Thieves of Mercy Page 15

  Lincoln looked up. “What might that be, Miss Atkins? I know you’re not speaking in reference to me.”

  “Oh, sir…” Wendy felt herself blush. “The ocean, Mr. President. It is so beautiful, and it is so rare that I see it.”

  Oh, Lord, we’re supposed to have just completed a sea voyage!

  Wendy felt herself tense from the gaffe, and she waited for Lincoln to point it out, but all he said was, “I see it rarely myself, though I can’t say I miss it. I miss the rivers of the West more. Tell me, miss, where is it you are from?”

  “Culpepper, Virginia, sir.” Off balance, Wendy blurted it out, and even as the words left her mouth she tried to check them, which made the blunder even worse. She met Lincoln’s eyes, his expressionless face, and she felt her cheeks burn. Her stomach twisted up, her palms felt wet. She wanted to explain, to pour out more lies on top of what she had said, but her judgment had not abandoned her completely and she kept her mouth shut.

  Lincoln nodded. For a moment he did not say a word. “I’ve never been,” he said at last. “I hear it’s nice.”

  “Nice, sir, but far from the sea. And now in enemy hands, I fear. I am happier in Maryland, where I can at least enjoy the bay.”

  Lincoln nodded again. His face was unreadable. “Forgive me,” he said, and picked up the field glasses once more and trained them on the shoreline.

  They steamed in silence for five minutes or so, five horrible minutes while Wendy replayed in her head every word, every nuance of her fifty-second conversation with the President. Finally Captain Walbridge, who had been standing as far away as he could and still remain one of the party at the table, gave a low cough, a signal he was about to speak.

  “Mr. President…the beach you see yonder? Good landing beach, sir. Surf generally ain’t too much. Sandy shore, easy on the boats, sir. And there’s not a devil of a chance of that Merrimack getting out here. Beg pardon, ladies.”

  Wendy smiled and nodded. Molly looked as if she neither understood nor cared. Lincoln looked through the field glasses at the shore. Stanton stood up, planted a hand on the table, looked down at the chart.

  “Captain Walbridge,” Lincoln said, never taking the field glasses from his eyes, “please ask the lieutenant to get in as close as he can to the shore.”

  “Aye, sir,” Walbridge said, and strode off quickly to the wheelhouse. The tug turned, ran inshore at an oblique angle, the surf rolling white, the tall dune grass, the yellow sand beach all becoming more discernible as they closed with the land.

  Stanton picked up another pair of field glasses. “Look at those dogs, following us on horseback!” he exclaimed. Wendy could see the horsemen, riding along the beach, gray-clad on brown mounts. If only they knew who was looking on them now! How desperate they would be to spread the word!

  “Shall I have the lieutenant give them a round or two?” Stanton asked. “Load of grape? Get them all in one shot.”

  “No, Mr. Stanton, I think not,” Lincoln said.

  “There’s a chance they’ll divine what we’re about, Mr. President. Could give the Rebels time to organize a defense against our landing.”

  “I imagine they’ll be more suspicious if we start shooting at them.” Lincoln stood and looked down at Walbridge, returning from the wheelhouse. The pilot was a good head shorter than the President. “Captain, I do believe we have found the place to land our troops. Do you agree?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Reckon it’ll answer. Good landing place, no chance of Merrimack interfering.”

  “Very well. Stanton, let’s get back to Fortress Monroe and see Wool is motivated to move his men.” Lincoln turned to the women. “Miss Atkins, pray tell Mrs. Nielsen that we will soon have her off this disagreeable tug and quartered in more comfortable surroundings.”

  Wendy translated. Molly nodded. “Please tell Mr. Lincoln that I require the use of the facilities,” she said.

  “Oh…” Wendy felt herself blush. “Ah, sir, my aunt wishes to use…ah…the facilities.”

  Lincoln smiled. “Of course. Captain, do you know if the facilities are presentable to a lady?”

  “Aye, sir, I reckon. Lieutenant had the heads scrubbed out good, sir, on account of you and Mr. Stanton being aboard.”

