by Джон Джейкс
Curtly, Cooper said to one of the helpers, "Row out there and tow the barrels in. You" — to the other helper — "load the tools in the wagon." Muttering, the helper picked up a long crosscut saw, which hummed a sad note.
The sun was down, starlight shone, frogs croaked in the sweet Virginia night. The helper grumbled and swore, sneezed again, then said to Chickering, "I'll tell Mallory the design's a failure, like the raft torpedo before it and the keg torpedo before that."
"Sir, with all respect" — having exploded, Chickering was calmer now — "why do we keep on with these fruitless experiments? Our work is so peculiar, we're the butt of jokes in every other department."
"Be thankful, Lucius. Snide remarks will never wound you the way bullets do."
Chickering colored at the suggestion that he might be happy to avoid hazardous duty. But he said nothing because Main's authority was not to be questioned; he and Mallory were close as two peas. Still, more than one person whispered that the new man was unbalanced. Something to do with his son drowning on the voyage from Nassau to Wilmington.
Like a humorless schoolmaster, Cooper continued. "We test these odd devices for one reason: our inferior position vis-a-vis the enemy. As the secretary says so often, we don't outnumber them, we can't out-spend them, so we have to out-think them. That means experimentation, no matter how ludicrous the experiments may seem to the fashionable young ladies and gentlemen you associate with here in Richmond. Mallory wants to win, you see, not merely negotiate an end to the war. I want to win. I want to whip the damn Yankees on the Atlantic and the rivers if we do it nowhere else. Now pick up that hand saw and put it in the wagon."
He sloshed down the bank to help the man who had rowed out to tow the barrels. Together they beached the target and carried the inverted rowboat to the wagon. More water dripped on Cooper's wet shirt, and he sneezed three times, violently, before they stowed the boat and climbed aboard for the homeward trip, four tired men in a world gone dark except for stars.
Cooper began to regret his sharp words. To be influenced by others was the way of the young. Chickering understandably resented a department constantly under attack for mismanagement, overspending, and dalliance with ideas that seemed to be the creations of idiots. Yet the boy, like so many others, simply didn't understand that you had to sift through all that fool's gold if you hoped to discover one nugget — one design, one idea — that might tilt everything in a decisive way.
Cooper had thrown himself into that search with ferocious energy. Mallory had been complimentary about his work in England and soon took the younger man into his confidence. In Mallory's opinion, the river war was lost. It was now their task to salvage the situation on the Atlantic seaboard. The commerce raiders, including the one Cooper helped launch, had captured or damaged an astonishing number of Yankee merchantmen. Insurance rates had risen, according to plan, to near-prohibitive levels, causing several hundred cargo ships to be transferred to dummy owners in Great Britain. Yet this Confederate success had failed to achieve its final goal — appreciable reduction of the size and effectiveness of the Yankee blockade squadron.
If anything, General Scott's Anaconda was tightening. One point of maximum constriction was Charleston, where Union monitors had attacked in force in April. Harbor and shore batteries had repulsed them, but everyone in the department anticipated further attacks. Not only was Charleston a vital port, but it was the flash point of the war — the city the enemy most wanted to capture and destroy.
If he didn't have the department, Cooper doubted that he could survive. Moreover, he believed in the work; he and Mallory were alike in that and in other ways. Each had started out detesting the idea of secession — early in the war, Mallory had been widely quoted after he said, "I regard it as another name for revolution" — but now both were fierce as hawks in pursuit of the enemy.
The secretary kept everyone busy with schemes. Schemes for new ironclads. Schemes for submersible attack vessels. Schemes for naval torpedoes of every conceivable configuration. Cooper reveled in the frantic effort, because he hated the enemy. But he hated one individual fully as much, though he had said nothing of that to anyone, not even Orry, so far. He wanted to arrange a fitting confrontation. A fitting punishment.
The struggles of the department had one additional benefit. If he worked himself to a stupor every night, his mind was less likely to cast up memories of Judah in the moonlit sea. Judah calling for help. Judah's poor scalded face disintegrating —
As the wagon rattled on toward the lamplit hills, Cooper wondered about the time. It would be quite late when he got home. Judith would be angry. Again. Well, no matter.
