Thieves Of Mercy sb-2

by James L. Nelson

  Bowater studied the Union ships. They were all but lost in the smoke; it was hard to see which would make the best target. The General Page’s bow gun went off again, rattling the lightly built vessel as if it had struck a rock.

  “How much water is up there, where the Yankees are?” Bowater asked.

  Before Sullivan could answer, a ship burst from the bank of smoke, right between two of the Union ironclads, a side-wheeler charging downriver. It looked like a ghost come from the grave, as if it had appeared out of thin air.

  “Damn!” Sullivan shouted.

  “It’s one of the rams!” Bowater shouted, forgetting to temper his excitement. Then, in a more controlled voice, added, “One of the rams we saw upriver.”

  “Well, now we got us a fight, ram to ram,” Sullivan said.

  Colonel Lovell and Sumter were steaming up to the enemy, line abreast. They altered course with the appearance of this new threat, and made for the Yankee ram. The smoke rolled thick and black out of their chimneys, striking four dark lines against the sky, and Bowater wondered what the engineers were throwing on the fires. He frowned. He wanted to be at the enemy, or at least get a clear cannon shot, but the other ships were blocking his way.

  He turned to Baxter. “Follow Sumter!” he ordered. Perhaps there would be something left over for them.

  And then a second ram burst from the fog, a roil of white water around her bow as she poured on the steam. Most of the River Defense Fleet was concentrating on the first ram; there was only the

  General Bragg between Bowater and the second Yankee. You’re my meat, Bowater thought. “He’s our meat!” Sullivan shouted. God help me, Bowater thought.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I saw a large portion of the engagement from the riverbanks, and am sorry to say that, in my opinion, many of our boats were handled badly or the plan of battle was very faulty. The enemy’s rams did most of the execution and were handled more adroitly than ours…

  BRIGADIER GENERAL M. JEFF THOMPSON TO GENERAL G.T. BEAUREGARD

  The Union ironclad fleet had let loose with a full barrage, the shots coming one upon another, by the time the Union ram Queen of the West cast off from the bank and backed into the stream. Colonel Ellet himself ran to the after end of the hurricane deck and hauled the ensign up the staff, the prescribed signal for the ram fleet to go into action. Monarch was moving off the bank, and upstream, Lancaster and Switzerland had not even put their lines ashore.

  Ellet rushed back to the wheelhouse. The others would follow. They would understand, as he did, that this was their moment. It was time for the rams to go into battle and show the world that the weapon of the ancients was back, and ready to do great execution.

  “Right between the ironclads, pilot, get us right downriver,” he ordered.

  “Yes, sir.” The pilot paused. “We’ll be right under their guns, sir.”

  “Who, the enemy?”

  “No, sir, the ironclads.”

  “Oh, they won’t fire on us. Depend on it. Right between them, right for those Rebels.” He reached up himself and rang three bells. When they slammed the Queen’s iron-shod bow into a secesh gunboat, they would need speed and momentum, all they could get.

  Memphis was gone, lost from sight behind a great wall of gray gun smoke, the cumulative output of the Union gunboat’s fire. Ellet could see the ironclads, low and dark, stretched across the river, and then in front of them a gray cloud that hung on the water and roiled up with every successive blast of the guns, and then nothing else. The smoke blotted out everything downriver, save for the blue sky, high overhead.

  The Queen of the West was building her precious momentum fast, racing for the line of Federal gunboats. The flashes of the ironclads’ guns lit up the smoke, orange and red, belched more smoke into the cloud.

  The Queen charged on, right between Carondelet and Benton. Ellet could see startled faces looking out from gun ports as the ram swept past and plunged into the wall of smoke.

  For a moment they were blind, like being in thick fog, a world of gray and dim, diffused light. Joseph Ford, first master of the Queen of the West, began coughing hard, doubled over, and Ellet coughed too. He wondered how thick the wall of fog might be. He could not ram if he could not see.

  And then they were through, bursting out of the far side like coming out of a tunnel, from gray smoke and blindness to brilliant morning-blue sky, brown water flashing in the rising sun, the steep hills on the Memphis shore, and the Rebel Defense Fleet, steaming for them.

