Bowater considered the request. He didn’t like Taylor, but the engineer’s perceptions that night had impressed him. Besides, Taylor had a wolflike, all but feral look in his eyes that his casual stance could not disguise. Bowater suspected the man would be good in a fight. “Very well. Arm yourself as you will.”
Bowater dashed back into the wheelhouse, grabbed the pull for the engine-room bell, rang up half ahead. “I’ll take this,” he said to the helmsman, pushing him aside and taking up the wheel. Tight maneuvering in a small vessel—it was easier for him to do it himself than to give helm commands.
He swung the Cape Fear’s bow off, headed her right for the granite breakwater. The shipyard was in flames from one end to the other, and some of it was lit as if it was noon and some was in shadow. The edge of the seawall made a sharp line where the yard met the river.
Samuel spun the wheel and the Cape Fear heeled into the turn and he rang for engine stop. It was a heady sensation to feel the tug move under his hands, feel the strong boat respond to his hand on the wheel, his hand on the engine-room bell.
The bow swung past the seawall, and Bowater rang engines astern and with a twist of the wheel brought the eighty-foot tug against the granite pier.
One jingle, all stop, and he felt the tug settle down as the screw ceased its thrashing. He leaned out the wheelhouse door. The fire had taken over the ship houses and engulfed them, the flames already reaching hundreds of feet in the air. There was a great roaring sound, the sound of rushing air, as the fires consumed everything: wood, stone, metal, the air itself.
Eustis Babcock was ashore with the forward fast, and he was directing the others to stern and spring lines.
Samuel Bowater took a deep breath, took in smoke and the swell of burning wood and paint and the coal smoke from his own boilers. He felt the excitement rush through him. He thought of how the fire had raced over and consumed Merrimack. That was it exactly. He felt strong, charged, with a head up steam, alive, as he had not felt in years. He was Rip Van Winkle. He was experiencing his own personal Great Awakening.
He turned, raced down the ladder to the side deck, nearly colliding with Thadeous Harwell.
“Sir, shore party is told off and assembled on the fantail, sir,” he said. Harwell could hardly contain his excitement, and it reminded Bowater to get control of his own.
“Well done, Lieutenant. Now see here, you are in command while I am gone. You are to concern yourself with the safety of the vessel above all else, even if it means casting off and leaving us, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Bowater regarded the young man for a moment, saw himself with the guns of Veracruz firing in the distance. He felt sorry for him. “Your chance will come, Mr. Harwell.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Bowater gave him a slap on the shoulder, hurried down the side deck. There on the fantail was Hieronymus Taylor. He had shed his coat and now his braces made two dark lines across his stained white shirt. He held his cigar clamped in his teeth, and on one shoulder rested a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun.
The rest of the party was assembled, with cutlasses hanging from belts and rugged sea-service carbines in their hands. And there was Jacob, who had been though this drill many times, waiting with sword belt, sword, and pistol.
Eustis Babcock was back aboard. He had his back toward Samuel, staring out over the water, and then he turned and Bowater could see tears streaming down his deep-lined cheeks.
“Mr. Babcock?”
“It’s the Merrimack, sir. The dear old Merrimack. Look what them Yankee bastards done to her, sir, just look!”
Bowater nodded. Ten years as boatswain aboard that ship, Babcock would love her as much as he loved his home state. He might as well have been watching Mobile burn.
“Well, let us go and make them pay for this,” Bowater said, a silly, shallow platitude that disgusted him even as he said it. But Babcock nodded and wiped his cheeks with his sleeve. Looked more like a boy in a sailor suit than the grizzled veteran that he was. The words seemed to have bolstered him.
Sailors and their damned sentimental… Bowater thought, and turned his attention back to the rest of the shore party.
“Listen here, men…stick close by me when we’re ashore…” He raised his arms and let Jacob wrap the belt around his waist and buckle it. “We’ll…” He was not sure what else to say. He did not know what they were going to do. Instead he pulled his pistol from its holster, his own personal.36-caliber Navy Colt, a present from his father. It gleamed in the light of the fires onshore, and the engraved vines that twisted around the sides of the weapon stood out bold and the ivory handle glowed orange. He spun the cylinder, checked the caps, reholstered it.
“Let’s go.”
He turned and stepped up onto the tug’s rail and jumped the five feet to the cobbled yard below. The heat was overwhelming, even from that distance, like standing in front of an oven. One by one the men dropped to the ground beside him.
He turned and counted. The shore party was all there. He marched off toward the burning ship houses, because that seemed the focal point of the growing destruction. He wondered if the yard was still in Federal hands, or if the Confederates had come over the wall. He wondered if they might be shot by their own side.
“Don’t see how hell could be much diff’r’nt than this,” Taylor remarked, stepping up to Bowater’s side. “Reckon we’ll find out, soon enough.”
Hell, indeed, Bowater thought. The fire could be measured in square acres now, and the buildings were mere ghostly outlines in the center of the flames. Fire reached hundreds of feet in the air, arching over in the light breeze, dancing and swirling like yellow-and-red dragons. And under it all, a low and steady roar and the crash of structures collapsing as they burned through.
Fifty yards away, black against the flames, a knot of men moved toward them. Bowater’s hand reached under the wide flap of his holster, pulled his Colt, cocked the hammer back in a motion as familiar as pulling his watch.
“Hold up!” Bowater held up his hand, and the men behind him stopped.
The approaching men grew closer, and as they drew away from the flames Bowater could see the dark blue frock coats and the sky-blue trousers of United States Marines.
“Keep your mouths shut. Don’t do anything unless I tell you to.”
The marines came on at the double quick, rifles held against chests, and then they noticed the band from the Cape Fear. Bowater saw the lieutenant redirect his men.
Brass it out…have to brass it out with this type…
“Lieutenant!” Bowater called in his best quarterdeck voice. “What are you men still doing here? Report!”
The marine lieutenant stopped, and Bowater saw his eyes move up and down his uniform, but the frock coat he wore was the same one he had worn in the Union navy, the same worn by naval officers everywhere, and it did not give Bowater’s secret away.
“We were detailed to protect the men blowing the dry dock, sir.”
“Good. You are the detail I was looking for. Get down to the ordnance building, there, there,” Bowater pointed, “and cover the boat tied up at the seawall. We’ll see to the dry dock and get the men out.”
The lieutenant hesitated. He began to say something, a protest forming, but marines did not protest, it was not a part of them, so finally he said, “Yes, sir!” and led his detail away.
Bowater watched them go, watched the smoke swallow them up, then said, “Come on, men!” and led his people off at a jog.
Blowing the dry dock. That was what the man said.
Samuel knew Gosport, he had been to the naval yard often enough. The dry dock was the most valuable thing there. If the Yankees managed to burn every last inch of the yard, it would still be a godsend to the Confederate Navy if the dry dock was saved.