“Mr. Fox is correct,” the Count said. “The game, my dear Wilson, is worth the candle.” He glanced up at the clock mounted on the bulkhead. “The tide should be turning soon.”
Unhappy at staying below, the Americans followed him up on deck. The rain had settled down to a steady drizzle. The Count walked to the rail and looked down at the river. Most of the drifting debris was just bobbing about now. Then, ever so slowly, a change began to take place. Instead of staying still, the leaves and branches began to drift downstream, faster and faster. The Count nodded with satisfaction and called an order out to the bridge. The anchor was raised and the engine came to life; the propeller began to turn.
“Gentleman, the die is cast. Only fate knows what will happen to us now.”
Smoke poured out the funnel as they worked up speed, moving so fast that the ship heeled over when they went around the first bend in the river. Faster and faster Aurora raced downstream toward her destiny.
Around the next bend they surged…
And there was Defender blocking the reach before them.
A CONVOY IN DANGER
“I’m sorry, Captain, but they are not answering my signals.”
A number of abrasive answers sprang to mind, but Captain Raphael Semmes controlled his tongue and just nodded. This shambles of a convoy could not be blamed on the signalman. Ever since they had left Mobile Bay, it had been one damned thing after another. Signaling was probably the worst part of the difficulty; the cotton ships misread his signals or ignored them. Or they asked them to be repeated over and over again. Not that their assignments were that complex. He simply wanted them to stay together, and not stray or fall behind.
And every dawn it was the same — they were all over the Atlantic, some even hull down on the horizon. So he had to round them up yet once again, signaling with angry hoots on USS Virginia’s steam whistle to get their attention. Herding them back into their stations, like a shepherd with wayward, stupid sheep.
And there was Dixie Belle again, the eternal miscreant. Fallen behind and ignoring all of his attempts at communication. The worst part was that she was a steamship, the only one in the five-ship convoy. A powered vessel that should be relied upon to keep position. While the white-sailed cotton clippers rode easily before the westerly wind, day after day the steamship kept falling behind. His biggest concern was always Dixie Belle.
“Hard aport, slow ahead,” he ordered the helmsman. “We’re going after her.”
Virginia’s wake cut a wide swath in the sea as she turned in her tracks and headed back toward the errant ship. This was a bad place for the convoy to start coming apart. The French coast was less than a hundred miles ahead — making this the hunting ground of the British war craft. They had seized too many American cotton ships here, which had necessitated the need for guarded convoys. Which were only as strong as their weakest link. His ironclad warship could offer protection only if the convoy stayed together.
Virginia turned again, this time to match the other ship’s course, slowed to stay abreast of her. Semmes raised the megaphone as they closed to within hailing distance — and strongly resisted the temptation to execrate the captain for ignoring his signals; this would be but wasted energy.
“Why have you slowed down?” he called out instead. He had to repeat his words when the other captain finally appeared on deck.
“A shaft bearing running hot. I’m going to have to stop the engine to replace it.”
Why was it running hot? Because of the lazy incompetence of an oiler, that was why. It took all Semmes’s strength of will not to curse the captain out for his crew’s slackness; this would avail nothing.
“How long will repairs take?”
He could see a consultation on deck, then the other man raised his megaphone again. “Two, mebbe three hours.”
“Get on with it then.”
Captain Semmes hurled the megaphone down on the deck, cursing like a trooper. The helmsman and the signalman exchanged wary nods of agreement behind the captain’s back. They all felt as he did — nothing but contempt for the merchantmen they convoyed. Better a swift passage — or even a battle at sea; anything but this.
Semmes was in a quandary. Should he take his other four charges into port and leave the miserable Dixie Belle to her fate? It was very tempting. The thought of her being snapped up by a British man-of-war was indeed attractive. But that was not his role. His assignment was to protect them all. But if the other ships stopped to wait for the errant vessel, there would be endless complaints over lost time at sea, late arrival at port, possibly an investigation.
Yet he had no other recourse. As they caught up with his charges again, he spoke to the signalman.
“Send the signal to heave to.”
Of course it did not happen at once. There were some angry queries; others completely ignored him. He sent the signal again, then swept down on them at full speed, cutting under their bows; that got their attention. One of them still hadn’t stopped, the Biloxi; her captain was the most recalcitrant of the lot. Virginia went in pursuit, the whistle screeching. Semmes had only a quick glimpse back at the Dixie Belle, now some miles away.
The captain of the Biloxi did not want to heave to and was eager to go on by himself. Semmes, who quickly tired of the shouted exchange between their ships, sent an order to the bow turret to put an explosive shell into the sea ahead of the cotton ship. As always, this worked wonders and he saw her sails flap loosely as she went about.
“Captain,” the lookout called down. “Smoke on the horizon, off the port bow.”
“Damnation!” Semmes swore, raising his glasses. Yes, there it was, moving in the direction of the stranded Dixie Belle. “Full ahead,” he ordered as they started back toward the stopped ship.
The two steamships were on closing courses and rapidly approaching each other, their towering plumes of smoke marking their speed. The other was hull up now, a black hull — and yes, those were gun turrets. British surely, no warship of any other country would be prowling about out here.
It was a closely run thing. Virginia curved between Dixie Belle and the other ship, stopped engines.
“She’s flying the white ensign, sir,” the lookout called down.
“She is indeed,” Semmes said, smiling happily. Ships at sea, antagonists at sea. This was the life he relished — that he really enjoyed. During the war, when he had carried cotton from the South to England, he was happy for every moment of every voyage. He had been much pursued when running the blockade with cotton cargoes but never caught.
“Now let us see what you are going to do, my fine English friend. This is not another chance to bully an unarmed merchantman. You are up against the pride of the American navy. Go ahead. Get off a shell. Give me some excuse to blast you out of the water.”
The turrets on the other warship were turning his way. Semmes was still smiling. But it was the cold grimace of a man ready for anything.
North of the antagonistic ironclads, close to where the river Mersey joined the Irish Sea, a confrontation of a totally different kind was taking place. This was no battle of the giants, but it might appear to an onlooker that the smaller ship was attacking the larger. Aurora came around the bend in the river with her engine turning at top revolutions. The sweating, soot-smeared stokers sent shovelful after shovelful of coal into the furnace. Lieutenant Simenov in the engine room looked at the pressure gauge — then quickly away. It was moving steadily toward the red; he had never had the pressure this high before. Yet the Count had asked for maximum speed — and that is what he would get.