“I mean to steam up to the Union fleet, Mr. Taylor, and blast away and see what mischief we can do.”
“Ain’t much of a plan, if you’ll pardon my saying so,” Taylor said. His cigar was clenched in his teeth, but his mouth seemed to be smiling around the obstruction, and his tone suggested more approval than concern over Bowater’s boldness.
“I am willing to take suggestions, Chief.”
“No, no. I don’t presume to know better, Cap’n. For a man of your breedin, you seem to have an aptitude for this sort of craziness.”
“I would thank you for the compliment, Mr. Taylor, were I certain it was one. Now please see to your engine.” He wondered if perhaps he was winning the respect of First Assistant Engineer Hieronymus Taylor. And if so, he wondered if that was cause for concern.
For an hour they steamed north, up the Elizabeth River, then rounded Craney Island and stood out toward the middle of Hampton Roads, that wide patch of water where the James, Nasemond, and Elizabeth rivers joined forces to pour into the Chesapeake Bay.
A good portion of the seaborne power of the United States was arrayed out in front of him, stretching in a loose line of anchored ships from Newport News Point across Hampton Roads to Fortress Monroe.
He could pick out the sailing ship Savannah, and the Cumberland, towed to safety the night that the dockyard burned. There was the Wabash, which had arrived since the last time Bowater had been up that way, the mighty USS Minnesota and the screw steamer Seminole, the St. Lawrence and the Congress. In the distance he could pick out the Harriet Lane, which he had last seen off the Charleston Harbor entrance, mere hours after the start of the Rebellion.
There were other ships as well, transports and tugs, schooners, store ships. It seemed as if more and more vessels arrived all the time, massing for something or other, ready to fall on some Southern shore.
They plowed northwest, through the blue-green water and the lovely late afternoon, looking for all the world as if they were heading up the James River, a little Union tug out on some job or other. The sun was moving fast toward the west, lighting the Union ships up with a soft, rosy tint. From a distance they looked tranquil and quiet.
Bowater put his telescope to his eye. Up close the ships still looked tranquil and quiet. Not a wisp of smoke from any stack, not one of them had steam up. The Cape Fear was two miles distant and he could detect no alarm on any of the decks, no frantic running as men raced to quarters, no bells, no rattles, no drums.
“Helmsman, start coming right. Slowly.”
“Slowly right, aye…” Littlefield turned the wheel right, one spoke, two spokes. The Cape Fear ’s bow swung to starboard, bit by bit, and her course changed from northwest to northeast, and soon her bow was pointing not up the James River but rather at the anchored fleet.
Bowater swept the ships with his telescope. Still no alarm. He looked down onto his own foredeck. The wheelhouse cast a shadow all the way forward, to the breech of the ten-pound rifle. The sun was setting behind them. It would not hide them, but it would make it more difficult for the Union gunners to aim.
The gun crew were sitting and squatting on the deck, out of sight behind the bulwarks. Bowater could see the tension on their faces, the nervous tapping of fingers, feet wagging back and forth like a dog’s tail. He felt it himself; the sweating palms, the quickened pulse, the sense that everything appeared sharper. He had chosen his side and he was fighting and he felt alive, and he had not felt that way in a long, long time.
Lieutenant Thadeous Harwell crouched behind the bulwark with his forward gun crew, though he did not know if he should. He was not certain an officer should be crouching. But the captain had said crouch, and he did not say for the luff not to crouch, nor had he expressed any obvious displeasure with an officer crouching, so Harwell continued to crouch.
This is it, this is it, this is it… Harwell had never been in combat. He had missed the Mexican War. That conflict had been no great shakes in the naval line in any event, and only a few had managed to distinguish themselves, such as the young Ensign Samuel Bowater. But still it was a war, which Harwell had never seen.
He had suffered with his fear that he would not see war, would never find out if he had the stuff to be a Nelson or a John Paul Jones. He had pictured himself often enough with upraised sword leading a screaming horde of bluejackets over the rail of some first-rate ship of the line. Harwell’s Patent Bridge. He knew it was foolish, that those days were over, that armor-clad steamships were spelling the death of the great sailing navies, with their thundering broadsides and boarders swarming through the smoke. But logic did not stop the dreams.
I regret…no, no…Gladly do I give my one life …“one life ”…that hardly needs saying…Gladly do I give my life for this, my beloved land… Great last lines did not, Harwell believed, happen spontaneously. Hadn’t Nelson uttered one each of the many times he thought he was done for? Sure he must have practiced ahead of time. Harwell would not allow himself to be caught short.
Gladly do I lay down this life for my beloved Southern home, and only regret that I shall not live to fight on…
That’s not so bad.
Gladly do I lay down this life for my beloved South…
Good…so even if I only get the first part out, it will still stand.
“Mr. Harwell!”
The lieutenant looked up. Bowater was standing at the forward edge of the deckhouse roof, calling down. He felt his face flush. How many times had the captain called his name?
“Sir?”
“You may remove the cover from the gun, lieutenant, and prepare to fire.”
“Aye, sir!” Harwell leaped to his feet, figured the order to cease crouching must have been implicit in the order to fire.
“Your target will be the large ship to the south.”
“Aye, sir! Wabash, sir?”
“Yes, that is correct. The Wabash. ”
“Aye, sir!” The Wabash. He had served for five years aboard that ship, gone from ensign to lieutenant on her decks, boy to man. But sentimental pining for ships was an emotion of the lower deck, not fit for an officer.
Gladly do I lay down this life for my dear…no…my beloved Southern home, and regret only that I shall not live to fight…to struggle…on…
They were within a mile of the nearest ships of the Union fleet, the Savannah and the Wabash, and, incredibly, Bowater could see no sign of alarm. It was beginning to make him nervous.
On the Cape Fear ’s foredeck, the canvas was peeled off the ten-pound Parrott and the crew bustled around the big gun. Seth Williams, designated gun captain, hooked a friction primer to the lanyard and inserted the primer into the vent, then stretched the lanyard out. The lanyard was a pretty bit of ropework, with Flemish eyes tucked in either end, coach whipped and capped with Turk’s heads and ringbolt hitching around the eyes. It had been lovingly crafted by Eustis Babcock, starting the moment the gun came on board, so that the Cape Fear might have something attractive and seamanlike with which to fire her heavy ordnance.
Lieutenant Harwell mounted the ladder to the roof of the deckhouse and stood beside Bowater, who was pressed against the forward rail. “Ready to fire, sir,” he reported, even before he was done saluting.