It was a minute at least before Hieronymus Taylor could open his eyes and wipe the tears from them enough that he could see. What he saw, not surprisingly, was Ian O’Malley, staring hatred at him.
“Do ya think it’s bloody funny? A man burns himself, acting on your rutting orders?”
“O’Malley, you stupid bastard. Every coal heaver been on the job a week knows you don’t wear pants with goddamned steel buttons. Burn your pecker clean off, if you got one. Where the hell did you get your papers?”
“Shut yer bloody gob, you bastard, I’ll do for you.”
Taylor stood, spread his arms in a sign of welcome. “I’m waiting…” he said, but O’Malley just stared and said nothing.
“That’s what I reckoned,” said Taylor. “Now go and put some engineering pants on and get your ass back here. We got a war to fight, in case you ain’t been informed.”
“Chief?” Johnny St. Laurent called down the fidley. “Boat’s puttin off, Chief!”
“Thank you, Johnny.” O’Malley forgotten, Taylor climbed up the ladder and onto the side deck, walked quickly around to the fantail. He could see the boat pulling for them, brilliant white on the blue water. In it, the hands he had sent ashore. And one he had not.
He waited impatiently, glanced up at the wheelhouse, but neither Bowater nor Harwell was to be seen. He drummed his fingers on the cap rail. At last the boat pulled alongside and the sailor in the stern sheets called, “Toss oars!” and the boat came to a gentle stop at the Cape Fear ’s starboard quarter.
One by one the men hopped out. Taylor met Wendy’s eyes, gave her a quick wink, then paid her no more attention. He resisted helping her out of the boat, and she managed well enough without his help, despite an obvious unfamiliarity with watercraft.
The bowman pushed the boat off, and Taylor was able to get a better look at her. She was dressed in sailor garb, the wide-bottomed trousers, loose-fitting frock, and wide-brimmed straw hat; the uniform of men-of-war men the world over. She looked like a kid playing dress-up.
“Come on,” Taylor said, led her forward and then down the fidley ladder to the engine room. It was only there, in his fiefdom, that he finally felt safe to turn and look at her directly, and address more than two words to her.
“Everything go all right?” he asked.
“Perfect!” she said low. He could see she was thrilled by the adventure of the thing. They had been planning it for weeks, had put all the elements in place. Taylor had needed only to hear that they were going into battle. He was beginning to think it would never happen. And then, that morning, Bowater had informed him of their orders. Johnny St. Laurent was dispatched to town with a confidential message, on the pretext of buying fresh galley stores, a mission that Bowater the gourmand, who adored all that hoity-toity slop, would never refuse or question.
“Welcome to my little kingdom! Burgess, Moses, this here is Ordinary Seaman Atkins. He’s gonna sail with us today, observe, if you will.”
Burgess and Jones nodded to Wendy, their faces expressionless, and Wendy nodded back. She looked around the engine room. “It’s very nice,” she said, her voice uncertain.
“Oh, that it is!” Taylor said with enthusiasm. “Let me show you around.” He was warming to his subject. “The engine is a horizontal-mounted compound…”
“Chief,” Burgess interrupted, the word like a grunt. “Service gauge.”
“Forgive me for a moment, Seaman Atkins,” Taylor said with a little bow. “We gots to go to war.”
19
SIR: I have the honor to report that at 11:45 a.m. this day a small steamer under the Confederate flag…approached this ship and commenced firing upon us with a rifled gun from her bow, our ship being at anchor.
— Captain J. B. Hull, USS Savannah, to Hon. Gideon Welles
Able-bodied seaman Seth Williams rang four bells in the afternoon watch.
The Cape Fear was vibrating with the thrust of her propeller as Bowater backed down on her spring line and swung the bow off the seawall. He grabbed the cord that communicated with the bell in the engine room and jerked twice, two bells, slow ahead. He felt the vessel shudder as somewhere below Taylor shifted the reversing lever, changing the rotation of the screw instantly from turns for slow astern to turns for slow ahead.
The tug stopped dead, and Bowater could hear the water churning up under her counter, a wonderful sound, the sound of a powerful vessel digging in, and then she gathered way.
“Cast off!” he heard Babcock shout. Bowater stepped out of the wheelhouse, looked down as the seawall slipped away and the lines that held them to the dock were brought dripping aboard. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, a bright, hot July afternoon, and they were going to war.
“Come left, leave Harmony to starboard!” Bowater called into the wheelhouse, and Littlefield replied, “Harmony to starboard, aye!” and eased the wheel over. Bowater stepped back into the wheelhouse, rang up more speed. Moments later he felt the turns increase, felt the stern dig deeper, as the deep-draft tug gathered more way.
“I’ll give the chief this much,” he said to Harwell, who was just stepping up onto the deckhouse roof. “He knows when he can ignore commands from the wheelhouse, and when he cannot.”
“Mr. Taylor, sir, if I may be so bold, thinks a little too highly of himself and his engineering division. He would have us believe he was doing us a favor, getting steam to service gauge and turns on the propeller.”
There was more bitterness in the lieutenant’s tone than perhaps he had intended. Harwell’s was not a personality that could easily suffer the likes of Hieronymus Taylor. Bowater did not have an easy time of it himself. But Bowater could ignore attitude—to a degree—if a man did his job, and Taylor was scrupulous about the maintenance of the engine and all the Cape Fear ’s systems. Also, Bowater was captain. Taylor might get the last word, but that last word would always be “Yes, sir.”
“Had we sails, like a proper ship,” Bowater said, “Mr. Taylor would not be in so commanding a position.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, may I drill the men at the guns?”
“Yes, please. You have…” Bowater looked up at the sun. “…about three hours to get them ready to fight.”
Harwell hurried off, and Bowater stepped forward, leaned on the rail that ran along the forward edge of the deckhouse, and watched the city of Norfolk to the east and Portsmouth to the west slip past. Below him, up at the bow, Harwell was arranging the gun crew like a little girl setting her dolls around a toy table for make-believe tea.
They had taken on coal at the Gosport Naval Shipyard, and as many shells for the guns as they could lay hands on, around a dozen for each gun. They had requested twenty volunteers to augment their crew, enough to work the ship and all three guns at the same time. Thirty-seven men had stepped eagerly forward, and Bowater had had to choose among them. He was not the only one chafing at the inactivity of the dockyard.
Craney Island was in sight when Hieronymus Taylor climbed up to the deckhouse roof, squinting in the brilliant sun. His shirtsleeves were rolled up over powerful forearms and he wore only his gray vest, cap, and trousers. His formerly bright white shirt was wilted and smudged now. He stopped, took a long look around, puffing his cigar like a locomotive getting up speed.
“Beg pardon, Cap’n,” he said at last. “I was wonderin, and I ask purely to increase the efficiency of the engineering division, but what’re you plannin for this day’s activities?”
“Well, Chief…” Bowater equivocated. “I wish I could tell you exactly what we will be doing, but I cannot. The circumstance of the Union fleet will dictate our actions.”
“No, really, Cap’n,” Taylor said. “What’re you meaning to do, now?”