  “I am pleased to hear it.” A midshipman was summoned, and blushing, stuttering, he led Wendy and Molly down a ladder and a narrow companionway, then along the side deck to a polished wooden door.

  “Ah, ma’am, this here’s…ah…”

  “Thank you, young man,” Wendy said. “We can find our way back. You may leave us.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the clearly relieved midshipman said. He began to salute, hesitated, turned, and practically ran back down the side deck, disappearing around the front of the deckhouse.

  Molly opened the door, looked inside. Two seats of ease with a freshly built bulkhead between and doors to each, improvements rendered for a President and his cabinet. Wendy could smell the fresh wood. The renovation was no more than a few hours old.

  The two women stepped inside and Molly closed the door. “I had no idea we would be in such company as the President,” Molly said. She spoke low, just a whisper, and she spoke in French, her Norwegian accent intact.

  “Nor I,” Wendy said, also in French, the barest whisper. With the engine working just below and the slap of the water on the hull, the hum of the shaft and propeller, it was difficult even to hear one another, inches apart.

  “Will you…are we to…do something…regarding the man?” Wendy stumbled through the question. Her eyes flickered down at Molly’s reticule.

  “Do you mean murder him? No, I think not. I am in no mood for suicide today. Besides, Lincoln is such a fool, the Confederacy is better off with him in command.”

  Wendy nodded, embarrassed that she could have harbored such a thought as murder. But Molly had dismissed the idea only on practical grounds. She did not seem to think it outrageous.

  “What of poor Lieutenant Batchelor?” Wendy asked.

  “The lieutenant will be fine. They will set him free once the Yankees have taken Norfolk. I do not believe Lincoln will make him a prisoner, not when he came out under a flag of truce. Not when he was escorting the wife of the Norwegian minister.”

  “Oh, Aunt, do you think we’re discovered? I am so sorry for my stupid tongue.”

  “Please, don’t fret. You covered admirably, and you did not explain too much, which is certain death.” She paused for a moment, listened, considered. “I do not know if we are discovered. I know quite a few Union naval officers, but thankfully none aboard this boat. Lincoln may suspect, but he cannot be certain enough to act.”

  Wendy nodded.

  “However,” Molly added, “if we are discovered, we’ll hang as spies for sure. Or assassins.”

  “Oh…” That part had never occurred to her. Somehow Wendy had the idea that if they were caught they would be put ashore somewhere. Admonished and sent away. Even as she had toyed with the idea of putting a bullet in Lincoln’s head, she had never really considered the reality of their situation.

  But at the same time, the possibility of being hanged buoyed her spirits and gave her a renewed vigor. It was not so trivial a thing they were doing. It was life and death, literally.

  “So we must not be discovered,” Molly went on. “We have what we came for. We know where the Yankees will land. Now we must get back to Norfolk.”

  The two women were quiet for a moment. Wendy waited for Molly to go on. When she did not, Wendy asked, “How?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Molly was starting to irritate, and that at least gave Wendy some relief from her newfound fears. “We will have to see what happens in the next few hours. At the very worst, assuming we are not found out, we will most likely be deposited at Fortress Monroe, and from there we can talk our way to Washington. After that, who knows?”

  Wendy nodded. That did not sound so bad. Molly put a hand on Wendy’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry, dear. You’ll see your b
eloved Samuel soon enough.”

  “Oh…” Wendy flushed. This had all been about getting west to be with Samuel Bowater. She had entirely forgotten that fact.

  Molly reached down and grabbed a handful of her skirts. “Now, if you do not mind, I truly do need to use the jakes.”

  By the time they returned to the boat deck and the company of Lincoln, Stanton, and Walbridge, the tug had come about and was retracing her wake back into Hampton Roads. Wendy watched the last glimpse of the ocean disappear around the sand spit. She turned at the sound of heavy guns, a mile or so away.

  A scattering of ships swarmed like water bugs off Sewell’s Point. Puffs of gray smoke erupted from their guns, lifted up into the air, and then, with the smoke beginning to dissipate, the flat bang of the ordnance reached their ears.

  Molly leaned on the boat deck rail, watching the action, bored and disinterested as ever. Wendy joined her, and Lincoln approached the women.

