The disadvantage, of course, was that this cabin and everything in it would likely be reduced to kindling when the iron started to fly.
“Very good, Lieutenant. Jacob, stow my gear away. Mr. Harwell, let us see if the men are assembled.”
Bowater led the way aft. They came around the corner of the deckhouse and found the ship’s company, all twenty of them, standing at attention by division and department. After years aboard USS Pensacola, with her crew of more than five hundred, it was not an inspiring sight.
The Cape Fears’ uniforms were generally clean and in good repair. Most of the men wore the pullover bibbed wool shirt, loose-tied neckerchief, and flat cloth cap that were the standard dress of sailors the world over. They wore trousers that were tight at the waist and flared out at the feet to pool on the deck in a wide bunch of cloth, the descendants of the slop trousers worn by sailors of the last age. Half of the men had shoes.
The loose-fitting clothing gave the seamen a rangy, casual look, a look that was both military and subtly insubordinate, all at the same time. The clothes seemed to imply a relaxed discipline and at the same time something much more important: professionalism, dedication to the mariners’ arts. The clothes were the unconscious reflection of the sailors’ mind; they said the men who wore them would take their sailoring, their ship, and their fellow seamen seriously, and all and anyone else could go to the devil. It was a look and an attitude that Samuel had come to respect.
If their style of dress was similar, the colors were not. Some were outfitted in cadet gray, some in blue, uniforms they took with them from the old United States Navy when they went south. Some had black, some had combinations of all three.
Some—the landsmen—looked as if they had just left the farm.
“Mr. Harwell, please show me your master’s division,” Samuel said with military formality.
“Aye, aye, sir!” Harwell led the way, six feet to where the ten men of the master’s division were formed up. They were the seamen, the ones who worked the ship when underway. They were nominally under the charge of the master, though the tiny Cape Fear was without such a warrant.
“Captain, this is Eustis Babcock, boatswain.” Babcock stiffened, said, “Suh.” Faded blue uniform, with dark patches where Federal insignia once were sewn, salt-and-pepper beard, face tanned and lined, he looked every inch the old salt.
“Babcock,” Bowater said. “Are you old navy?”
“Oh, aye, sir. Twenty-six years. Boatswain aboard Merrimack for the last ten, when all this present goings-on begun, sir. Bid adieu to them Yankees and come south when dear Alabama left the Union.”
Bowater nodded. “I was second lieutenant aboard USS Pensacola. Reckon we’ve both taken a step down in our accommodations.”
“I reckon, sir. But I sure do admire having some damn thing worth fighting for.”
Samuel smiled. He was pleased to have men like Babcock under his command, men who formed the backbone of any real navy. “I agree, Boatswain. I look forward to serving with you.”
“Suh.”
They moved down the line, but Harwell did not bother introducing the other sailors and landsmen. There would be time later for names and assessment of each man’s ability.
They came at last to the single black man in the master’s division. He was wearing gray pants with a jaunty black stripe down each leg, a frock coat which, if old, was still in fine shape, a bow tie, and a derby.
“This here is Johnny St. Laurent. Cook,” Harwell said. The luff’s tone was odd, part exasperation, part resignation.
“Good day, mon capitaine,” St. Laurent said, and his accent was an odd mix of Southern black and Parisian French.
“Bonjour. Where are you from?”
“New Orleans, sir.”
“Were you a cook in New Orleans?”
“No, sir, I was a chef. A chef at the Chateau Dupre Hotel.”
“How did you get here?”
“I come with Monsieur Taylor, sir.”
Bowater glanced over at Hieronymus Taylor. The engineer was standing at something like attention, staring out over the water, his now-lit cigar waggling as he chewed on the end and puffed smoke like a steam engine. There was a story there, he imagined, but too much curiosity about the men was not a proper trait for a captain.
“I consider a clean galley to be of the highest priority, St. Laurent. I expect you to keep it thus. If you need help, speak to Mr. Harwell and he will see you get it.”
“Merci, sir. Chief Taylor, he allow me some of ze engine-room niggers, when I need help, sir.”
Bowater nodded. “Very good.”
That was the end of the master’s division, so Bowater took two steps down the deck until he was standing in front of First Assistant Engineer Taylor. “Very well, Mr. Taylor, you may report.”
“Well, suh, this here’s the engineering division. The firemen first class are Mr. Ian O’Malley from Belfast. He is of Hibernian descent,” Taylor added in a loud whisper. “Mr. James Burgess of Aberdeen, who ain’t been known to speak three words consecutive. The Negroes is the coal heavers. They have the singular advantage of not appearing dirty, though devil take me if I can find ’em when they’re hiding in the coal bunkers.”
Bowater held Taylor’s eyes, did not acknowledge his attempt at humor. He shifted his gaze, looked over the engineering division. They were the same men he had seen in every engine room aboard every ship he had sailed. “Very well. Carry on.”
Fifty hours…
Hieronymus Taylor slumped on his stool and leaned against the forward bulkhead of the engine room, disassembling a recalcitrant gauge with a small screwdriver. He pictured in his mind the chart, Cape Fear to Cape Charles. They had been steaming fifty hours now. That should put them into the Chesapeake Bay.
Now, from his place on the stool, Taylor could feel the motion of the ship change, the slow roll of the ocean swells give way to a shorter, faster pitch, and he guessed that they were finally inside the Capes.
“Missa Taylor?”
Hieronymus looked up. Moses was leaning on his coal shovel. “What?”
“We gots the fire going nice an hot. You wants us to clean up here, or sommin’?”
“Clean up what?”
Moses shrugged. “I dunno. Clean de deck plates, mop her up. Make her look good, fo’ de new cap’n an all.”
Taylor scowled, looked around. “Where the hell is O’Malley? Ain’t it his watch?”
“Reckon it too hot down here for dat Irishman. I thinks he’s havin a smoke, topside.”
Taylor pulled his shirt away from his chest. It was intolerably hot, by most normal standards. But with the sun set and the engine running at cruising speed, the engine room was not much above one hundred degrees, and for any veteran of an engineering division, that hardly constituted hot.
“Well?” Moses asked.
“‘Well, sir.’”
“Well, suh?”
“Well what?”
“You want us to mop de deck?”
“Why?”
“Case de cap’n come down here agin.”
“Devil take the captain.” Bowater had made his inspection of the ship soon after muster. He had looked around the engine room, found not one thing wrong, because Hieronymus M. Taylor made sure there was nothing wrong to be found. That perfection had earned only a nod, and a “Very good. Carry on, Chief” from the Academy stiff.
“You think I need to mop the deck to impress his lordship? Ain’t a goddamned thing wrong with the deck. Lookee here…” Taylor fished a chunk of bread from the pocket of his coat, hung beside him on a hook. “Lookee here.” He dropped the bread on the deck, got down on his hands and knees, and grabbed the bread in his teeth.