by Alex Myers
Frank Sanger stepped out of the pilothouse holding a piece of paper and looking perplexed. “This note was stuck on the Captain’s door with a knife. It’s from Captain Sturgis. He said he and his men are not going to be treated like no-account nigger slaves.” Frank Sanger looked at Hercules uncomfortably, “No offense.”
“None taken, sir.” Hercules said.
“The last owner was four months in arrears with their salaries, and if I want them to continue, I would have to make them current. Ten years ago, they were getting $25 a ton for shipping; nowadays, they are lucky to get $10. I want to use them to make runs up and down the East Coast.” Frank Sanger turned the paper over twice looking at both sides. “It’s signed by Captain Kent also. No wonder I got such a great deal.”
“Ken, are you okay with helping me sail this?” Jack asked.
“More than okay, we have to do this.”
“Hercules, can you help? It’ll probably be dangerous.”
“If’n somebody can show me what to do, I’ll help all I can.”
“Mr. Sanger, Frank, can you help me?”
“Oh Lord, this ship is 103 feet long,” Frank said.
“I’ll bet at least that,” Jack said.
“No Jack, it is 103 feet long and twenty feet wide,” Frank said.
“Well, they will definitely see us coming. I’m not sure what kind of damage the ship will take.”
“I paid $4200 cash for this ship. If we can stop this from happening, I’ll consider it money well spent.”
“Then, let’s load it up and see what it can do.” Jack was untying lines.
They used the large manual windlass at the front of the ship where the oiled, white pine deck met the mahogany deck railcap. Hercules cranked, Ken and Frank fed and tied off lines on the pinrails, and they first raised the jib and then the foresail. Jack oversaw things and steered with the 52-inch iron wheel.
Grenades, one of the two limpet mines, the repeater rifles, and the hand cranked radio detonator sat neatly by the one of the ten foot dories that served as a life raft for captain and crew. A 250-pound fisherman’s anchor with 100 feet of five-eighths inch chain protruded through the bowsprit.
There was no dusk drop off in the wind as the sun sank to the roofline of the Naval Medical Center on Hospital Point. It was a stiff 15-knot breeze, directly into their faces from the Northeast. The sails caught and they were underway.
Ken and Frank joined Jack at the wheel. “Here, Frank, take the wheel and hold it on a course passing about 100 to 150 feet off her port side. That’s our left side to the barge’s left side. We’ll take down the foresail and just run on the jib. Keep it filled with wind and head for that little spot of open water between Lambert’s Point and Craney Island.” Jack pointed.
“I’ll get the sail down,” Ken said.
“I am going to start cranking that transmitter trying to set off the detonator on their bomb. I’m going to start about 400 yards out, but when we get inside 100 yards, everyone will need to stay behind cover as much as they can. I’m pretty sure if we can blow the bomb they have while it’s still on the barge, the cloud of thallium dust should only rise forty feet or so into the air. The wind will carry it away from us and it would dissipate before it ever gets to anyone on shore. In the water, it’s no problem. It’s the wood shards with the stingray poison I’m concerned with; they could fly a hundred feet in any direction.”
They were traveling faster than Jack could work. With just the smallest of the three sails up, the boat still approached the barge at a chopping speed. Ken trimmed the jib so that it wasn’t catching as much wind, then he and Hercules squatted beneath the rail on the port side of the ship.
Jack believed a hand crank was more reliable than a battery for the source of power for the transmitter, but it also had a further range. He sat on the rounded roof of the pilothouse to get more range and turned the crank around and around.
“If you see an explosion, put something vertical between you and it, just dropping to the deck isn’t good enough. The shards will probably rain down on us from above,” Jack said as he worked feverously and felt terribly exposed.
Out of nowhere Frank Sanger spoke, “Frances has gone to Williamsburg with Abner to try to get Kazmer and your friend Sam.”
Jack stopped cranking and looked at Frank. “Why? How does she even know about it? Who told her Kazmer and Sam were there?”
“I’m pretty sure it was Adkins?”