  “Here we go!” Ellet shouted. Upstream, the ironclads kept up their fire, the shells screaming past, and Ellet wondered if the gunners could see at all through their own smoke. If not, there was as good a chance of them hitting the Queen as anything, but he was too gripped with the thrill of the thing to care.

  “Sir!” Ford pointed downstream. Two of the Rebels were coming up fast, side by side, their bows aimed straight at the Queen of the West.

  Ellet stepped back into the wheelhouse, stood between the pilots, Richard Smith and Joe Davis, their eyes locked on the action under the bows.

  “Which one, sir?” Davis asked. The Queen and the two Rebels were closing fast, bow to bow. If they hit that way, it would shatter them all.

  “I don’t know…” Ellet said. They were charging right at one another. We’ll make a damn lot of widows this way…

  One of the Rebels began to turn, the one on the Queen’s starboard bow began to sheer off. Ellet stepped out of the wheelhouse. Behind them, the Monarch had broken through the smoke, was coming down on their starboard quarter. Ellet could hear the men on the ironclad gunboats cheering, cheering.

  He pulled off his hat and waved it at Monarch and then at the Rebel who had sheered off. “That one’s for you!” he shouted, though he knew Alfred would not hear him. “The other is my meat!”

  The Monarch began to turn, to line herself up for a charging run at the second Rebel steamer. Satisfied, Ellet returned to the wheelhouse. Two hundred yards separated the Queen from the onrushing Confederate, two hundred and dropping fast, and still they came on, bow to bow.

  Oh Lord, oh Lord… Ellet had played this scene out a hundred times in his head, a thousand, but here were difficulties he had not imagined, such as what he would do if the Rebel would not turn away from his bow-on attack.

  And there was more to think of. If the Queen of the West hit the closest Rebel, then the Rebel right behind would have a clear shot at hitting the Queen, broadside. And there was a third secesh ram, just downriver. He could not hit one without being hit by the other. He could not hit bow to bow.

  “Sir,” Davis began, tentative but urgent. The Rebel fired her bow gun and the water just forward of the Queen was torn up by grape and cannister.

  In the instant the Rebel’s bow gun went off, she began to turn, backing down and then sheering off, exposing a swath of larboard side, right under Ellet’s bow and seventy yards off. The Confederates were unwilling to risk a head-on collision, but they had decided that too late. Incredible, it was a gift from heaven.

  “There, there!” Ellet pointed toward the Rebel’s side. The pilots were nearly dancing with excitement. Davis took the wheel from the helmsman, gave a quarter turn to larboard, following the turning Rebel boat around as the space between the ships dropped away.

  The Rebel’s stern wheel was really digging in. Ellet could picture the skipper laying on the bell, shouting for steam to get him the hell out from under the Yankee ram.

  Too late, too late… Davis brought the bow around so the Queen was pointing first at her foredeck and then her deckhouse as the Rebel tried to steam away.

  The Queen of the West struck just forward of the Rebel’s wheelhouse. She did not even slow as she plowed on through. The side of the Confederate boat caved in like an eggshell. The chimneys leaned over, threatening to fall on the Queen’s foredeck. The whole vessel seemed to bend in the middle under the ram’s crushing impact.

  Then the Queen was brought up short, brought to
a jarring halt by the mass of the ship impaled on her bow. Ellet was flung forward, hit the low wall and window of the wheelhouse hard, as tables, charts, instruments, crockery, and the pilots all flew across the space in a shower of debris.

  The Queen twisted around, her paddle wheels still driving her into the rebel ship, which was filling fast and hanging on their bow. Ellet bounced off the wheelhouse’s forward bulkhead and staggered back, but managed to keep his feet.

  “Full astern!” Ellet roared, but he was the only one still standing. He crossed the wheelhouse, gave a jingle, three bells, full astern.

  For a second the Queen was still, the terrible vibration in her deck gone, as the paddle wheels stopped. Then they began to turn again, churning in reverse. The ship shuddered as the paddle wheels struggled to pull the ram from the dying Confederate. Ellet could hear screeching and snapping sounds as the massive paddles drove the ship astern and drew the bow from the Rebel’s side.

  He turned to see what execution Monarch was doing, but he saw instead another Rebel rushing at them, black smoke churning from her chimneys, a mad bull charging a red cape. It was exactly as he had feared. Hung up on one ship, he was easy pickings for another.