  “We are firing on the fort at Sewell’s Point, which is that point of land there,” Lincoln explained, pointing a bony finger like a short sword at the shoreline. “Do you see the odd-looking ship, farthest to the left? That is the Monitor, the savior of the Union.” There was a hint, just a hint, of irony in the President’s voice.

  “Indeed?” Wendy said, and stared at the ship with morbid curiosity as she translated to Molly. The Southern papers had been full of Virginia’s tremendous victory over the ill-conceived Union battery.

  “You are familiar with her, then?” Lincoln asked.

  “News of the great battle had just reached Europe when we sailed, sir,” Wendy explained. “And while we were with the Confederates, they spoke of little else.”

  “Indeed. And what did they say, if I might ask?”

  “Well, they said that the Virginia was victorious, sir.”

  Lincoln nodded.

  “Might I ask…” Wendy continued, “I do not wish to be forward…but did the Virginia win, sir?”

  Lincoln smiled. “I suspect that one will be the fodder for another two centuries of argument, at least. I can’t answer, if I’m going to be honest. They both survived, they are both still fighting today. Hard to say how either was the winner.”

  Wendy nodded. Lincoln held out the field glasses. “Would you care to have a closer look?”

  “Oh, yes, sir, thank you!” Wendy took the field glasses. She translated Lincoln’s words to Molly, offered her aunt the first use of the field glasses. Molly took them, looked through them for a few seconds, the gesture of a woman who genuinely did not care about such things, handed them back to Wendy.

  Wendy held them up to her eyes and adjusted them until the distant ships were in sharp focus. She swept them back and forth until the Monitor came into view and she kept her there.

  Incredible… A round turret with a flat deck nearly awash. It was unlike any vessel Wendy had ever seen, and she had made a point of seeing as many ships as she could, since her first childhood passion for such things.

  She was having a hard time reconciling what she saw with what she knew. The savior of the Union looked so utterly insubstantial, particularly in comparison with the mighty Virginia, which she knew well, having watched her steam in and out of the navy yard and up the Elizabeth River. How could that silly little Yankee notion have stood up to the Virginia even for five minutes, let alone battled her to a draw after four hours of combat?

  “She is a singular vessel, sir,” Wendy said.

  “She is that. And yonder comes her old friend.”

  Wendy took the field glasses from her eyes and looked where Lincoln indicated. A black plume of smoke was moving up from the direction of the Elizabeth River, beneath the smoke a ship that appeared as no more than a dark slash on the water. Wendy lowered the field glasses. “Is that…?”

  “That is the Merrimack,” Lincoln said. “Or the Virginia, as the Rebels choose to call her.”

  Wendy flushed again. “Forgive me, I have never quite known what to call her. The European newspapers call her Merrimack, the Rebels called her Virginia…”

  “It’s no matter,” Lincoln said, his tone good-natured. “She is an unwieldy tub by any name.”

  “Will they fight?” Wendy asked. “Monitor and Merrimack?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. Merrimack comes out in the afternoons like an old bear looking for supper, but she will not fight.”

  Wendy nodded, thinking of Batchelor’s report to Tucker, to the effect that it was Monitor that was afraid to fight Virginia. Each side hanging back and swearing the other did not dare combat. Hold me back, boys, or I’m a’gonna kill someone!

  Wendy put the field glasses back to her eyes and watched Virginia as she appeared from around Sewell’s Point. She was too far off to make out any details, but with Lincoln’s critique still in her head, Wendy had to admit that the ironclad did move in a plodding, ponderous way, like one of those dinosaurs that were all the rage among the scientists and bone collectors. Could this awkward thing, and the silly-looking hatbox on a raft, really be the end of the graceful and fleet sailing men-of-war?

  “Sir?” The lieutenant commanding the tug stepped aft, saluted.

  “Yes, son?” Lincoln said.

  “Merrimack is coming out, sir, just around the point.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant, we have seen her.”

  “Yes, sir. Also, there is a man-of-war coming to anchor by Fortress Monroe. I believe her to be the Norvier, sir, the Norwegian corvette.”