“Why would he tell her except to brag? Unless he still wants her?”
“I’m not sure. I wasn’t going to tell you about all this.”
They were 400 yards away from the barge and Jack started cranking again. “Why did you tell me, then?”
“Because,” Frank said and tilted his head toward the barge, “we might not make it. She made me promise not to tell you, but I feel like you should know the truth.”
They were 300 yards away. “Why would she do that for Kazmer and Sam?”
“She did it for you.”
“Me?” Jack shook his head but still continued to crank the transmitter. “Frank, I don’t want to speak badly here, but I don’t need her charity. If this is some sort of act of contrition from her for being with Abner…”
“Jack, I don’t think that’s the way it is.”
They were 200 yards away and they were getting within distance the transmitter was sending. Ken Barnett was looking through a spyglass at the barge.
Jack looked at Frank again. “She told you all these things in front of Abner?”
“Lord no, Abner was in some big argument with a big fellow named Miles.”
“Why are you here in Norfolk?”
“I was first in DC, then Richmond to buy a couple of stores. Frances wanted me to come here with her to look for you. I needed to do a little boat shopping, so I agreed.” He nodded toward the ship. “But she would have come with or without me. Apparently, she was too late.”
“Too late?”
“She says you have another woman. Kady something or another? She saw you holding hands and kissing, I guess?”
“That’s Ken’s daughter.”
Ken put down the spyglass and turned to look at them.
“Well, this is awkward, then,” Frank Sanger said.
“It’s not like that,” Jack said.
Ken turned back to the barge and raised the spyglass.
They were 150 feet away. “If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen now,” Jack said.
“Creed is on the barge,” Ken said. “I don’t see Abner or Miles.”
Frank and Jack both thought of it together and Jack asked first. “There’s not a woman on board, is there?”
“I don’t think so— no. They are all men and all have repeater rifles aimed at us.”
Jack pulled his hat lower onto his face.
“Get the hell out of here!” One of the men yelled from the barge. He was waving the Lady Maryland off.
Jack continued to crank, switching from one frequency to the other. They were 75 feet away, close enough to hear Creed ask someone on the barge what the man on the pilothouse was doing.
Ken and Hercules ducked below the rail, Frank kept his eyes straight ahead on the wind hitting the jib, and Jack held his breath as he tried frantically to set off the bomb. Everyone waited for the sound of the explosion.
Nothing. They passed by the barge.
Then they were 200, 300, then 500 feet away. Finally, Jack quit cranking. At three-fourths of a mile away, they all gathered at the wheel.
“That would have been too easy, I suppose. How long do we have on that fuse in the limpet mine?” Jack asked.
“Five minutes, give or take a minute either way,” Ken said.
“Good, let’s make another pass. If you can get me close enough, we can light it, and I can slip over the opposite side. It’s starting to get dark enough, shadows are getting pretty deep.”
Ken Barnett used the spyglass and stared off into the distance in the directi
on of the barge.
Frank Sanger asked, “What about when the bomb explodes?”
“I’ll attach it to the side of the barge and swim away as far as I can. When I hear the limpet go off, I’ll grab a big breath and swim as far as I can underwater. That’s where I hope I’ll be when the other bomb explodes.”
Ken slowly brought the small telescope down. “Doesn’t that mine attach with magnets? Jack, that barge is made out of wood, even the rails.”
Jack grabbed the spyglass and swung it toward the barge. It was still daylight enough for him to see Ken was right. “I didn’t even consider that it would be made of wood. That’s what was bothering me when I was looking at that dredging barge back at your place. I don’t think I could throw that mine from the water up over the rail and into that boat. Even if I could, all they would have to do is pick it up and toss it back in the water.”
“And pick you out of the water like shooting a duck in a barrel,” Frank said.
“There are too many men with repeater rifles to try to shoot our way in… Ken, how’s your throwing arm?”
“Not very good, I’m afraid.”
Hercules took a step forward, “I’ve been hunting for quail, rabbits, squirrels, my whole life with rocks. Bout only weapon a slave can get good at. I can throw me a rock.”
