Ironclad

by Daniel Foster

  Maxwell began, “Admiral Cols—”

  “Is NOT my father!” Twitch shouted.

  Lieutenant Bartram was talking again, and he wasn’t helping anything by it. “That’s why you went after the dynamos,” he mused, almost to himself. “You thought that if Kearsarge became inoperable, but had not yet fired the Astra, the North Dakota would have no reason to kill us all. She would simply take our crew prisoner as insurrectionists, and then sink the Kearsarge, eliminating the evidence. Dear God, you thought you could end all of this singlehandedly, with no bloodshed.”

  Bartram shook his head. “I don’t know if that’s the most deluded, or the most arrogant thing I’ve ever heard. Did the Admiral even send you, or did you take this on yourself?”

  Commander Sharpe tried one last time. He voice was flat as Kansas. “Gunner’s Mate, you’re going to put your gun down, or so help me God, I’m going to kill you where you stand.”

  Twitch was breathing hard, but had recovered most of his poise. He still didn’t acknowledge Sharpe’s existence. “I don’t know what the end of all this insanity was supposed to be,” he said to Maxwell, “but I know you have to fire the Astra to make it work. I know what it does to people, I saw the prototype, so you’d damn well better believe me when I tell you that I’ll kill you right here before I let you fire it.”

  Sharpe was getting tenser and tenser, and redder and redder. He was going to shoot Twitch any second. Garret started babbling. “Please Twitch, just put the gun down. I understand what he means to you, and I know what you’re trying to do, but it won’t—”

  Maxwell’s expression flickered. He said to Twitch, “You were responsible for Petty Officer Roger’s death.”

  Twitch’s veneer of control splintered into a thousand pieces, peeling off of him like sycamore bark. Guilt and pain flashed across his face, and his hand became unsteady.

  “I…” Twitch began, his face blotchy as if he were going to throw up. “I don’t understand what happened. It never should have… The crosslink shouldn’t have hurt anyone.”

  Garret’s heart sank further. If Twitch truly was the saboteur, then that meant he had killed Rogers, unintentionally of course, but he had taken the man’s life none the less. That’s what’s been eating at him, Garret thought. Twitch could be bossy and anal, especially when they were running Nancy, but they put up with it because he loved his shipmates more than anything.

  If Twitch had inadvertently killed one of the very crewmen he was trying to save, it would destroy him from the inside out. Apparently, it had been doing exactly that. Twitch had been trying to figure out what was going on, and whether or not he could trust Maxwell, all for one purpose: he was trying to keep everyone aboard the Kearsarge alive. He had shouldered responsibility for the lives of every man on the ship.

  Twitch fought for control, but he was beyond it now. He struggled not to break down, but failed. His whole body began to shake. Maxwell was still as stone behind the desk, but he too was unmasked.

  “Are you then also the one who killed my family?” Maxwell asked.

  Garret thought his lungs had seized up. Commander Sharpe’s face went white. Forgetting his duty, forgetting everything, Sharpe turned a horrified look at Maxwell. “Helen… and Lilly Anne? They’re dead?”

  Maxwell had become all the more menacing for his absolute stillness.

  “You killed my daughter,” Maxwell said, his chest rising and falling in carefully controlled breaths. “My little Lilly Anne. She was five years old. You killed my wife, the best, most wholesome person the Almighty ever put on this earth.”

  Twitch was shaking, white as a sheet. “Wh-what?” he croaked.

  “Did you set the explosives?” Maxwell asked.

  Twitch nodded, quivering from head to toe. “It was just meant to destroy the documents in that Tin Lizzy. They promised me there wouldn’t be anyone around.”

  “There wasn’t,” Maxwell said. “Until my wife took my little Lilly Anne out the back way to calm her down.”

  Twitch almost collapsed. Garret took a step to catch him.

  “Stay back, Garret,” Twitch yelled, but didn’t point the gun at him. Garret pulled up short and raised his hands. He was starting to shake too.

