“That boat seems to be making for us,” Molly said, soft and calm.
Wendy, pulled from her thoughts, looked over her shoulder. The boat was in their wake, directly astern, about half a mile away. The river was two miles wide at that point, and yet the boat was right there, right behind them.
“I doubt it. More likely my keen sense of seamanship has led me to choose exactly the best course downriver, which this fellow also knows.” Wendy could hear how hollow her efforts at being flip and unconcerned sounded.
She looked back again. It did seem that the boat was making an effort to close with them.
I’ll tack… tack away and see what he does, she thought, then realized how pointless that was. The boat astern was clearly sailing much faster than they were. It might be chasing them, or it might not, but either way it would overtake them soon, and then they would know. And tacking would make no difference one way or another. They stood on.
And the boat astern of them did as well, coming up fast, coming right at them, unwavering in its attempt to overtake them. Twenty minutes later, they knew. The boat was chasing them.
“I can see only one person there,” Molly said. She was looking astern. The boat was a hundred yards behind them now, sailing at least two knots faster than the women’s boat. “Who could it be?”
The women looked at one another, and all the questions and fears passed between them, unspoken.
“No,” Wendy said. “No. I blew his goddamned brains out.”
It was all so agonizingly slow, so painfully inevitable, like a lingering death. One hundred yards, seventy-five yards, fifty yards.
“It’s him,” Molly said, her voice dead.
“It can’t be.” But Wendy was no longer so certain. Why had she not felt for a pulse, tied him up, slit his throat, something?
“It is him. I can see him clear enough now.”
“You have one bullet.”
No one spoke. Newcomb was twenty yards astern. They could see his horrible blood-caked face, his clothes filthy and torn, the hair wild on his hatless head. He looked like a statue, a gargoyle, motionless in the stern sheets, eyes locked on them. Wendy wished he would curse at them, scream at them, order them to heave to, anything but that silent, relentless approach.
“Goddamn him!” Wendy said out loud, all but shouting. Her nerves were played out, she had to act. Just standing on was tantamount to submitting to the lunatic bastard.
“Hold on, Molly! Don’t shoot until we are on top of him!” Wendy bit down, pressed her lips together. Took one last look over her shoulder, then thrust the tiller hard to starboard.
The heavy boat spun up into the wind and kept on going. In the few seconds it took to turn one hundred and eighty degrees, Newcomb’s boat covered the distance between them. Wendy watched the shoreline spin past as the boat came around again on the port tack, spinning a neat circle, and then Newcomb’s boat was right under their bow.
They hit with a shock that sent Wendy tumbling forward. The boat rolled, dipped her rail under the water, and Wendy had an image of falling masts and crushing wood, Newcomb flying from his seat and water pouring in before she landed across the after-most thwart. She heard a shout like a bull’s bellow, knew it was the outraged cry of Roger Newcomb.
She struggled up. Their boat had stove in the bow of Newcomb’s boat entirely, and the impact had sent Newcomb’s mainmast by the board, though their own still stood. Molly was clawing her way up from the bottom, the gun still in her hand. Newcomb’s boat was filling fast, going down.
“Where’s Newcomb?” Molly shouted, gun held out. It was suddenly quiet. Wendy could hear her and Molly’s breath, coming hard.
Then Newcomb was there, leaping up from behind the mass of shattered wood and torn canvas that had been his boat’s rig. Bounding over the wreckage, his eyes wild, fresh blood running down his face. He had a pistol in one hand, a wooden bucket in the other
“Son of a bitch!” Molly shouted, held the gun out. Newcomb flung the bucket at her. She flinched and pulled the trigger.
The gunshot made a weak cracking sound, like a thin twig breaking underfoot. Wendy saw Newcomb jerk around, stumble, and fall. He came down hard, falling across the gunnel of the women’s boat. But he was not dead.
He pushed himself up on one arm, his.36 Navy Colt held in front of him, a horrible leer on his face. Slowly, agonizingly, he pulled himself on board, the gun steady, the muzzle aimed always at Wendy or Molly, moving between them, as if trying to decide whom to kill first.