Jack walked to the front of the boat and picked up the box with the five grenades. He took one out of the box and held it up for Hercules to see. “I’ll show you how to use this. Basically just pull this pin and throw it. There’s about ten seconds before it explodes. Aim for the top of the deck and all those fireworks onboard. Ken, take this gun and climb as high as you can on the mast hoops on the main mast. Keep it between you and the barge, and get a protected place where you can wedge yourself in. When we start throwing, you start taking shots at those canisters of fireworks. Being up higher should give you a better angle at them. All we need is for one to go off and the whole thing should explode. Frank, this time get us as close as possible, one hundred feet or closer, if you can.”
Hercules was hefting the grenade in his hand.
“This boat we’re on here is 100 feet long, can you throw it from one end to another?” Jack asked.
“And gets it on the top of that big flat boat? Yessa, I can.”
Jack turned the boat around and the jib sail blossomed out into the wind. He handed the wheel over to Frank Sanger. “Take a broad reach back, you’re almost running with the wind so the boat will be traveling faster than before, even with just the jib working. Aim for that light on top of the Atlantic hotel.”
Ken Barnett climbed the wooden mast hoops like a ladder until he was about fifteen feet above the deck. He hooked a leg and an arm through and used the ropes to steady his aim toward the barge. Jack and Hercules were on the Starboard side of the Lady Maryland each with a grenade in hand and the box with the remaining three at their feet.
“You ready, Hercules? Wait until I say ‘now’.”
“I be ready. Just wish dat bad man Adkins be on dat boat too.”
“We’ll find him, I promise. Are you nervous?”
“Nossa.”
“Can you swim?”
“Yessa, I can swim. I trusts you. You seem to be a man who know what he be doing.”
“I hope so, Hercules. Wait for my signal, pull the pins, throw, and then do it again. Be ready to duck down below this rail anytime you see or hear an explosion.”
They were 300 feet, then 200 feet, then 150. Jack looked up to Ken. “Duck behind that mast once you get a few shots off.”
“Ready,” Ken said.
“Frank, when I give the signal, duck to the ground and hold the wheel in place if you can, but stay down.”
“Got it,” Frank said.
“Pull the pin and hold it like this,” Jack said. Hercules held the grenade, ready to throw. “Now!”
Hercules let go with his grenade a split second before Jack let go of his. Hercules’s grenade hit the main deck of the barge with a thwack loud enough for them to hear but there was no explosion.
A dud.
Jack’s throw hit the top of the rail, bounced straight up and hung in the air. Winston Creed stepped up and swatted it into the water with his cane. Hitting the water the grenade exploded in a giant orange and green spume. The giant churn of water erupted with enough force to lift the edge of the barge out of the water. The spray of water that missed the barge belched up forty feet in the air.
Three rapid-fire shots from Ken Barnett’s repeater rifle hit harmlessly on the side of the uplifted barge.
Then the gun jammed.
The hoisting of the barge caused the men onboard to tumble over. Then the geyser of water doused them as they started to stand and raise their weapons. That was what probably saved the lives of the crew of the Lady Maryland.
Then the barrage of bullets hit the Lady Maryland like a vicious hailstorm. Wood splintered and chunks flew, as shot after shot hit all around them.
Ken gave up trying to unjam the gun, dropped it, and then dropped himself to the deck where he pressed down flat. There were several holes in the sail where he had been. They slid past the barge; either Creed’s crew gave up on them or ran out of bullets. Jack crouch walked over to the wheel and relieved Frank Sanger.
One last Hail Mary shot echoed in the distance and the sound of ripping sailcloth was heard above their heads. Jack looked behind and the barge was a half a mile back. “I think it’s okay to stand up. Is everyone all right?”
Everyone gave a slight nod of yes. Jack looked to the sky in frustration.
“I’m sorry, Jack, I don’t know… what else we can do?” Frank Sanger said.
“We’ve got to go warn them,” Ken said about the gathering crowd at Town Point Park straight ahead of them. The sun had just set and the crowd of abolitionists seemed festive.
