Thieves Of Mercy

SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET, ACT II, SCENE 2

Samuel Bowater felt like Noah’s less-enlightened neighbor. It came to him as he stood contemplating the ship ways on which the Arkansas had once stood. Arkansas … Ark… The Arkansas was long gone, towed away downriver, like Noah’s boat carried off on the flood. And here he was, with an ark of his own, half built. He was desperately trying to finish her up, but the water was rising fast. The River Defense Fleet’s victory at Plum Point Bend had electrified Memphis. The sailors of the fleet were lauded as heroes, eulogized to the heavens, lionized in the press, boozed up for free in the taverns. Some of the better-known brothels even offered attractive discounts to veterans of that fight. And there were a lot of veterans. It seemed to Bowater that suddenly every third man in town was a sailor in the River Defense Fleet. The ships themselves would have sunk under the weight of all the swaggering ersatz river men who claimed association with that special branch of the army. He just hoped that all these fellows with their newfound enthusiasm for the war would be there when it came time to confront the Yankees again-and that time would come-but he suspected they would not. He suspected that when the iron was flying again they would all go back to being blacksmiths and barbers and bottle washers.

Samuel Bowater always found the praise of civilians tiresome, and he found the adulation in Memphis more tiresome than most. He blamed his poor attitude on the frustration of having his new command still in frame, her iron on the Arkansas side of the river, her engines towed away to God knows where, and the still-powerful Yankee fleet just a few miles upriver.

The bluebellies were weaker by two ironclads, that was true, but it would not be true for long. The first ship that the River Defense Fleet had struck, which turned out to be the USS Cincinnati, was still in the mud. Reconnaissance north of Plum Point Bend revealed that she had not moved from the place where she sank in water up to her casemate roof. But the Yankees were making prodigious efforts to raise her, and there was little doubt they would succeed, and then the Cincinnati would be towed away to Cairo, Illinois, for repair, and soon she would be fighting again.

The second ship that the Confederates had rammed, which the papers were saying was the Mound City, had been raised already and was already off to Cairo. And so the sinking of two ships, which, had they been Confederate, might have been the ruin of the fleet, was to the Yankees with all their extraordinary resources just a big inconvenience, no permanent setback.

The Yankees were weaker for the moment, but they were still there, and they still had powerful gunboats, and they would not be caught a second time with their pants around their ankles. And without surprise working for them, the River Defense Fleet would be murdered by those iron monsters. What was needed was a Confederate ironclad.

And that was the very thing that Bowater was driving himself to distraction trying to build.

He had allowed his men forty-eight hours to revel in the adulation of an adoring Memphis, and then back to work. On the morning the grace period was over, Bowater walked briskly the half mile from his hotel to the waterfront. The spring morning was warm, the walk invigorating, and he arrived at John Shirley’s yard at 7:50 with a glow of optimism, which was snuffed out as soon as he found that he was alone. He had ordered his men to report to the yard at eight o’clock, not a minute after. By 8:05 not one was there.

The former Yazoo Citys were quartered in various places around town. Bowater considered sending a boy to fetch them, but realized that would be pointless. They were not likely to be at their assigned quarters. More likely they were scattered like chaff through the bars, whorehouses, fetid back alleys, and jails of the town.

Bowater was just working up a good head of profanity when John Shirley stepped out of his office and over to the gate to greet him. “Captain, Captain, good to see you. Congratulations on your victory. You know I had not yet heard of it when we spoke the other day, and you didn’t say a thing about it, did you? Humility, it’s a damned important trait, I say, and I reckon you got it in spades. A man should take a power of pride in that kind of humility. Where are your men?”

“I was just asking myself the same.”

“Well, I should expect they’re a bit under the weather this morning. Whole town was celebrating last night. Good to have something to celebrate, ain’t been much good news of late.”

Ruffin Tanner appeared at ten minutes past, his tongue thick, his eyes bleary, one hand pressed tenderly to his temple, apologizing for his tardiness. His arm was in a sling and the sling was dirty and stained. The first of his men to show up, and he was hors de combat, useless in the shipyard. Bowater gave him a sharp order to see things laid along for setting the next plank in place, as best as he could with one arm. He was not in a charitable mood.

