Robley swung the smoking barrel around so that it was pointing right in Brown’s face, not six inches from the tip of his nose. “Slow ahead, Mr. Brown,” he said, just loud enough to be heard over Kinney’s shrieks of pain and terror and the rumble of the big guns.
Six minutes later, with the shells and round shot still falling like hail around them, the Yazoo River’s port paddle wheel began its slow revolutions, the anchor chain was brought in, and the battered gunboat crept back to her place in the line of battle.
Captain Pope stamped the deck, slammed his fist down on the taffrail in frustration. They were taking fire from the Rebels, and none of the Richmond ’s guns had the range to hit back. The dammed gunboats were too far away, save for the one stern-wheeler that had come so aggravatingly close. They had watched her slew around and come to anchor, and for a happy moment thought they had shot out her engines or paddle wheel. But fifteen minutes later she was underway again.
He felt like an idiot. He did not think this would reflect well on him.
He turned to the signal quartermaster. “Make a signal to the ships beyond the bar—‘Get underway.’”
“‘Get underway,’ aye, aye, sir,” he said and turned to the bag of signal flags at his feet.
Damn, damn, damn… Pope thought. We have to do something. What?
The signal flag snapped up the halyard, fluttered there for five minutes, and then came down again. The scream of the Rebel shells, the boom of the port-side Dahlgrens, continued unabated, the smoke hanging thick on the deck before swirling away south.
“Sir?” Whitfield was crossing the deck, a worried look on his face.
Now what?
“Yes, Luff?”
“Captain Handy’s coming aboard, sir,” he reported with a puzzled tone. “He has his men with him.”
“His…men? You mean his crew?”
“It would seem so, sir.”
“What, has he…has he abandoned his ship?”
“Ahhh…” Whitfield hesitated, but happily for the executive officer Captain Handy himself appeared through the gangway. He was wearing his dark blue frock coat and cap. Around his waist was wrapped the Vincennes ’s battle ensign, great folds of red, white, and blue cloth.
“What the devil…?” Pope said as Handy climbed the quarterdeck ladder, stopped, and saluted.
“I am here, sir,” Handy reported, his voice near shouting to be heard over the din of the Richmond ’s guns and the Rebel artillery.
“I can see you are here, Captain,” Pope replied, shouting and sputtering. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“Your signal, sir. I am obeying your signal.”
“What signal?”
Handy, looking suddenly unsure, glanced around. “Your signal you just ran up. ‘Abandon ship.’”
“I didn’t signal ‘Abandon ship.’ I signaled for the vessel beyond the bar to get underway.”
“Oh. Well, sir, my signal quartermaster saw the signal flag, blue, white, blue, as did I. We interpreted that as signal number one, ‘Abandon ship.’”
“Sir, I do not know what you saw, or thought you saw, but I most certainly did not signal for you to abandon ship!”
“I am sorry, sir,” Handy shouted. “But I most certainly…”
Pope shook his head, cut him off in mid-argument. “Captain, I will not debate this point with you! Get your men and get back to your ship and defend it from the enemy in a manner such as is expected of you.”
Handy shut his mouth, straightened a bit, held Pope’s eyes, but made no effort to move. “The thing of it is, sir, before we abandoned her, so the Rebels would not take possession, sir, we set slow match to the power magazine.”
Pope’s mouth fell open of its own accord. “You…what?”
“Slow match, sir. The Rebels…she’s going to blow any minute, sir.”
For two hours, the mosquito fleet pounded the Yankees, and then they were done. Ammunition all but gone, coal bunkers running low, crews near the point of exhaustion, they put up their helms and stoked their fires to provide steam for their tired engines to stem the flood of South West Pass, steaming upriver to New Orleans.
Robley Paine sat on the stool in the Yazoo River ’s wheelhouse, holding the Starr cradled in his lap. Five feet in front on him, sobbing and cursing, Captain Kinney piloted the boat north. Paine was confident that Kinney would do a proper job, because Kinney was aware that the next bullet would part his skull, the moment the Yazoo River touched bottom. It seemed a wonderful motivator.
Paine did not like the sound of the single engine. It was growing noticeably louder, crashing and clanging. But he had confidence that Brown would keep her turning as long as she was physically able to turn. The motivational techniques he used on the pilot seemed to work even better with the engineer.
Robley Paine felt satisfied. It had been a good expedition. It could have been better, could have been much better—they could have sunk or taken or crippled one of the Yankees—but still it had been good.
It was his first experience with naval warfare, and he had learned a great deal. It would take weeks, he knew, to sort out and codify all the lessons from those twenty hours. But two of them stood out, big and bold, like headlines in a newspaper, two things he required to wage proper war.
He needed a crew of proper navy men.
He needed an ironclad.
The Vincennes did not blow up. A quarter gunner, who had been ordered to light the slow match, a man with more sense than the captain, understood that blowing the ship to kingdom come in the face of the mosquito fleet was absurd. He followed orders, lit the fuse, then cut the burning end off and threw it overboard.
He did not, however, tell anyone. For two hours Pope and Handy and the combined crew of two ships stood anxiously waiting for the massive shock of the sloop’s powder magazine to blow. When at last it was clear that the ship was not going to explode, Pope ordered the Vincenneses back aboard.
For the next ten hours they worked to get the ships off the mud and over the bar to open water, where they belonged. They set kedge anchors and heaved, they passed towlines to the small screw steamer Water Witch, and she pulled until she all but buried her stern, but it did no good. Aboard the Vincennes they started the water and pumped it over, threw round shot and spare anchors and finally the great guns into the river, but still they remained fast in the mud.
When darkness came they stood down. Pope sat on a quarterdeck hatch combing, his coat unbuttoned, his fringe of hair sticking out at odd angles. The deck seemed to pull at him with a force greater than gravity.
He heard shoes on the quarterdeck ladder and looked up. The midshipman of the watch approached tentatively, which further annoyed Pope.
“What is it?” the captain snapped.
“Boat from Vincennes, sir, brought this note.” He held out a folded letter as if he was feeding a dangerous animal. Pope snatched it away, unfolded it, angled the paper so the light from the lantern behind him fell on the words.
SIR: We are aground. We have only two guns that will bear in the direction of the enemy. Shall I remain on board after the moon goes down, with my crippled ship and worn-out men? Will you send me word what countersign my boats shall use if we pass near your ship?
While we have moonlight, would it not be better to leave the ship? Shall I burn her when I leave her?
Respectfully,
Robert Handy
Good God! That son of a bitch is more eager to destroy his ship then the damned Rebels are!
“Is Vincennes ’s boat still alongside?”