In the city, Chickering was first to jump off. Late for a rendezvous with some belle, Cooper assumed. Cooper's nose was dripping. It hurt to swallow. "Be at your desk by seven," he said to his assistant. "I want today's report written and out of the way by the start of regular working hours."
"Yes, sir," Chickering said. Cooper heard him muttering as he disappeared in the dark.
The wagon driver let him off in front of the Mechanics Institute on Ninth Street, bidding him a surly good night. Cooper didn't give a damn about the disapproval; the clod failed to understand the desperate straits of the Confederacy or the problems of the department, which Mallory summed up in two words: "Never enough." Never enough time. Never enough money. Never enough cooperation. They improvised and lived by their wits. That brought a certain pride, but it was killing work.
Cooper presumed Mallory would still be in the department's second-floor offices, and he was. Everyone else had gone except one of the secretary's trio of assistants, the dapper Mr. Tidball, who was locking his desk as Cooper walked in.
"Good evening," Tidball said, tugging each of the desk drawers in turn. He then squared a pile of papers to align it with a corner. Tidball was a drone with no imagination, but with exceptional organizational skills. He complemented the other two members of the triumvirate — Commodore Forrest, a blustery old blue-water sailor who understood the ways of seamen, and Cooper, who served as an extension of Mallory's inventive nature. Those two men preferred "Let us try" over "Here's why we can't."
"He's been waiting for you," Tidball said with a nod at the inner office. Tidball left, and Cooper went in to find the secretary examining engineering drawings by the light of a lamp with a green glass shade. The wick flickered as the scented oil burned. The gas mantles were shut down, and the perimeter of the cluttered office was dark.
"Hallo, Cooper," Mallory said. He was a roly-poly man of fifty, born in Trinidad and reared mostly in Key West by an Irish mother and a Connecticut Yankee father. He had a tilted nose, plump cheeks, and bright blue eyes that often sparkled with excitement. He reminded Cooper of an English country squire.
"What luck?"
Cooper sneezed. "None. The design for the cradle and canister are good enough; the problem is the one we saw when we first examined the plans. A torpedo attached to driftwood will do one thing predictably — drift. Without guidance, it's as likely to blow a hole in Fort Sumter as it is to sink a Yankee. Most probably it would float around Charleston harbor for weeks or months, un-detonated and potentially dangerous. I'll put it all in my report."
"You recommend we forget about it?" The secretary looked extremely tired tonight, Cooper observed.
"Absolutely."
"Well, that's definitive, if nothing else. I appreciate your conducting the test."
"General Rains proved the value of torpedoes in land operations," Cooper said, sitting down in a hard chair. "The Yankees may think them inhuman, but they work. They'll work for us if we can find the proper means to deliver them to the target and make certain they fire."
"All true. But we're making precious little progress with them."
"The department's overtaxed, Stephen. Maybe we need a separate group to develop and test them on a systematic basis."
"A torpedo bureau?"
Cooper nodded. "Captain Maury would be an ideal man to head i
t."
"Excellent thought. Perhaps I can find funds —" Cooper sniffed and Mallory added, "You sound terrible."
"I have a cold, that's all."
Mallory received that skeptically. Perspiration glistened on Cooper's forehead. "Time for you to go home to a hot meal. Speaking of which, Angela remains determined to see you and Judith. When will you take supper with us?"
Cooper slumped farther down in the chair. "We've already refused three invitations from my brother. I'll have to satisfy that obligation first."
"I appreciate your industry, certainly. But you must take more time for yourself. You can't work every moment."
"Why not? I have debts to repay."
Mallory cleared his throat. "So be it. I have something else to show you, but it can wait till morning."
Cooper unbent his long body and stood. "Now will be fine." He circled the desk and peered into the soft oval of lamplight. The top drawing showed a curious vessel indicated as forty feet end to end. In the elevation, it reminded Cooper of an ordinary steam boiler, but in plan the bow and stern showed a pronounced taper, much like a cigar's. The vessel had two hatches, indicated on the elevation as only a few inches high.
