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

by Chris Stoesen

  He kept trying to focus the telescope and then muttered.

  “What the hell is that?”

  …

  Devareaux was making minor adjustments to get in line with the troop ship to the rear of the formation. They were well above them. Some flashes were visible where Gatling Guns fired up at the airship and fell away before reaching the airship.

  An excitable voice came over the repeater.

  “Captain, they have something new on the decks of those transports. It looks like a balloon. I have no clue of what they are.”

  “Keep an eye on it and let me know if it changes. Let me know when to release,” Devareaux responded.

  Devareaux kept making tiny adjustments to line up with the trailing ship. Tobias’ voice returned to the repeater.

  “Those balloons on the deck are starting to rise up. We will be in position in one minute.”

  Devareaux glanced at his pocket watch which he left open on the console in front of himself. He could no longer see the ship below.

  “Tobias, are we on target?”

  “Yes, sir. We have a good line. Wait for it… Wait for it… And… RELEASE 1!”

  Devareaux pulled the handle marked ‘One.’

  Then quickly Tobias called out again.

  “RELEASE 2!”

  Startled, Devareaux pulled the handle marked ‘Two’ before thinking to question it. That was not part of the plan. He remembered what they agreed was the response and blurted out.

  “Bombs away!”

  Tobias pushed himself lower and tried to look below the airship and saw the bombs descending. The first struck the water to the Starboard side of the troopship and sent a large fountain of water up in the air. The second landed directly in front of the forward smoke stack of the three on the ship. The explosion tore a large hole into the superstructure of the ship. The forward smokestack began to cant over towards the redecorated superstructure before collapsing completely and rolling off to the starboard side and into the sea.

  The reaction of the ships was close to instant. They began swerving erratically. It was then that Devareaux noted the rising balloon. The small basket below it had a wire dangling below it that ran down a couple hundred feet to where it was severed, possibly by the explosion. He then saw that the other troop transports had their balloons up in the air and they were nearing the same altitude as the Appomattox.

  Chapter 13: Counter Attack

  “What the hell is that? What are they doing?”

  Almond put his hand on Devareaux’s right shoulder.

  “Sir, we should not want to get near those. That is just my gut reaction.”

  “Agreed.”

  Before he finished the word, Devareaux turned the wheel and pivoted the Appomattox away from the next ship in line. Unfortunately the next ship in line was turning in the same direction. The Appomattox was able to turn tighter than the troopship but still they were rather close when the closest balloon’s basket exploded.

  The wave of the explosion washed over the Appomattox. Some of the windows in the bridge exploded and washed Almond, Devareaux, Powell and Hargrave with glass. The goggles, rebreathers, heavy coats protected them from being torn to shreds by the glass. The wind howled through the hole in the glass.

  Devareaux screamed into the repeater.

  “Rodriguez, get that bow-gun going. Marines, check the airbag!”

  He then pushed the throttles forward and attempted to speed away from the rest of the fleet. He could tell that they were losing altitude.

  “Dropping all ordinance.”

  With that, he pulled the other three levers for the bombs and they fell away to splash harmlessly into the sea. Well, I guess he could claim several fish as kills.

  Moments later a voice came over the repeater with a strong Spanish accent.

  “Capitan, its Tobias. He is hurt.”

  Devareaux pointed to Hargrave then pointed down. Hargrave immediately ran to the hatch at the back of the bridge. He flung open the hatch and slid down the ladder.

  …

  In the bow gun’s chamber, Rodriguez was turning a wheel on the side of one of the collector tanks that was venting steam into the room. As he turned it, the steam began to ebb. Hargrave moved to Tobias’s body as it lay bleeding in the broken glass of the bow gun. Tobias’ arms were hanging through the broken glass to the outside of the airship. A large cut was across his scalp.

  Rodriguez came over and helped him drag Tobias back into the main part of the chamber. Rodriguez then pulled a lever and got the gun functioning. It would take a little time to get the gun warmed up enough to be effective. Time that they may not have.

  …

  Sergeant Benjamin climbed the hatch into the main airbag. There was a pathway that headed towards the bow. It was a treacherous path and he began to walk it. Herlinger was following him with the repair kit. Henderson and the other two marines should be exiting the gondola and climbing the outside of the airbag.

  …

  After releasing the bombs, the Appomattox began losing altitude at a less rapid rate. Devareaux was worried. Those balloon bombs were ingenious. It seems that they managed to create those with whatever they had on hand. He had said it was only a matter of time before the enemy would have something to counter their presence.

  “Elijah, Jed! Fire at will! Kill anything you can find.”

  Devareaux snarled into the repeater. Neither battery replied. His stomach churned as he tried to digest what that meant when he felt the deck shake with two rocket launches from the Port Rocket Bay. This was followed closely thereafter by twin launches from the Starboard battery. He sighed in relief. His ship could still fight.