  Garret wasn’t as surprised as he would have liked to be. The other guys had tried to warn him. Velvet had told them that he’d heard rumors that Twitch had killed someone, though on accident, and he’d been demoted because of it. Garret had berated and belittled them all for their willingness to consider such an accusation. According to Velvet, Twitch had been one of the youngest men to reach the rank of lieutenant in the US Navy. Apparently, it was all true.

  “Please Twitch, stop,” Garret begged. “If you shoot him, they’ll kill you. I can’t—” Garret shook his head, squeezing his eyes tight. “Please, please, please don’t…”

  “You’ve killed one of your own crewmates,” Maxwell seethed. “You killed my wife, and you killed my baby.”

  “You can’t fire the Astra!” Twitch screamed. “You can’t do that to the world! Men can’t be made to think it’s okay to live that way! There would be no end to what you would start! People have to take responsibility!” Twitch broke down sobbing. “I’m sorry,” he said, while still pointing the gun at Maxwell. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt anyone. I’m so sorry…”

  Maxwell was still raging, but quietly. He remained behind his desk. He hadn’t even stood up. Garret certainly would have.

  “That’s the problem with thinking you know better than everyone else, Gunner’s Mate,” Maxwell said quietly. “The innocent pay the price. Every time.”

  W

  Commander Sharpe was reeling on the inside. He struggled to stay in the present, to stay focused on protecting his captain, but he couldn’t. He kept feeling Helen’s touch on his arm the last time he came to eat dinner with Maxwell’s family. He tried to blink away the memories of Helen laughing and kissing Maxwell on the cheek; the peace that filled Maxwell’s weary face whenever she entered the room; the tiny, delicate weight of baby Lilly Anne in Andrew’s arms, and the pride he felt at being allowed to hold the most precious thing in his Captain’s life.

  They were both dead.

  Dead.

  Andrew wanted to hate the Gunner’s Mate. He tried to hate him, but he couldn’t. Twitch was Captain Maxwell, all over again. But unlike Maxwell, Twitch had had no one to care for him. Andrew at last understood Twitch’s smartassery and his insubordination, coupled with his insane dedication to duty. Twitch had tried as hard as he could, but no one had helped him. No one had shown him the way, including Andrew. The Admiral had discarded him. Maxwell had denied him, and frankly, as far as the Astra was concerned, Andrew was half convinced that Twitch had been right all along.

  Twitch was looking at the Astra’s potential in the darkest possible way, as though there was no cause for hope left in the world. While that view might not be completely realistic, the world powers were engaged in the largest naval race of all time, and if Twitch was even half right, use of the Astra could set humanity on an even darker course—a doomsday-weapons race—if such a thing were possible.

  Andrew managed to keep his pistol trained on Twitch, but it was difficult.

  The Captain’s steward was still standing there holding his hands in the air as if someone was pointing a weapon at him, even though he was the only one in the room who probably wasn’t going to get shot. He looked frightened and sick. Now he was babbling.

  “Please, please, Twitch. Please put the gun down. I can’t do this again.”

  Andrew had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

  Twitch wasn’t paying attention to either of them. “Say it!” Twitch screamed at Captain Maxwell. “You know who my father is! At least give me that!”

  Andrew should have realized it the first time he’d met Twitch. Twitch and Captain Maxwell had the same presence, the same drive and determination. They had the same razor-edged minds. Twitc
h must have gotten his hair from his mother, but when Captain Maxwell was young, his face would undoubtedly have looked very much like Twitch’s face did at that moment.

  More than any of that, Twitch and Maxwell had the same dauntless spirit. Together, they had taken down the most powerful battleship in the world with the old Kearsarge. Separately, they could do amazing things, but together as father and son, Andrew couldn’t imagine what they could accomplish.

  Vilner was losing his mind. He pleaded with his friend, cajoling, begging, wheedling as if his own life depended on it. “Please Twitch, please put the gun down!”

  Vilner was losing his mind because he knew the same thing that Andrew knew. Twitch wasn’t going to put down the gun. Maxwell’s accusations and the horrible truth they’d revealed had broken Twitch’s heart, but not his resolve. Conversely, Twitch knew now that Captain Maxwell would not abort the mission. Maxwell would use the Astra, no matter what. In Twitch’s mind, that was the point of no return.

