The night seemed to be exploding around them, from dead still to wild bedlam. Pope turned to a midshipman who had appeared beside him. “Pass the word to light off the boilers! I want steam up, now!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“Sir!” Whitfield pointed out into the dark. A white, undulating wave, the bow wake of a vessel, closing fast, and above it, great roiling clouds of black smoke, visible even against the night’s sky. But between them, no vessel that Pope could see.
“What the hell…” Pope muttered, then shouted, “Gunners, run out!” and the air was filled with the rumble of twenty big guns hauled bodily up to the bulwark, and then, again from the waist, a voice shouted, “It’s the ram! It’s the ram!” and Pope sucked in his breath and stood frozen on his spot of deck.
The ram! Reports of this terrible machine had been floating down from New Orleans for months, so many and so differing that Pope had ceased giving them any credence.
The ironclad ram!
“She’s gonna hit!” came another voice from forward. Pope leaned over the rail. The white bow wave was frothing wildly, the smoke coming thick from the stack, rolling down over the quarterdeck, and with it the peculiar puffing sound of a high-pressure engine. He could see her hull now, unlike anything he had ever seen floating and built by man. A round black hump, a whale back, a stack like a column standing straight up.
“Dear God…”
And then the ram hit, drove itself into the Richmond ’s side, making the ship shudder as if from a hammer blow. The fasts holding the coal schooner parted with the impact, bang, bang, like a series of rifle shots, and the schooner pulled from the Richmond ’s side, swirled away downstream.
They could hear the working of the ram’s engines, a terrible screeching and banging. As if something terrible was happening within the iron turtle.
Lieutenant Whitfield turned to another midshipman. “Find the carpenter, tell him to check the damage, report back!”
“Port side!” Pope shouted. “Fire!” Wildly, in ragged order, the Dahlgrens blasted away, throwing great long arms of red-and-yellow flame into the dark delta night. Pope saw part of the ram’s stack blown away, but there was no chance of hitting the low-lying vessel itself.
The gun crews fell to reloading, and Pope did not stop them. His eyes were glued to the ram, the horrible ram, backing away, slipping down the side, coming aft, coming for him. It gleamed in the light of the muzzle flashes and battle lanterns, a terrible black monster, and Pope felt frozen to the deck, unable to move. He could not take his eyes from the beast.
“Sir?” Whitfield shouted, and Pope finally looked away, shook his head. He felt sick to his stomach, utterly unable to think. They were surrounded here, wrapped up by the wicked delta and all its horrors, caught in Rebel territory, and under attack.
Room! He needed room! Sea room! “Slip the cable!” Pope shouted. “Get a red lantern aloft!” His hand reached for the grip of his sword, where it rested during times of such crisis, but his sword was not there, and he recalled that he was in shirtsleeves.
Damn… He thought of dashing below, but could not leave the deck. He had the sensation that the Richmond was listing to port. Has that damned ram sunk us? he wondered, and the panic began to creep in like the imaginary water rising in the hold.
“Sir?” Pope’s steward appeared in front of him, holding his coat and hat and sword and pistol. Without a word Pope slipped his arms into the sleeves of the coat, fastened the buttons, put his cap on his head, allowed the steward to buckle the sword around his waist. He experienced a new sense of calm as he donned the uniform and felt the weight of the weapon hanging from the belt.
“Sir?” Whitfield was in front of him. “It appears that Vincennes has slipped her cables. I see her getting her fore topsail set.”
“Very good.” From the foredeck came a great rumbling sound as Richmond ’s own anchor chain was let go, rattling through the hawsepipe, making the entire ship vibrate as the chain disappeared into the brackish water of the delta.
Pope whirled around suddenly, remembering the ram. She was a few hundred yards away, downstream, lurking, waiting her chance, it would seem, a black shape on the near-black water. Pope fastened his eyes on the iron hump as the river lapped around the thing, and he loathed it, loathed it more than any thing or any person he had ever encountered.
Then the noise of the running chain ended, and then a final splash as the bitter end hit the river, and then nothing.
“Slow ahead!” Pope shouted, and the master, stationed by the helm, rang up slow ahead and Pope hoped there was steam enough to move the vessel against the stream. He could see the smoke coming in puffs from the tall stack amidships. The firemen were probably throwing oil or resin or whatever on the coal to get it to light off fast. He could feel the turn of the screws, the Richmond inching ahead.
“Keep firing on that damned ram, Mr. Whitfield!” Pope shouted, and the port battery began to blast away again in a frenetic, frantic way, like a blinded man lashing out with his fists.
From upriver, more heavy guns, as Preble joined in, the round shot from her port-side thirty-two-pounders churning up the river. They were making a deadly crossfire over the ram, iron and flame hurling out over the water, but Pope could not tell if they were having any effect whatsoever.
He could sense the Richmond turning, her head swinging downriver. He looked forward, saw the Preble, now on the port bow, now on the starboard as the Richmond slewed around.
He turned to the helmsman, a curse on his lips, but the man at the wheel was turning it hard, trying to correct. “She don’t answer, Captain!” the helmsman shouted, bracing for the old man’s wrath.
Not enough steam! The boilers did not have enough steam pressure to give the ship headway, and the rudder would not bite. The Richmond was out of control, turning sideways to the current, helpless, with the ram out there in the night.
“Goddamn it!” Pope shouted out loud. It was chaos and he could not make it slow down. Everything seemed to be exploding at once; he could not think.
“There goes the ram, sir!” Whitfield shouted, and Pope’s heart leaped, thinking the terrible thing was coming for them again, but it was not. Pope followed the luff’s pointed finger. The ram was steaming upriver, making for Preble ’s port bow, away from the Richmond and the Vincennes, which was already standing into South West Pass.
“Damnation…” It did not appear as if Preble had slipped her cable. “Get underway, damn it!” Pope shouted, uselessly.
From the back of the turtle, a light sputtered, a tiny yellow light, and a second later a red rocket arched up and away, making a bold slash of color against the night sky.
“What in hell is that for?” Pope wondered out loud.
“Sir.” The carpenter was in front of him now, saluting. “Ram stove in three planks, sir, about two feet below the waterline. Hole’s about five inches, I’d say. Pumps can keep up, sir, till I’ve plugged it some.”
“Very good. Carry on.” At last, some good news, and Pope felt reason to hope that he might pull this off, that his career might not be destroyed by the attack of the infernal machine.
“Sir, look here!” It was Whitfield again. Pope was coming to loathe the sound of his voice. The luff was looking upriver. Three bright spots of light, low down on the water; they looked like three evenly spaced bonfires.
What the hell now? Pope snatched up his telescope, fixed one of the bright spots in the lens. Flames leaped and danced across his vision, illuminating the water around the raft on which the fire burned.