner is also not needed for this. That should free close to 1700 pounds from the airship. That should make of for the 1200 pounds of bombs that we are adding. In fact it will more than make up for it. That leaves only crew that can essentially fight the ship at the altitude you will be flying. You need to be well above Gatling gun range as you drop the bombs to protect your ship. The naval guns should not be able to elevate significantly enough to reach you.”

  The man turned to Tobias and looked for his ascent. Tobias nodded to the man.

  “Jeremy, that is a well-reasoned argument. Well done. I agree with you.”

  The officer replied stiffly.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Wait. Tobias, I thought you said that we did not have a stable explosive to make an aerial dropped bomb?”

  Tobias and the SB officer exchanged nervous glances.

  “Yes, and I stand by that statement. The bombs are not exactly stable. I would suggest that if we run into any trouble, drop the bombs immediately. This is why we have to fly so high to drop them. If one of them were to take a hit, there would be no more Appomattox.”

  Devareaux swallowed and felt a cold shiver run down his spine. This would not be a pleasure outing to be sure.

  Calls were placed to the crews that would be evacuated. Now even fewer watch standers would be aboard his ship. As he left, Henri Stoe asked for a word with Devareaux before he left.

  “Sir, if you need the guns, one of the marines, Ramirez, has gotten familiarization with them from myself and my boys. He can run one in a pinch.”

  Devareaux cocked an eyebrow in surprise.

  “Well done Stoe. That was some good thinking. All of us wear multiple hats in the air service. Why not the marines?”

  “He asked us, sir. The marines like to fight. They want to see things go ‘boom.’ From what I understand, they have been asking about the rockets as well. It would not surprise me if they did not know how to run the boilers by now.”

  An amused twinkle appeared in Devareaux’s eye as he patted Stoe on the shoulder and wished him well.

  “Enjoy your holiday boys.”

  He cried out to the departing men.

  They all turned and waved to their captain as one by one, they drug their chests to the waiting carriages and left. This was going to be an interesting day.

  Chapter 12: Bomber Command

  In Devareaux’s cabin, Tobias and Almond stood near the captain’s small table and glanced at the drawing. It was crudely done, but showed the position of the fleet in the formation they last saw the German fleet occupy.

  “The Germans had the transports here, to the rear of the formation. The gunships were on the flanks with the ironclads in the center and lead. This has probably changed since the submarines attacked them.”

  Devareaux began his talk pointing to the map.

  “The Hunley’s have one active steam torpedo that they can launch at a time. They have to completely surface in order to reload. They can only operate a short distance below the surface and even then, only for short durations. Below the surface, they are very slow. On the surface, they are only moderately slow. What amazes me is that two of them managed to escape at all.”

  Devareaux glanced at the two men
in his cabin before continuing. Tobias had his hand up worrying his chin under his mask. The Appomattox had gone to altitude as soon as they left Charleston Airfield. Almond just nodded and continued to stare at the map.

  “My thought is that we make station above the enemy formation. We position ourselves directly above one of the transports and drop a bomb. If we have matched speeds with the ship, the bomb should fall more or less directly down onto the transport. The bomb will fall at a constant rate down and still be moving forward at the same speed we were moving when we dropped it. As long as the ship does not turn, we have a chance of hitting it. Once we do this once, things will get more difficult. The enemy will be wise to the tactic and not follow a direct path. After that, we just do the best we can and see what happens. Does anyone have a better idea?”

  Tobias frowned for a moment longer before responding.

  “No captain. Matching the speed of the ship below us should be tricky but not impossible. At this point, I don’t think that they can do anything to stop us besides evasive maneuvers.”

  Almond shrugged non-committally.

  “It seems as good a plan as any. Especially given that we have never dropped a bomb from an airship before.”

  Devareux stared off into the distance and began to voice his thoughts out loud.

  “The best view of a ship below us would be from the bow Winans gun. Tobias, would you be willing to station yourself there for the bombing run and call up to me when to release the first bomb?”

  The reply was instantaneous.

  “Certainly captain. It would be my pleasure.”

  …

  After the meeting broke up, everyone returned to their duty stations. By 1025 hours, the enemy fleet was once again in sight. The Appomattox began its long path to come up behind the enemy fleet. They had changed formation. Gunboats now were flanking the transports. They had realized how fragile and vulnerable that the ships were. By the time the Appomattox was beginning to overtake the rearmost ship of the fleet, it was nearly 1400 hours.

  Tobias called to the bridge that he was in place. In point of fact, he was lying on the glass of the bubble that the Winans Gun protruded from. He had squeaked with fright when the gun turned to point nearly straight down when he first leaned against it, but now was used to the sensation of hanging over an abyss. He had a small telescope in his hands and he was awkwardly adjusting it so he could see through it down to the fleet below.