  And that meant Twitch was going to kill Maxwell if Andrew didn’t kill him first.

  Tears ran down Vilner’s face. “Please, Twitch you have to stop. Think about the guys. None of us want you to die.”

  Vilner shook his head. His shoulders hung, even his ribs seemed to sag beneath his uniform as if he was an hourglass, and the last of the sand was draining from him. Vilner suddenly began to cough, chesty, painful-sounding barks, as if he had something lodged in his lung. Through it, he said, “Please Twitch… you’re my friend.”

  “You have until the count of three to give the order to turn this ship around,” Twitch said to Captain Maxwell. “One…”

  Vilner began to sob like a child. As he did so, a simple truth dawned on Andrew. It was fresh and horrible as a newly broken bone. At long last, Andrew had fulfilled his orders and discovered the answer to Maxwell’s question. Andrew understood why every enlisted man had come aboard the Kearsarge. The answer was in Vilner’s tears. It was also in Twitch’s shaking hands.

  It was as Captain Maxwell had said: each of them had come from a thousand miles away, leaving everything they knew and loved, for a single reason. Andrew finally knew what it was. In the moment Andrew saw that truth, part of him died.

  “Two…” Twitch said, putting pressure on the trigger.

  Andrew shot Gunner’s Mate Emery “Twitch” Maxwell through the heart.

  W

  Garret knew he was going to have to tackle Twitch. There was no other choice now. Twitch had been applying pressure to the trigger since he’d come through the door, ready at an instant’s notice to do whatever his duty required of him. If Garret tackled him now, he’d undoubtedly shoot, but—

  Garret heard Commander Sharpe’s gun go off. It seemed to reverberate in the small room, as if the sound echoed itself. Not since he was a toddler had he jumped at the sound of a firearm, but now it rocked him to the core.

  Twitch took a step back. A dark red stain began to spread over his heart.

  A sound came out of Garret’s throat that he didn’t recognize. He leaped to catch Twitch. Twitch’s fall seemed to happen in slow motion, his hand going slack on the gun, his eyes widening, his legs slowly folding, and yet Garret was even slower. He couldn’t catch Twitch before he hit the deck.

  Garret whimpered as he tried to gather Twitch up. Twitch’s right hand, the one that hadn’t held the gun, was groping the floor vainly. Garret grabbed his hand and held it tight. With the other, he pulled Twitch’s shoulders up against his own chest and wrapped his arms around him.

  Maxwell had drawn near, an inscrutably hollow look on his face. He reached out.

  “Get away!” Garret screamed at him, kicking backwards across the floor to drag himself and Twitch away from the Captain.

  It would have been fitting for Twitch to say something. Some word of hatred or condemnation, or even of hope. Of all people, Twitch deserved to say some last words, but instead he was silent. Garret hugged him tightly. Twitch gripped Garret’s hand, but he said nothing. Now he wasn’t looking at Garret. He was looking out the porthole, into the Atlantic sky.

  In his last moments, Twitch’s expression became one of confusion, then it became that of a lost boy, despairing of being found again. In the last instant, there was a flicker of pain. Then Twitch gave up his spirit. His hand loosened in Garret’s.

  Garret clung to Twitch. Garret did not cry. He just held him tightly, rocked back and forth, and stared at the floor.

  Commander Sharpe sat nearby on the deck, his legs splayed out in front of him, his back against the bookshelf cabinet, the gun laying by his hand. His cover was gone somewhere. He stared blankly at the dead boy.

  Garret whimpered as he rocked back and forth. He couldn’t seem to stop. He’d heard the sound before, though not from himself. He’d heard it from Molly on the night Charity died. Molly had made the same sound as they all laid in the floor of the church and Molly held her dead sister and wet her face with her tears. Garret now understood why Molly was so afraid to lose Garret, and he understood what he had done to her by leaving.

  Garret put his head on Twitch’s shoulder and hugged him, trying to keep Twitch’s dead body warm so that the coldness of death might not find his soul, wherever it had gone.