  …

  Jed Babcock looked out of the glass of the port near his weapon. He aimed the third trough at the troopship that had exploded the balloon. He aimed then pulled the lever behind the trough. A flash is seen through the closed trough and the rocket sped away. He jumped back to the port to watch the rocket. It seems on track to hit the target and he moved to the weapons rack and grabbed a new rocket. Cassius had already reloaded the other two. Cassius was singing. It was the rhymed sound of an old slave working song.

  “I wanna be my Fader’s children.

  Roll Jordan Roll.

  O’ Say you ain’t done wid the trouble ob de world.

  Ah! Trouble ob de world. Ah!”

  On the second ‘Ah’ he pulled the first launching lever. The rocket leapt out of the trough towards the enemy ship.

  “Say you aint done wid the trouble ob de world.

  Roll Jordan Roll”

  Cassius pulled the second lever. Jed just smiled. Cassius was a hard worker and a fairly accurate rocket gunner. Well, as accurate as one of these crazy rockets can be. The reason Cassuis ran two of them was because he was more accurate than he was. Jed slammed the trough closed and pulled his handle. When the rocket had sped away, he looked out of the port.

  The first rocket from Cassius had missed the superstructure and had splashed into the water beyond it. The second hit the center most smokestack and had torn a hole in it. Smoke now poured out of both the top and the hole. Jed’s first shot was a bit low and hit the ship at the waterline. He saw the water come back down when he had gotten to the port. Cassius’ third and fourth shots were perfect. They slammed into the superstructure. The superstructure was the weakest part of the troopships. One must have penetrated to inside as it exploded outwards in a large orange blossom that tore free a large portion of the superstructure. The second exploded on the surface of the superstructure. It made for a much more spectacular explosion, but had done less real damage. The outer wall of the superstructure was dented but not penetrated.

  Jed rushed to get his trough back into action while Cassius continued to sing and closed the latch on his trough.

  …

  Elijah’s battery had less of a target to shoot at. A smallish looking gunship was busy trying to close on the bombed troopship. The first three rockets of their volley all
impacted the water behind the gunboat that was heading mostly bows on to the airship. Their plumes of water rose well above the top of the small gunboat.

  Elijah was speaking again as he went about his work. Interspersed with Elijah’s praying, Julius would mutter an ‘Amen.’ He had the next rocket loaded.

  “It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect. He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places. He teacheth my hands to war,”

  On the word war, he launched his rocket and began to set about moving to the next rocket trough. Julius moved to reload it.

  “So that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.”

  He pulled the lever and sent the second rocket outwards, then started to the third launcher. Julius closed trough number one and went back to the weapons locker.

  “Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great.”

  He glanced down the primitive sight and saw the impact of his next rocket. It impacted directly on the bow of the ship and the wooden deck exploded upwards while pushing the bow momentarily underwater. When the bow emerged, the deck had a gaping hole torn out. It was at that point that the second rocket impacted on the forward gun on the gunboat. The rocket made a lucky hit. It missed the gun shield and exploded behind the gun. The rocket exploded with a small flash which was followed by a much larger secondary explosion. The gunboat flew apart. The area that was the bridge behind the bow gun had ceased to exist. Flames licked up from the center of the ship, but as far as Elijah could see, that was a dead ship. He was awed by the sight and did not pull the lever on the next rocket. He also stopped talking and his eyes went wide. He moved to the port and looked as the ruined ship began a slow, long turn to port out of control.

  Chapter 14: Too Little Too Late

  The bow Winans gun became active finally. Rodriguez started firing a couple of test shots. It was working. He turned the gun and saw one of the other troop ships far below. He guessed that the distance was a bit too far. He raised the barrel to point above the distant balloon and released a stream of rounds out toward it. He watched the rounds arc out, but fall short of the target. The way that the Appomattox turned to head back towards land, the turning troopship was maneuvering closer to it. He tried three more times. Each shot aimed a bit higher than the last. On the third attempt, the rounds landed around the balloon. He smiled grimly and this time held back the trigger lever and sent out a long stream of rounds. Of the 30 or so rounds that he sent out, the first few had the most power. About four of the rounds impacted the target. Three hit the balloon and punched holes through it, causing the balloon to drop. As the basket fell, the less powerful rounds dropped lower and one impacted with the basket as it fell. It just so happened that the phosphorous round was the one to pierce the basket. The basket exploded as it fell. The airship shook slightly from the shock of the explosion.

  Rodriguez was temporarily blinded from the flash of the explosion. He blinked his eyes rapidly to try to clear the bright white dot that dominated his vision. It took several more seconds before he could see clearly enough to identify what was in front of him. But by the time his vision cleared, the Appomattox was past the last of the enemy fleet.

  …

  On the outside of the airbag, the marines were hanging from the safety ropes on the outside of the airbag. When Rodriguez hit the balloon, the shock wave rocked the marines. Private Lopez was working on sewing a patch over the split in the airbag with Henderson. Henderson dropped his part of the patch and clung to the support rope.

  Lopez was not as fortunate. The blast knocked him off and he fell. The safety rope caught him at its 10 foot length and swung him back towards the airbag. He slammed into the airbag. The airbag has most of its surface area as a nice soft cushion. However, under that frame is a light metal framework that kept the airbag in shape. Lopez slammed into that framework.