"What the devil is it? Another submersible?" "Yes," Mallory said, pointing to a decorative ribbon in the lower right corner. Elaborate script within the ribbon spelled H. L. Hunley. "That's her name. The accompanying letter states that Mr. Hunley, a well-to-do sugar broker, was responsible for the concept and some of the first construction money. She was started at New Orleans. Her developers rushed her away to Mobile before the city fell. These gentlemen are finishing the job." He tapped a line beneath the ribbon: McClintock & Watson. Marine Engineers.
"They call her the fish ship," the secretary continued. "She's supposed to be watertight, capable of diving beneath an enemy vessel"— his hand swooped to illustrate "dragging a torpedo. The torpedo detonates when the fish ship is safe on the other side."
"Ah," Cooper said, "that's how she differs from David." The department had been laboring to develop a submersible for coast and harbor operations. The little torpedo vessel he had just mentioned carried her explosive charge in front, on a long bow boom. "That and her mode of attack. She is definitely designed to strike while submerged." David, though a submersible, was meant to operate on the surface when ramming with her boom.
An underwater boat wasn't a new idea, of course. A Connecticut man had invented one at the start of the Revolution. But few government officials, and certainly not the President, believed that the idea might have a current application. Its only proponents were Mallory and his little cadre of determined dreamers. Brunei would have understood this, Cooper thought. He would have understood us.
After a moment, he said, "Only testing will show us which design's the best, I suppose."
"Quite right. We must encourage completion of this craft. I intend to write the gentlemen in Mobile a warm and enthusiastic letter — and forward copies of all the correspondence to General Beauregard in Charleston. Now go home and get some rest." "But I'd like to see a little more of —" "In the morning. Go home. And be careful. I trust you've read about all the murders and street robberies lately." Cooper nodded, unsmiling. The times were dark with trouble. People were desperate. He bade Mallory good evening and trudged to Main Street, where he was lucky enough to pick up a hack at one of the hotels. It rattled up to Church Hill, where they had leased a small house at three times the peacetime price. Judith, a book in her lap, raised her head as he came in. Half in sympathy, half in annoyance, she said, "You look wretched."
"We splashed in the James all day. To no purpose."
"The torpedo —?"
"No good. Anything to eat?"
"Calf's liver. You wouldn't believe what it cost. I'm afraid it'll be cold and greasy. I expected you long before this."
"Oh, for God's sake, Judith — you know I have a lot of work."
"Even when you were trying to build Star of Carolina, you seldom stayed out this late. At least not every night. And when you came home, you smiled occasionally. Said something pleasant —"
"This is not a pleasant time or a pleasant world," he replied, cold and aloof suddenly. A droplet hung quivering on the end of his nose. He disposed of it with a slash of his soaked sleeve. "As Stephen says, it is no laughing matter to have the fate of the Confederacy in the hands of soldiers with swollen vanities in place of brains."
"Stephen." She snapped the book shut, held it with hands gone white. "That's all I ever hear from you — Stephen — unless you're cursing your sister."
"Where's Marie-Louise?"
"Where do you suppose she'd be at this hour? She's in bed. Cooper —"
"I don't want to argue." He turned away.
"But something's happened to you. You don't seem to have any feeling left for me, your daughter — for anything except that damned department."
One of his slender hands closed on the frame of the parlor door. He sniffed again, head lowered slightly. The way he gazed at her from under his eyebrows frightened her.
"Something did happen to me," he said softly. "My son drowned. Because of this war, my sister's greed, and your refusal to remain in Nassau. Now kindly let me alone so I can eat."
In the kitchen, seated near the cold stove, he cut into the liver, ate three bites, and threw the rest away. He went to their bedroom, lit the gas, and shut the door. After undressing, he piled two coverlets on, but still couldn't get warm.