One by one the others straggled in, Bowater’s men and the dozen or so that Shirley had scraped up. They set to work under the constructor’s careful eye, shaping and steaming planks, fitting the square beams of the casemate, pounding drifts and trunnels, turning the pile of lumber on the ground into the ironclad Tennessee.

Bowater spent some time watching them, but there was little he could do, because he was no shipwright. So once he was satisfied that Shirley and his foremen knew their business and would keep the men at it, he commandeered a desk in Shirley’s office and began to write. Requisitions for ordnance and powder, requests that more sailors be transferred to his command, requests to recruit river men from the armies stationed nearby, payroll information, submissions for reimbursement for the men’s housing expenses, it was all terribly depressing.

After some time of that, Bowater was distracted by a sound like a footstep on the two wooden stairs leading up to the office door, a sound like a footstep but more sharp, wood knocking on wood. He looked up. The door swung open and Hieronymus Taylor made his way through, walking with a crutch, his leg bound up in a heavy wooden splint. Bowater watched the engineer hobble across the floor, struggling with the splint and the unfamiliar crutches. He did not offer to help. He knew Taylor better than that.

Taylor flopped down in a chair beside Bowater’s desk. “You could at least offer some goddamned help,” he said. The body was worse off, but the attitude was Hieronymus Taylor of old. They would not mention the violin. That was mutually understood.

“I am forgetting myself,” Bowater said. “And you the hero of Plum Point Bend. I’ve heard some mighty tall versions of your exploits.”

“Hell…” Taylor put a cigar in his mouth, then spit out a fleck of tobacco. His hands were trembling. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

“I cannot imagine that you are discharged from the hospital by your doctor’s orders,” Bowater said. “And from the looks of you, you would be best to be in bed.”

“Bed. If I stay abed they’ll find me agin.”

“Who?”

“All of them. The ol ladies with their proclamations and presentations, the damn schoolchil’n comin to cheer the wounded sailors up, the damn mayor and his claptrap. Like to make a body shoot himself rather than listen to all that horseshit.” He scraped a match on the desk, lit his cigar.

“I wonder if every attempted suicide gets that much attention.”

“Suicide?” Taylor took a big puff of his cigar. “That what you reckon I was doin?”

Bowater held up his hands in a gesture that said “I don’t know.”

“Suicide, hell. I’m a big hero, Cap’n.”

“You’re going to be a dead hero, you keep on the way you are, and that is the one and only thing the Confederacy has enough of already. And while I might be entirely indifferent to the possibility of your death, I would not care to try and find another engineer.”

“Cap’n, I’m touched. But what the hell you need an engineer for? You got no engine.”

“We’ll get it back.”

“Well, you best hurry. Boilers and shaftin, too. You gonna feel mighty damn foolish, you get that casemate built and realize you forgot to put the engines and such in first.” The perspiration was still building on Taylor ’s forehead and Bowater wondered if he was feverish. His casual act was taking it out of him.

“How did you manage-” Bowater was cut short by a booming voice just outside his door. His heart sank as he heard Mississippi Mike Sullivan shouting, “You doin good work, boys, damn good work! Y’all keep her up, now!”

Sullivan flung open the door, his massive frame filling the space. Like Taylor, he had a cigar clenched in his teeth. Unlike Taylor, who hobbled sick and wounded, Sullivan was a typhoon, as always. “Cap’n Bowater! What the hell you doin to that fine ship? I told you ya needs ventilation in this part of the world! Now if you go and put planks on the whole damned thing, she’s gonna be hot as Beelzebub’s barbecue down below. Next thing you gonna do some damn fool thing like coverin her up with iron plating!”

“Fear not, Sullivan, I think she is in little danger of being plated with iron anytime soon.”

“I’m happy to hear that! Now, Captain, it occurred to me, you ain’t got what I would call an ideal situation, your men housed all over the damn town. You know how sailors can be, let ’em run wild like that. Just look at ol Hieronymus Taylor, here. One night on the town and he looks like somethin the devil brought in in his carpetbag. So I thought I could do you a friendly turn, let your boys bunk on board the General Page. Plenty of room, good quarters. Keep ’em all together. Free of charge. What do ya say?” Sullivan withdrew his cigar and held it in meaty fingers, grinning wide.