Newcomb got both legs aboard and sat down heavy on the thwart, leaning against the gunnel, mouth open, sucking air. The wreckage of his boat drifted off, half sunk, held up only by the buoyancy of the wood.
Newcomb’s head flopped forward, as if he did not have the strength to hold it up. Wendy searched him for a bullet wound, hoping desperately that Molly had managed to hit him, that he would bleed to death before their eyes. But there was nothing. He had fallen while twisting out of the way of the bullet. She had missed.
“Ladies,” Newcomb said at last, guttural and ironic. “How nice to see you again…”
Wendy could see Molly’s jaws working, see her arms tense. She was afraid that Molly was going to launch herself at Newcomb, try to claw him to death. “Molly…” she warned. The.36 was pointed at her aunt’s chest. She would never make it across the boat before he shot her.
They sat in their silent world of hatred as Newcomb waited for his strength to return, for the pain to subside. Ten minutes they sat, then Newcomb stirred. His gun swung over to point at Wendy. His thumb pulled the hammer back. The click was loud in the quiet air.
“You bitch… you shot me.” His voice sounded stronger now, as if in the moments of quiet he had recovered some of his strength. “I should just kill you now.”
Wendy looked at the gun and then at Newcomb’s crazy eyes, and her hatred was so profound that it blotted out the fear she knew she should feel. “Go ahead, you cowardly little puke,” she hissed.
Newcomb gave a half grin, eased the hammer back. “No, no. I can wait for the pleasure of seeing you kicking and jerking at the end of a rope. Pissing yourself as you die. Be worth it.”
Wendy looked away in disgust, her eyes moving upriver, toward the column of smoke rising up from Portsmouth. Were the Yankees there yet? Would their navy come upriver soon, to rescue the wayward Acting Master Roger Newcomb?
There was a boat coming down from Norfolk, just coming into view as it rounded Finner Point at the confluence of the southern and western branches of the Elizabeth River. It was nearly two miles away, little more than a white square bobbing on the blue water. Yankees? If they were, it was quite possible that she and Molly would hang. But at least they would be saved from whatever more horrid plan Roger Newcomb had.
Then another thought came to her. Is it Lieutenant Jones? The Confederate Navy? She pulled her eyes away quickly, so that New-comb would not follow her gaze. She tried not to think about the boat. It would play out the way it would. There seemed to be little that she could do now to influence her fate.
“So we wait…” Newcomb was saying. “We wait, wait, for the Union to wipe out all the stinking secesh like the vermin they are, and then we go and take you two to the proper authorities, and I am made captain while you are hung.”
The women did not respond. They sat silent and glared at Newcomb, and that seemed to unnerve him a bit. “Or maybe I’ll have to kill you as you try to escape, I don’t know, I shall see. We’ll see.”
Wendy looked beyond Newcomb, out toward the eastern shore of the river. The tide had turned, the boat was slowly drifting downstream toward Hampton Roads. She wondered how long Newcomb would just sit there.
Finally, with a grunt of effort, he stood, gun held loose at his side. He jerked his pocket watch from his vest, glanced down at it, put it away, seemed not to notice that the face was crushed, the case and the hands broken off. “Perhaps we should be on our way,” he said.
Wendy glanced ast
ern, involuntarily. She caught a glimpse of the boat, much closer now. She cursed herself and turned her head away. Heard Newcomb gasp. She looked up. He was glaring at her, the gun pointed at her face. “You traitorous bitch!” he shouted. “How long have you known they were there?”
Wendy looked astern, no point in pretending now. The boat had halved the distance between them. She still could make out no details, but by every appearance it seemed to be Jones’s boat. She had stared long and hard at it when they met before; she recognized the shape of the sail.
She looked back at Newcomb, met his eye, held his gaze unwaveringly. “How long have I known who was there?”
“Who? Who? I’ll give you… get up in the bow. Both of you, get the hell up in the bow!” Newcomb gestured with the gun. Wendy stood, made her way forward, a hand on the gunnel, Molly in front of her. They came to the forwardmost thwart and sat, facing aft. Neither woman cared to have her back to the lunatic with the gun.