Jack looked back again and saw a small, fast moving boat puffing black clouds of smoke and moving swiftly to the barge. Jack never knew there were small steam powered boats that moved so quickly.
Jack swung the ship completely around and sat dead in the water about one hundred yards off shore of the Town Point Park. Ken, Frank, and Jack all started yelling for the crowd to leave. Hercules joined in and all were yelling and gesturing for the crowd to go away. The gathering of over four hundred people mistook their message and started waving and cheering at them. There were speakers on a stage and Frederick Douglass was among them, waiting to give his speech.
That’s when Jack saw her.
He pointed out to Ken the long dark hair and billowy white dress of Kady Barnett. She was running to the water’s edge and waving wildly. They could see she was pointing at something.
Jack motioned to Ken and gave him directions out of the earshot of Frank and Hercules. He nodded in agreement and they walked to where the others stood by the rail. “Hercules, are you sure you can swim?”
“Yessa.”
“And Frank?”
“Of course.”
Jack pushed Hercules and Ken pushed Frank. They both fell feet first the ten feet to the water. “Sorry,” Jack yelled down to them as they started to swim toward shore, “It’s just too dangerous.”
Frank Sanger treaded water. “What are you going to do with my boat, Jack?”
“Probably end up owing you forty-two hundred dollars.”
Ken Barnett leaned over the rail and shouted to them, “Go tell my daughter to get out.”
Jack moved behind Ken and pushed him in too. “Sorry, Ken, you’ve got a family to raise. See if you can disperse the crowd in case I don’t make it.”
Ken surfaced and looked up at Jack. “What are you going to do, Jack?” Ken treaded water and yelled back.
“Git ‘er done,” Jack said under his breath as he filled the jib with wind. He locked the wheel in place and raised the foresail. He wanted all the speed he could muster. He tied it off and went back to the wheel. The one hundred and three feet of the Lady Maryland tacked hard into the wind, keeling over and
knifing through the water.
CHAPTER 22
Saturday, July 4, 1857
A mile and a half from the barge, Jack unlocked the wheel and his heart sank. The small steamship was speeding directly toward him. The boat was directly between him and the barge, and he would die before he turned away.
The barge was now a mile away and the steamer was a little over a half a mile, closing fast on a collision course. Jack looked over his shoulder and the crowd at Town Point Park had grown instead of dispersed.
The smallest of glows from the setting sun were visible, but a full moon had already risen and lit the night brightly. Jack hoped he was doing the right thing, staying true to his course. He knew if he failed it would be a disaster. Great, I’m having a character arc with a deadly game of water chicken. Jack looked once more for a possible glimpse of Kady, Frank, anyone—but the crowd was an unidentifiable mass of people.
The steamer was four hundred feet away when Jack noticed a change in its direction. It looked like an ever so small turn to move away.
But then it stopped. Instead of turning away, the small boat turned broadside to block the path of the big ship from the barge. Jack was one hundred fifty feet away and still on a collision course when he saw the big man emerge from the pilothouse of the little boat. The man was huge; the man was Miles Drake. He was standing at the rail with his arms crossed, daring Jack to come forward.
Just before Jack lost sight of the steamer, he was close enough to see the look on Miles’s face. He looked smug and was smiling. Not the kind of ‘thanks for remembering my birthday smile’, but more of the ‘this is going to kill me as much as it’s going to kill you’ type.
The impact of the steamer by the Lady Maryland was more spectacularly seen than felt. The big ship rolled up and over the little boat with less impact than a big wave, but the sparks that flew told a different story. The width of the Lady Maryland was twenty feet, and it collided with the twenty-four feet of length of Miles Drake’s little steamboat. The front of the ship hit and crushed Miles against the pilothouse. The pilothouse flattened and lifted the firebox up off the deck. A millisecond later, when the bow of the ship hit the firebox, it flattened and elongated it—the pressure in the boiler blew it apart. There was a giant wall of flame that the front half of the Lady Maryland passed through.