  W

  The next day started as if nothing had happened. As though Twitch wasn’t dead. As if he hadn’t been snuffed out as easily as a cigarette that no one wanted anymore. Garret didn’t want to do his duties, but he had worked all his life, since he was old enough to hold a hammer. He was hollow inside, but his hands kept moving, doing whatever an officer told them to do, as if even his own body had become someone else’s to command.

  Garret wasn’t sad or angry or anything. He felt nothing, as if his feelings had laid down and died with Twitch. Garret didn’t know where the rest of his friends were, the few of them who still lived. Most likely, they had been conscripted into slave labor somewhere else on this Ship of the Damned.

  But at the moment, at least, Garret wasn’t working. He was leaning on the handle of this holystone. Most of the work on the forecastle had stopped, for a bird.

  A few of the boys were talking or pointing at it, but most were just watching, like Garret.

  There above them, perched on the tip of one of the eight inch barrels, was a red-winged blackbird.

  “How did it get all the way out here?” Garret heard someone ask. No one had any idea. As far as Garret knew, there was nothing but open water for a thousand miles around them. It sparkled in the sun, all the way to where the earth rounded into the endless curve of the horizon. Even sea birds were rare this far from land, to say nothing of a land bird that Garret saw occasionally in the Appalachian hills.

  Garret watched it, mutely. Emptily.

  Garret had always liked red-winged blackbirds, though he didn’t see them often in the Appalachians. They were jet black and glossy, except for their shoulder patches. Atop each wing, they carried a brilliant red patch of feathers, underlined with a stripe of yellow. Unlike most birds in the Appalachian hills, a red-winged blackbird’s colors weren’t dusky or washed out. Their bodies were black as ebony, and the red and yellow of their shoulder patches were redder than blood, and bright as the noonday sun.

  When one of them would perch on a branch outside Garret’s window, or land on the sill of his shop’s window, it seemed a momentary touch of something exotic in a world that was often grey and dull.

  I never told Molly how much I like them, he thought.

  The red-winged blackbird preened its breast.

  Garret became aware of someone beside him. A week ago he might have snapped to attention, or quickly resumed work for fear of punishment for lollygagging. Now he couldn’t care less. He just leaned on his holystone without even bothering to look at the person near him.

  “You know,” said Chief Greely, “the old salts say that seagulls carry the spirits of sailors who’ve died at sea.”

  Garret swallowed. The older man’s
rough voice was comforting, like a scratchy, but warm, wool blanket.

  “But I think for your friend,” Greely said, “only a bird like that would do.”

  Greely squeezed Garret’s shoulder and walked away.

  The bird took flight into the morning.

  Chapter 23

  June 15th, 1914. Thirteen days to Vidovdan

  Garret felt hollow in heart, mind, and maybe body as well. He missed Theo and Curtis and Charlie and Twitch so bad that it ached like a headful of broken teeth. Garret was walking back to his hammock, though it was still early. His remaining friends were playing checkers on the stern deck, trying to get their minds on something else.

  Garret was in a foul spirit, and thus had made the poor choice of just wanting to be alone with his misery. He slogged up a ship’s ladder from the protected deck. As he turned a corner, his ear caught a sound to which it was particularly attuned.

  It was the sound of grief. His human ears hadn’t caught it, but his wolf ears had, even though he’d thought he was keeping the wolf deep asleep. The sound was being made by one his friends. That was why he had heard it. The wolf always awakened to protect friend or family. For that one service, at least, he could not bring himself to hate it.

  It didn’t take long to find the source of the sound, or why it had caught his attention. It was Fishy, curled up behind a pile of crates. They were covered with a tarp and lashed to a bulkhead. They were potato crates, and they smelled of the musk of rich earth.

  Behind them, sandwiched against the bulkhead that formed Kearsarge’s flank, Fishy cried for his brother, but he was not alone. Bert, the mangy, brain-damaged, dumber-than-a-rock cat was in his lap. Fishy was holding the bizarre little animal, but he wasn’t constraining it. Bert was there of his own free will. He wasn’t purring, but he slowly rubbed his head on Fishy’s neck as Fishy cradled him. Fishy cried and cried into the cat’s marmalade fur, but Bert made no protest. He stayed there, gently rubbing his head on the grieving boy, and curling the end of his tail back and forth around Fishy’s wrist.