Newcomb sat with a grunt in the stern. He pushed the tiller over with the hand still holding the gun, sheeted in the sail with the other, and made it fast. The boat fell off the wind and gathered way and Newcomb brought the tiller amidships. He was a very good boat handler, Wendy could see that, and it made her even more angry. She wondered if Jones’s boat was the faster of the two. Or whether it would matter.
Newcomb’s eyes were everywhere, looking at the set of the sail, looking aft at the approaching boat, looking past the bow and out to weather. The boat was moving fast, heeling in the westerly breeze. They were not sailing hard on the wind, as they had been before, the point of sail that Wendy had chosen to get them out of the river and into the Roads.
She turned and looked forward. Newcomb was making for an open place on the eastern shore, a wide marshy place called Tanner’s Creek.
“Turn around,” Newcomb shouted and Wendy turned back. She settled her hands on her lap. She waited.
They moved fast on the beam reach, and the boat astern did not seem to be gaining anymore. Soon Wendy was aware of the shoreline close at hand. She looked to starboard. They were not more than a hundred yards off the reedy, wild riverbank. She looked to port, expecting Newcomb to shout at her, but he did not. She could see Tanner’s Point fine on the port bow. Newcomb was going to duck out of sight behind the point.
Ten minutes later the land was all around them, the mosquitoes beginning their torment as the boat moved slowly through the shallow, muddy water. Newcomb brought the bow around to close with the shore, and Wendy thought for certain the boat would take the ground, but it did not, gliding along silently and nearly upright in the wind shadow of the land.
Finally the bow nudged into the sandy shore on the east side of Tanner’s Point. Newcomb ordered the women to sit on the center thwart, then he climbed over the bow and pulled the boat as far up as he could. He tied the painter to a sapling at the edge of the tall grass.
“Get out.” Newcomb gestured with the gun, and Wendy, then Molly climbed awkwardly out of the boat. He made them turn their backs to him, and for a horrible moment Wendy thought he was going to put a bullet through their heads.
Instead he bound their hands behind their backs, tied them tight with thin, rough cordage. “Wouldn’t have to do this…” he muttered, a lunatic’s monologue, “if I thought I could trust you… give your word… would if you were civilized women and not damned Southern trash… secesh garbage…” He tied their wrists swiftly and securely, with the marlinspike seamanship skills he had learned in the United States Navy. He pulled a pocket knife and cut a long strip from Wendy’s skirt and gagged them.
“This way.” He shoved Wendy toward the shore and Molly after, prodded them along as they stumbled and made their way through the tall dune grass. The stiff vegetation whipped their faces and scratched their skin and with their bound hands they were not able to fend it off.
Tanner’s Point was only one hundred yards wide, and soon they came to where it met up with the water of Hampton Roads. To the southwest, two miles away across the mouth of the Elizabeth River, was Craney Island. The horizon to the north and south was bordered by low shoreline, and straight across from them, open water marked the mouth of the James River.
“Wait here.” Newcomb pointed to the ground where they stood, ten feet from where the grass gave way to the riverbank. He went ahead by himself, peering through the grass, looking south.
They remained like that for some time. How long, Wendy did not know. The minutes crawled along. Finally, through the screen of grass, they could see the boat. It was Jones’s boat, heading toward Hampton Roads. Wendy could see the gray-clad Jones in the stern sheets. He was making no effort to look for them, none that she could see. He was just sailing on.
The despair took Wendy by surprise, caught her unawares. She had invested all her hope in Lieutenant Jones and the Confederate Navy and she had not even realized it. But the sailors had passed by, had not even glanced in her and Molly’s direction. Through the tall grass, she watched her last hope disappear from sight, heading north toward Sewell’s Point.
Now they were alone, bound and gagged. There was nothing more they could do but await the pleasure of Roger Newcomb.
TWENTY-FIVE
Had the ship not been lifted, so as to render her unfit for action, a desperate contest must have ensued with a force against us too great to justify much hope of success; and as battle is not their occupation, they [the pilots] adopted this deceitful course to avoid it.
FLAG OFFICER JOSIAH TATTNALL TO STEPHEN R. MALLORY
Midshipman Hardin Littlepage brought the news: Lieutenant Jones’s boat was back.