  “Indeed?” Lincoln said. He turned to Wendy. “Do you hear that?”

  “Oh, yes, sir!” Wendy said, trying very hard to sound relieved. She translated to Molly, and Molly looked very relieved indeed, looked every inch the woman who saw her suffering coming to an end. “Please thank the President for his hospitality, and ask if we might be transported to our ship,” she said, and Wendy translated.

  “Of course,” Lincoln said, giving a shallow bow. There was a playful quality in his voice. A man in on the game. “Of course. We’ll get this all straightened out directly.”

  From three miles away, from a height of eye of sixteen feet above the water, seen with aging eyes and the aid of field glasses, the Union fleet firing on Sewell’s Point looked frail and insubstantial, like toy boats made out of sticks.

  Flag officer Josiah Tattnall lowered the field glasses, rubbed his eyes. He placed one foot on the sloping side of the CSS Virginia’s squat, conical pilothouse to relieve the strain on his back. The ship underfoot was carving a straight wake through the upper reaches of the Elizabeth River. They had left Craney Island astern, their bow pointed straight north toward Sewell’s Point. And the enemy. Now, if only they will fight.

  Tattnall’s eyes moved down to the ironclad’s bow. The actual bow of the ship was below the waterline, but a false bow, like a triangular seawall, was built up on the deck to form a dry place for the men to cast the lead and work the anchor. It looked like a triangular hole in the water, with the bow wave boiling around it. Very odd. Tattnall still was not used to it.

  On the front of the casemate, the heavy iron shutters were closed over the forward gun ports. They were made in two pieces and closed like a pair of shears over the port, worked by chains from the inside. Virginia had steamed into her first fight with only the bow and stern shutters in place. Buchanan, captain then, had been too impatient to wait for the broadside shutters to be installed. One shot from Congress, fired even as the ship was dying on Virginia’s ram, shot right through the open port and, ripping through the gun crew, had convinced them all that the shutters were worth having.

  “Sir, I see Monitor now.” The speaker was Catesby ap R. Jones, first officer, standing beside Tattnall, still staring through his own field glasses.

  Tattnall raised his field glasses again and looked at the fleet in the distance. He could hear the soft thud of the gunfire now, lagging far behind the puffs of gray smoke.

  “Just to the east of the ship-rigged one, sir,” Jones added. Tattnall grunted. He wondered how
long Jones had been watching the Monitor, waiting for his captain to see it before he had to bring it to his attention. But Tattnall’s eyes could not match those of Jones, who was many years his junior.

  “Yes, yes, I see her now, Mr. Jones,” Tattnall said, realizing that he never would have seen her if Jones had not pointed her out. With virtually no freeboard and a single turret only twenty feet in diameter, she was not easy to spot from a distance.

  For a moment he just stared at her. Monitor. He had never been any closer than this to her, because she steamed away every time the Virginia drew too close. But she was not steaming away now, and they certainly had seen Virginia coming. Perhaps this was the day. The day when he would finish the work so ably begun by Admiral James Buchanan.

  “Mr. Jones, please see the guns loaded, but do not run out.”

  “Aye, sir!” Jones said and disappeared down one of the hatches to the gun deck below.

  Tattnall continued to stare, transfixed by the sight of the Union ironclad. God, how he wanted to come to grips with her! Buchanan had had his moment, ripping through the Union fleet on Virginia’s very first day under way. What a sea trial! He had been shot down, severely wounded by the treacherous Yankees. The next day it was Lieutenant Jones’s moment, a historic, un-precedented battle, the first fight between ironclads. Anyone with any sense of naval history knew that that fight would be remembered for as long as men remembered ships and the sea.

  He would not begrudge Jones his glory, and certainly not Buchanan, who had been a dear friend for decades. They were known in the service as “Old Tat” and “Old Buck.” And they were that. Old. Tattnall had joined the navy in 1812, Buchanan a few years later. Lord, they had been so young then, so full of the possibility of it all! What a way to end a lifetime of serving the United States Navy, firing on the flag they had defended, risking their lives to see the Union dissolved.