  Henderson looked down and saw him dangling from the safety rope. He had no way of helping him or calling for help. He could see that the man was bleeding. He could see the droplets of blood coming off of his head and streaming off behind him and splattering on the side of the airbag.

  Henderson grabbed the flapping cloth and continued to try to patch the hole.

  …

  In the engine room, the men looked back and forth as they were rocked by the second blast. Over the repeater they heard the captain’s voice.

  “Boiler Room, devote more steam to the airbag. We are losing altitude.”

  Hinkey responded quickly.

  “Aye, Aye, sir.”

  Then to the rest of the crew he continued.

  “Seneca, open the valve for the airbag to full.”

  The man moved with a purpose to the starboard side and found the proper wheel. He began turning it rapidly and soon he could see the steam leaking out as it rushed upwards.

  Applegate’s head hurt badly. He turned away from the rest and snuck a long pull from his flask. His head swam. Looking at the gauges for the port boiler he had to squint his eyes to see them. What he saw was red. The boiler was in the red. If it stayed in the red, it could explode. Panic began to well up inside of him and he screamed.

  “Port Boiler is in the red!”

  He then rushed to the wheel and turned it that forced water into the burner to rapidly cool the burner. Then he spun the wheel that released the pressure built up in the boiler and vented it to outside of the hull.

  Hinkey and the others spun and looked in horror at Applegate. Hinkey had just checked that boiler and it was well in the green. He charged over to his position.

  “What is going on Mark?”

  Then Hinkey saw the gauge. It was solidly in the green and dropping to the white. He just crippled the ship by dropping the Port Boiler to nearly zero functionality. Rage boiled up inside of him and he grabbed Mark and pulled him till he was face to face with him. Hinkey’s rage went from red hot to pure white heat when he smelled the liquor on his breath. The man staggered drunkenly.

  “You just killed us, you son of a bitch!”

  To punctuate his statement, he slammed his left fist into Mark’s mouth. The man’s head snapped backwards and the man crumbled to the ground. He rushed back and attempted to save the boiler and get it hot again.

  …

  The Appomattox had cleared the enemy fleet that was still scattered and was attempting to move to save the stricken troopship. Devareaux knew his ship was hurt, but he was sure that he could get her to land. Then they began to slow down. They were slowing down! What was going on?

  Slapping the controls Devareaux barked out to the repeater.

  “Boiler room, damage report. We are slowing down. What is going on?”

  Tiberius’ voice came over the repeater.

  “Sah, we havin trouble with da port boiler. We fixin it now.”

  That was not Hinkey’s voice. Devareaux rubbed his head. The headache was coming on slowly now. His ship was hurt. And he could not help her. He pushed the controls to attempt to gain altitude in hope that they would just loose altitude less quickly. It seemed to help some. With no means of communication with the marines on the outside of the hull he was blind to his ship’s hurts.

  …

  Inside the hull, things were going better. Benjamin and Herlinger were working on the inside patch. They had stretched a large patch of material between two of the inside support frames. They had attached the top portion first, then were dragging the material downwards and tying it off below the puncture. Fortunately, the tear had occurred between the supports rather than over where one of them was. As it was, a horizontal support had to be negotiated. This was the same horizontal support that had rendered Lopez unconscious.

  It was incredibly tight quarters. The internal airbags that were there to isolate leaks blocked much of the internal space. The air was broiling hot from the hot air pumped into the airbag. With at least one of the internal bags punctured, the air insi
de the airbag was dense with helium. The portable rebreathers were the only thing that allowed repairs to be possible from the inside at all.

  The explosion of the second balloon nearly caused both men to fall. Fortunately, they had firm hand holds that kept them from dropping down and possibly through the material of the outer airbag.

  “Well damn, this is not as much fun as the brochure said it would be.”

  “Shut up Herlinger. You’re still getting paid, now earn it.”

  They were shouting at each other, but there was no malice. This was the normal banter of men used to working with one another.

  They stretched material over the tear that seated itself in place by the pressure of air from within the ship. In many ways it was the reverse of fothering a patch on an old wooden sailing ship. There the pressure of the water on the outside of the hull held the patch in place. There the principle was the same, but it was the inside of the airbag that had the pressure. The patch was tied in place to prevent the patch from being shoved out of the hole. With their job done, the airship was venting considerably less air.

  They moved quickly back to the hatch to get back inside the gondola and to see where else they could be of service.

  …

  Outside the hull, Henderson’s job became much easier when the internal patch was fitted. He completed a terrible looking repair on the outside of the airbag. When anyone saw it, they would laugh for weeks. But he was in a hurry. Lopez was in trouble and he had to save that marine. He placed the remaining materials in his chest pack and looked down at Lopez. The body of Private Lopez was tethered off some 7 feet ahead of him. Yet his body was below and behind him from the speed of the Appomattox. Lopez’s body was slapping up against the side of the airbag as it was being pushed by the wind.