  He grabbed the bell and gave another jingle and three bells because he could think of nothing else to do. There was nothing else to do but brace for the impact.

  The pilot, Davis, pulled himself to his feet, looked out the window at the Rebel ram, now looming over them. “Oh, hell!” he shouted and then the Rebel struck them, right in the larboard paddle wheel. Painted boards and buckets and metal arms, bits of rail and parts of the Queen’s gig flew into the air and became so much debris as the Rebel drove the attack into the army ram’s side.

  The Queen heeled hard to starboard with the impact, and the paddle wheel made a terrible groaning noise as it was sheered clean off.

  “Damn it! We’re done for!” Ellet shouted. So soon? Was that all the battle for him? He did not think it was above ten minutes since he had cast off from the bank at the sound of the guns, and now the Queen was disabled and he would be lucky if she did not sink under him.

  “Damn!” he shouted again and raced out of the wheelhouse to better see the damage. The sound of the battle was much louder on the hurricane deck, the low thunder of the ironclad gunboats as they poured their fire into the Rebels, the sharp crack of the Rebels’ smaller guns, the shouting of men on the sinking Rebel ship and his own men on the main deck below.

  It was bad. The larboard wheel was gone, there was nothing there. The water was littered with floating debris. It looked as if an entire ship had been blown to bits, right on that spot. Ellet turned to the deckhand beside him. “Billy, run below and see if we’re taking on water!”

  There was a thumping sound now that he could not identify. He looked around. Another Rebel was moving past, slowly, as if she were disabled. Small arms! They were firing on the Queen with small arms. Bullets were thudding into the deck.

  Get the men behind cover, Ellet thought and then suddenly his leg was gone from under him, as if someone had hit him in the back of the knee with a club and sent him galley-west. He hit the warm deck planks with a grunt, hands down to break his fall, still not certain what had happened.

  He rolled on his back and felt the pain shoot up his leg. He stifled a shout, gritted his teeth, looked down. Blood was spurting from his knee, and his leg from the knee down seemed to jut off at an unnatural angle.

  “Sir! Sir!” Ford and the pilot Davis were kneeling beside him.

  “Sir, you’re hit!” “It’s all right, it’s all right,” Ellet said, his teeth still clenched.

  He relaxed his jaw. Had to give orders.

  “Queen’s out of the fight, larboard wheel’s gone, I reckon we’re going down,” Ellet managed, then a wave of pain hit him and he stopped for a moment, caught his breath, then went on. “I think we can get to shore with the remaining wheel. Quick, quick, run her ashore while you can!”

  “Yes, sir!” Ford said, leaped up, and rushed back to the wheelhouse. Ellet closed his eyes. Both he and the Queen of the West, disabled, knocked out. But not dead. It was as if their fates were intertwined, bound together, like vines twisting around one another. Hurt one you hurt them both. It was not the first time he had thought as much.

  Bowater was seething and Mississippi Mike was cursing out loud. The river man cursed with a vehemence that did not seem possible for a man with a gut wound, as if the whole thing had been in his head, and now in the excitement of the moment was forgotten. They had barely rung up two bells when the first Union ram hit the Lovell broadside with a crash that they could hear plain as could be, even over the gunfire, even a quarter mile away. The Lovell seemed to fold right around the Yankee’s bow, like a dishrag draped over a clothesline. She rolled hard and began to settle even as the Yankee was still driving into her. “Oh, son of a bitch! They done for her! Son of a whore!” Sullivan ranted. He stood up from the stool, not quite straight, hand on the butt of one of his pistols.

  Bowater ignored him. “Baxter, come left. We’ll make for the second ram. Tarbox, see that the gun crew in the bow fires into that ram, there, the one to the west. Keep them at it, fast as they can.”

  It was like chess, a furious, waterborne game of chess, with the pieces all moving at once, the situation changing by the second.

  “There goes Sumter! Damn me, there goes Sumter!” Sullivan gasped, pointing. Sumter was racing for the first Yankee ram, which was still trying to dislodge itself from the Colonel Lovell. Bowater watched, transfixed. The actual impact was hidden from him by the wreck of the Lovell, but he could see the Yankee roll under the impact, see the debris lifted in the air.