Presently Judith came in. She undressed, put out the lamp, and climbed in beside him. He lay with his back to her, his face to the wall. She was careful not to touch him. He thought he heard her crying but didn't turn over. He fell asleep thinking of the drawings of the fish ship.
Once a week, Madeline repeated her invitation to dinner. Near the end of May, Judith finally prevailed on Cooper to stay away from the Navy Department for one evening. At four o'clock on the appointed day, he sent a message home saying he would be late. His hack didn't arrive on Marshall Street until half past eight.
In the spacious rooms on the top floor, the brothers embraced. "How are you, Cooper?" Orry smelled whiskey and was dismayed by the sight of his pale, disheveled guest.
"Very busy at the department." The reply made Judith frown.
"What sort of work goes on there?" Madeline asked as she led them in to the table set with lighted candles. She was anxious to serve the meal before it was ruined.
"We're engaged in the job of killing Yankees."
Orry started to laugh, then realized the remark was meant seriously. Judith stared at the floor, unable to conceal a look of distress. Madeline glanced at her husband as if to say, Is he drunk?
Murmuring a pretext — "May I help?" — Judith followed her hostess to the hot kitchen.
Madeline raised the lid of a steaming pot. "Can you conceive of greens selling for three and a half dollars a peck?"
The false cheer failed. Judith glanced at the closed door and said, "I must apologize for Cooper. He isn't himself."
Madeline replaced the lid and faced her sister-in-law. "Judith, the poor man acts like he's ready to explode. What's wrong?"
"He's working too hard — the way he did when Star of Carolina was on the verge of failure."
"Are you sure that's all it is?"
Judith avoided her eyes. "No. But I mustn't say anything. I promised I wouldn't. He'll tell you when he's ready."
Presently the four were seated with their food — the greens, a few potatoes sliced and fried, and the entree, a stringy saddle of lamb Madeline had purchased at one of the small farmers' markets springing up on the outskirts of the city. "Orry will pour claret, or water, if you prefer that. I refuse to serve that vile concoction of ground peanuts they're selling as coffee."
"They're selling a great many strange things," Judith said. "Pokeberry juice for writing ink —" She stopped as Cooper thrust his glass toward his brother. Orry poured it half full of claret, but Cooper didn't draw his hand back. The goblet sparkle
d in the candlelight. Orry cleared his throat and filled it full.
"Some —" Cooper gulped half of the claret, dribbling dark drops on his already-stained shirt bosom "— some in this town drink real coffee and write with real ink. Some can pay for those things." He stared at his brother. "Our sister, for one."
"Is that right?" Madeline said with forced lightness. Cooper's stare was sullen, his speech slurred. Something ugly was in the air.
"I'll grant you Ashton lives in a fine house," Orry said. "And on the few occasions when I've seen her on the street, she's always been handsomely dressed — Worth of Paris or something equivalent. I can't imagine how she affords it on Huntoon's salary. Most clerks in the government make a pittance."
Cooper drew a long, raspy breath. Judith clenched her hands beneath the table. The shout of a water seller reached them through open front windows, then the creak of his wagon. "I can tell you how they afford luxuries, Orry. They're profiteers."
Madeline's mouth formed a little o. Orry put down the fork with greens. "That's a serious accusation."
"I was on her ship, God damn it!"
"Dear," Judith began, "perhaps we'd better —"
"It's time they knew."
"What ship do you mean?" Orry said. "The blockade-runner that went down? The one you —?"
"Yes, I mean Water Witch. Ashton and her husband owned a substantial interest in it. The owners issued standing orders for the skipper to run the blockade at all hazards. We did, and I lost my son."
He shoved back hair hanging over his forehead, and in the midst of all the shocks, Madeline noticed for the first time that Cooper was going gray. "For Christ's sake, Orry, either pour the wine or pass it here."
Noticeably upset, Orry filled Cooper's glass again. "Who else knows about Ashton and James?"
"The other owners, I suppose. I never heard their names. The only man on the ship who seemed privy to the information was the skipper, Ballantyne, and he went down like —" Cooper's face wrenched. The memory was too hard to articulate.
