The Yazoo River sheered off, her bow turning from her intended target, her chance to ram the side-wheeler gone. Bowater watched with some irritation as Manassas raced forward. The Mississippi was firing wildly, blasting away, like a man frantically slapping at bees, but her guns could not be depressed enough to hit either ironclad.
Hit them, hit them, hit them… Bowater thought as he watched the whale-shaped former tug charging the big side-wheeler. He could see it all, in shades of orange and black, the man-of-war pushing hard upstream, the half-submerged ram racing for her side.
And then the Manassas struck. The Mississippi rolled hard to starboard with the impact, her paddle wheel thrashing as it lifted out of the water. The current swept Manassas past; Bowater could see the gaping hole the ironclad had ripped in the big ship’s side. The Mississippi rolled back on an even keel, a great bear baited by dogs, and as she did she fired her broadside, the flash of her eight-inch guns dancing off Manassas’s wet sides.
Bowater felt the deck jerk underfoot as a shell entered one of the Yazoo River ’s gunports and exploded. The dark gundeck below the pilothouse was filled with brilliant light for just a fraction of a second, the already noisy place filled with the blast of exploding powder, the shriek of flying metal.
Jonathan Paine watched Theodore Wilson as Theodore Wilson watched the battle through the wheelhouse window. The Abigail Wilson was making turns for slow astern, holding her place in the river, half a mile upstream from Fort St. Philip.
Wilson said he wanted to think about his strategy. Wilson was afraid, Jonathan Paine knew it.
Wilson did not know that he had less than sixty seconds to either steam ahead or die. Less than sixty seconds to grab on to the bell rope for the engine room and ring up full speed ahead before Jonathan would pull his pistol—a.44 Adams and Deane he had retrieved from Paine Plantation—and shoot him in the head.
Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five…
Wilson had been all bluff talk steaming downriver, but his bravado had begun to waver when the sounds of the gunfire mounted, the flash of the ordnance became visible over the low-lying marsh. Now he toyed with the bell rope, twisted it in his fingers, stared downstream.
Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty…
It was a mesmerizing sight, the big ships moving through the clouds of smoke, half hidden, lit up orange with the flash of guns, the smaller Confederate vessels thrashing around in a disorganized attack. Jonathan understood the effect that such a scene could have. He recalled looking down the slope of Henry House Hill, watching the chaos of battle, wondering how he could ever plunge into it himself.
But he had done so, and the fear of it was gone, and though he understood Wilson’s trepidation, he had little time for it. He did not doubt that his father was there, somewhere in that maelstrom. Nothing would prevent Jonathan’s finding him. There was no time to waste. Less than thirty seconds, in fact.
Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three…
“The thing of it is, I’m not quite sure what we should do…” Wilson broke the uncomfortable silence. “I had hoped to get here in time to meet with the commanding officer, get orders from him. Now…?”
“Time for orders is gone, I reckon,” Jonathan said. He did not much care what Wilson decided to do. He figured he would have to shoot him at some point, and hold the pilot and helmsman at gunpoint, in order to use the Abigail Wilson to locate Robley Paine. “Looks to me like it’s every man for himself, those boats getting in where they can hit the hardest.”
Wilson nodded, considered the strategic situation.
Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five…
“All right, damn it!” Wilson said with finality. “Let’s go!” He rang the bell, three bells, full ahead. He grinned with the relief of having made a decision. Jonathan took his hand from the butt of the.44.
With turns ahead and the swift-moving current, the Abigail Wilson surged forward, steaming from the anonymity of the dark river into the fire and the light. A quarter mile from that stretch of river where Forts St. Philip and Jackson covered the water with their withering crossfire, where the big Yankee ships were struggling through the smoke, blind, firing away, where the Confederates swarmed like feral dogs, biting, dodging, biting again.
Wilson stepped out of the wheelhouse and Jonathan followed behind. Down below on the foredeck, the men were gathered around the old six-pounder smoothbore.
My gun… Jonathan thought with some amusement. Wilson had been careful to tell him that, to ask permission to put it aboard the tug. As if Jonathan Paine could care about such a thing, as if he could ever wish to own, or even see, a cannon.
“Here we go, boys!” Wilson shouted to the gun crew, his voice a little too loud, a little too exuberant.
Bobby was standing back some from the bow, leaning on the rail, keeping out of the way, ready to jump in and help, the way he always was. The flash of gunfire lit his dark skin. Like the others, his face was turned to Wilson, but his eyes shifted, met Jonathan’s. Jonathan gave him a little wave and Bobby gave a half-smile and waved back.
The men at the six-pounder cheered, waved their hats. Jonathan knew where they were at, in their heads, knew the blood lust and the apparent insanity that made men willing, even desire, to charge into such a fight. He did not feel it himself. Nor did he feel fear, or anger, or hatred of the Yankees, or much of anything at all, beyond a profound need to look into his father’s living eyes, at least one more time.
Then they were there, like steaming into a hurricane, right in the middle of the gunfire. The shells screamed over their low deck and wheelhouse, the smoke embraced them so that everything beyond the Abigail Wilson’s bow became dull and indistinct. The fires and the muzzle flashes lit the smoke from within. The guns were deafening.
Dead ahead of them loomed one of the big Yankee ships, a ghost ship in the smoke, and the Wilson’s gun crew fired at its dull outline. The six-pounder sounded puny against the backdrop of serious artillery. There was no way to know if they had hit the Yankee, or if they did, whether their shot had done any damage.
A tug emerged from the smoke astern, passed close, the Confederate flag snapping at the ensign staff, a raft of some sort made off to the bow. One hundred feet beyond the Wilson and the raft burst into flames, lighting up the tug and the big Yankee for which she was steaming.
Fire raft! Jonathan thought. He had heard of such things. The idea went back to Sir Francis Drake, and further. He watched, fascinated. The tug looked for all the world as if she was on fire, with the mounting flames of the raft sweeping back toward her, and Jonathan figured if she was not, she soon would be.
The Yankee was turning, trying to avoid the threat, but the big ship could not outmaneuver the smaller tug. The flames on the raft cut through the smoke, illuminated the tug and her target.
The fire raft slammed into the Yankee, the impact making the flames leap high, catching the Yankee ship’s rigging, sweeping along her painted sides. She was engulfed. Jonathan could not see how she could avoid burning to the waterline.
The tug backed off, leaving the raft against the Union ship’s side, turned hard, making her escape. But the flames had not distracted the Yankee gunners. From the ship’s side, ten guns opened up, point-blank range, ripping the tug to pieces. The wheelhouse and deckhouse were shattered, the boat slewed around as the helmsman was killed, the steering gear wrecked. She turned a half circle and began to settle fast, water pouring in through some unseen rent aft. She listed to starboard, her bow lifted from the river.