“That’s very kind of you, Captain, and I certainly would feel better knowing my men were under the vigilant eye of the hardest drinking, hardest driving, most dangerous son of a whore riverboat man on the Western Waters. But I thought the River Defense Fleet was remaining at Fort Pillow, a good hundred miles upriver from here.”

“We go up and down. Here and there. Not a problem at all, get your boys to work of a morning.”

Bowater nodded. Sullivan was clearly hoping that once Bowater’s men were aboard the Page, he could begin to incorporate them into his own crew. Give him a month and every one of them would be assigned to the Page, and Bowater would have not a man left.

“Unfortunately, Sullivan, since you are an army outfit, and we are navy, I fear the paperwork would be a nightmare.”

“Ah, paperwork, hell, paperwork don’t stand no show ’round here. We don’t need no paperwork. Just send your boys over.”

“Forgive me, but you know how we professional military types are. Has to be by the book. It’s what makes us so damned insufferable. But thanks.”

“You think on her, anyhow.” Sullivan puffed his cigar. “Say, here’s another thing. I seen a notice for some fancy playactors, thought you might be interested. You bein a man of letters and all.” He fished around in the pocket of his sack coat, pulled out a crumbled handbill. “Here she is.” Sullivan unfolded it, squinted at it.

“ ‘The Theatre Troupe of the South,’ ” he read, “ ‘just recently returned from their triumphant tour of England and the Continent of Europe, where they were lauded by the crowned heads for which they performed, are pleased to announce an encore performance of Mr. William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.’ ”

Sullivan looked up. “Now I wasn’t so sure about this. This ain’t one of them things where they got them fat gals all singin in some foreign language, is it?”

“I don’t reckon,” said Taylor. “Way I hear it, she’s a play, just talkin and such, plus a whole deal of sword fightin and doublecrossin and murder and the like.”

“Well, hell, that sounds just grand! Cap’n Bowater, you ever heard of this here Tragedy of Hamlet?”

“Yes, something, I believe.” He glared at Taylor, wondered what the man knew.

“So what do ya say?” Sullivan asked. “We should go see this here! Go tonight!”

“I’m not sure,” Bowater said. “I have an awful lot of work to finish up.”

“You need some diversion, Cap’n,” Taylor said, a smile playing on his lips. “Been workin too damn hard. We all were kickin out the jams after the battle, an you just carryin on with work, like a busy little beaver.”

“Perhaps. But you, Mr. Taylor, are far too ill to attend. I must insist you go immediately back to the hospital and remain there until your strength returns.”

“Maybe tomorrow I will. But now I’m all worked up to see this here play. Heard some good things about it. Wouldn’t miss her for worlds.”

“Then she’s settled!” Sullivan said. “The three of us, we’re gonna see us some Hamlet.”

Sullivan made his exit, stage right, in the same whirlwind of energy in which he had entered. Bowater could hear him in the shipyard, yelling at the men working on the Tennessee. He turned and glared at Taylor.

Bowater nodded. “Funny that an uneducated mudsill like you should recommend Hamlet, of all things, for Sullivan to see.”

“Why’s that?” Taylor was all innocence, but he could not keep the devil out of his voice, and the bit of a grin that formed around his cigar.

“It would almost suggest some familiarity with the play, which I would not expect from a simple salt-of-the-earth kind of fellow such as yourself.”

“I done heard of the play before. Always thought it was about a little pig.”

Bowater sighed. “ Taylor, you are a great pretender, but I happen to know the truth of you.”

“That a fact? What would the truth of me be?”

“That you’re just acting at being a semiliterate river rat. That you are actually an educated man, a man of arts and letters.”

Taylor continued to grin, but Bowater was sure he saw a hint of uneasiness there. “Now ain’t that the biggest load a crap I ever heard. You tell me, Cap’n, if that was true, why would a fellow with an education pretend to be a low-down dirty peckerwood like me?”

“That is a good question,” Bowater said. “That is one hell of a good question.”