Flag Officer Tattnall’s health had not improved in the hours that Jones had been gone. The thought of the army summarily abandoning Norfolk did not help. The idea of the soldiers handing over to the Yankees the Gosport Naval Shipyard and everything it meant to the Confederate Navy, without so much as a shot fired, ground him down like a boot heel on his neck. He lay in his bunk. He felt sick to his stomach, and feverish.
If Norfolk was gone, then the Virginia was floating around untethered, like one of those damned hot air balloons the Yankees were using to spy on Confederate lines, a balloon that had broken loose. And she couldn’t operate that way for long. We’ll take her up the James River, he thought, but that did little to mollify him. There was hardly room enough in Hampton Roads for the beastly ship to turn. What would she be able to do in the James River?
With a sigh, then a groan, Tattnall stood. His cabin, such as it was, was on the berthing deck and all the way forward. He made his way up the ladder to the gun deck, and then to the hurricane deck. He stepped into the open air just as Jones’s boat was sliding alongside. A minute later the lieutenant was reporting.
“Sir, I went ashore at the naval yard, which was in flames. Everything was going up, sir, beyond saving. No one was there. No officers, anyway. One yard worker told me the officers had left by train for Richmond. From there I went to Norfolk, to confer with General Huger, as you instructed. I was told Huger and the army had also left by train. The enemy was within half a mile of the city; the mayor was treating for surrender.”
Tattnall nodded, felt more and more unwell. He wanted to sit but he made himself stand. He could see the concern in Jones’s face. The lieutenant paused in his narrative, unsure if he should continue.
“Go on,” Tattnall said. He did not need the sympathy of a junior officer.
“On the way back upriver, I discovered that all the batteries on the river have been abandoned, including Craney Island. I encountered a boat with two women aboard, fleeing the city, and later saw another boat, which might have been the same, I couldn’t tell. It put into Tanner’s Creek and I didn’t think it important enough to follow. Other than that, there was no traffic on the river.”
Tattnall nodded again and leaned on the rail. It was what he had feared, but also what he had expected. Damn those army sons of bitches! The thought of them piling on the trains and rumbling out of town for Rich
mond made Old Tat furious. They’ve done for me, the bastards…
“Very well, Mr. Jones. Good work. Please pass the word for Lieutenant Jones.”
Two minutes later the executive officer, Lieutenant Catesby ap
R. Jones, climbed up through a casemate hatch, saluted, nodded to Pembroke Jones. Tattnall had Lieutenant John Jones repeat his report to Lieutenant Catesby Jones.
“Gentlemen,” Tattnall said when Jones had finished, “as you know, the pilots say we can get the ship up the James River, get her within forty miles of Richmond, if we lighten her by four feet. That will be a hell of a job, but it will be worth it, I think. We might be able to do some good in the James, take on the boats the Yankees have sent up there. Anyway, it is the course I would choose, but I would like your opinions as well.”
Both officers were nodding assent before Tattnall had even finished speaking. “It is the most judicious course, sir,” Catesby Jones said.
“I agree,” John Jones said.
“Very well,” said Tattnall, “assemble the men.”
Catesby Jones saluted and summoned the boatswain, who began piping the men topside. Soon they were all there, crowding on the casemate roof, over three hundred men: naval officers, blue-water sailors, landsmen, mechanics, dockworkers, laborers, soldiers, whoever they had been able to scrape up to haul a gun tackle or shovel coal into a furnace. But whatever they had been before, however disparate a group, they were now the crew of the Virginia, battle tested, and Flag Officer Tattnall loved them, just as he loved the ship under his feet.
“Men,” he said, speaking as loudly as his weak lungs would permit, “here is the situation. I’ll give it to you straight. The army has abandoned Norfolk. The navy yard is in flames.”
A murmur like a breeze through long grass swept through the men. When it subsided, Tattnall went on. “We must get Virginia up the James River, as close up to Richmond as she will go. We can aid in the defense of the capital, maybe take some of the enemy’s ships, or sink ’em. But that means we have to lighten her, toss over everything but the guns and powder. It will take a prodigious effort on your part, but it is the only way to save our ship. What say you?”
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