  He imagined he would have heard the sound of the impact if the gunfire had not been so intense.

  Then the Colonel Lovell sank, went right down as if it had never been meant to float. She settled on the bottom with only the upper deck still visible, an island in midriver on which the survivors of her crew huddled.

  The smoke from the Union ironclads was spreading down-river, and the River Defense Fleet was adding its own, and visibility was getting worse, with patches of smoke like cotton batting hanging over the water. The second ram was lost from sight, but just for an instant, and then it burst out of the cloud that enveloped it, bearing down hard on the General Bragg.

  Bowater could make out the big letter M hanging between the Yankee’s chimneys. He searched his memory, pictured the rams anchored at Plum Point Bend. Monarch-she was called Monarch.

  “Meet her, meet her,” Bowater called to Baxter at the wheel. They were four hundred yards downriver of the Yankee Monarch and the Bragg. If the Yankee ran the Bragg down, then the General Page would be there to do the same to the Yankee.

  “Look here, Sammy, look here!” Sullivan said, with a renewed strength in his voice. “There goes the Beauregard and the Price! Lord, they’re gonna spit-roast that Yankee!”

  The Beauregard and the General Price were racing for the Monarch, the Beauregard charging at her starboard side, the Price her larboard. They were like two hands clapping together to smash a mosquito between them, while the Yankee, seemingly oblivious, charged forward, bow still aiming for the General Bragg.

  “Come on, come on,” Bowater caught himself muttering. The Yankee was going to be torn apart in this collision, smashed in on both sides. In a wild confusion of chimneys and black smoke, thrashing paddles and bow guns blazing away, the ships came together.

  And suddenly there was empty space, just water and smoke, a gap between the Confederate rams as the Monarch slipped right between the two.

  “No! No! No!” Sullivan screamed and the two River Defense ships hit, nearly head-on, bow to bow. The Price’s chimneys leaned forward, hesitated, then toppled over, as the two vessels, each still under a full head of steam, pounded against each other. The Beau-regard smashed into the Price’s wheel box and ripped it away-box, wheel, shaft, everything-tore it clean off the side of the ship and dragged it along,
hung up on the bow, a mass of iron and wood debris, nothing more.

  “All right, here we go,” Bowater said. He was sickened by the scene. Nine Confederate rams against the two Yankees and the Yankees were decimating them. He rang four bells. Vengeance had no place in the heart of the professional naval officer, he knew, but this was different. “Right for him,” he told Baxter. “Just forward of the wheelhouse.”

  The General Page surged ahead. Bowater could hear the note of the paddle wheels go up as, somewhere down below, Hieronymus Taylor cracked open the steam valve and let her go.

  The General Bragg was just ahead of them, two hundred yards, twisting wildly to get out of the way of the Monarch racing down on her. Forward, the Page’s bow gun fired and a hole appeared in the Yankee’s deckhouse, but the Yankee did not slow. Instead it turned with the Bragg, keeping its bow directed at the Bragg as the Bragg tried to circle away.

  When they hit, it was a glancing blow, the Monarch striking the Bragg aft and sheering off, tearing up some wood, but little else. And now Bowater was looking right at the Yankee’s broadside.

  He rang four bells again, let Taylor know they needed it all. A hundred yards between them and the Yankee seemed to sense the danger. Bowater saw the paddle wheels stop, saw them reverse, the Federal ram trying to back out of the danger.

  Oh, no, you won’t, you bastard… Fifty yards. The fire from the Union ironclads was terrific, the shells shrieking past. Bowater felt a jar in the deck as a shell struck somewhere aft, a clanging sound as another struck something metal. He turned around. The larboard chimney had folded like a wilting flower, half the guy wires snapped.

  Thirty yards. He could see men on the Monarch’s hurricane deck. Sharpshooters were peppering the Page with minie balls, he could hear the familiar thud as they struck wood. The far right window of the wheelhouse was shot out, the sound of breaking glass delicate against the backdrop of heavy guns.

  Twenty yards and the Yankee put his helm hard over, paddle wheels full ahead, and the nimble ram spun around on her center, and the broadside disappeared as she came bow-on to the Page.