Chapter 31

SIR: In answer to your letter of 9th instant, asking what is necessary to be supplied…twenty surf boats for landing troops, of a build, except being a little more flat-bottomed, to correspond with those used at Vera Cruz during the Mexican war.

– Flag Officer S. H. Stringham to Gustavus V. Fox

It was an odd sort of concert. Samuel Bowater did not find the Norfolk and Elizabeth City Quintet bad, at least not intolerably so. The first violin knew his business, working through the tragic melody of the Quintet in G

Minor, the joyous notes of the Quintet in C Major. He played well for the most part, doing no worse than briefly mutilating the tempo in the second movement and making a hash of a particularly difficult few measures in the third. But overall, not too bad.

Arriving at the hall was worse. It was a terribly improper thing from the outset, inviting Wendy Atkins to accompany him for the evening, with no escort, no chaperon, a young woman all but living by herself. The Samuel Bowater of half a year before would not have considered it.

But now, after the fighting, after the hospital, with the well-established order of things crumbling around him, now, somehow, it did not seem so intolerable. And so he had written to her. And she had accepted. But he had had no intention of displaying his newfound want of morals in front of the men.

Wendy was waiting for him outside as he made his way along the walk, a trail of seamen behind like the tail of a comet. “Miss Atkins, may I present Hieronymus Taylor, my chief engineer,” Bowater said, and Wendy held out her hand to shake and Taylor shook and Bowater was certain he saw something pass between them.

“I think perhaps we have met,” Taylor said. “Didn’t you use to paint them pictures in the park, like the cap’n here?”

“Yes, yes I did…” Wendy said.

So that is it… Bowater thought, and made himself be satisfied with that explanation.

In the concert hall, Hieronymus Taylor sat on one side of him, grinning a wide grin, Wendy on the other. Every once in a while Samuel would meet Taylor ’s eyes and the chief would smile and nod approvingly. Taylor beat the time on his leg, doing so with greater and greater enthusiasm as the concert progressed, to Bowater’s greater and greater annoyance. But Taylor did not stop, save for the moment when the first violin went astray, tempo-wise, and then Taylor just chuckled, waited for the violinist to get back on track.

For the others, it was a mixed experience. Bowater was aware of the shift in mood among the sailors, from anticipation of something new to an uncomfortable realization that a quintet was just a gang of five stiffs like the old man, playing music with no words, and that was as good as it was going to get. There would be no minstrel show, no one in blackface imitating Negroes and singing “Camptown Races” or “Old Folks at Home,” no olio with its crude jests, no burlesque with scantily clad women capering around the stage. Just a bunch of stiffs, sawing away.

Some of the hands tried to remain respectfully alert. Some squirmed, shifted, glanced at the door. Some fell asleep, and Bowater was thankful for that, except for when Jimmy Ogden began to snore and Ruffin Tanner hit him a bit too hard, and he shouted as he jerked awake.

No, it was not the finest musical experience that Samuel Bowater had ever enjoyed, neither the best musicians nor the best audience. He was supremely annoyed to have to divide his attention between Wendy and his cretinous crew.

When it was over the Cape Fears walked en masse back to the docks, with coats wrapped tight around them against the buffeting November wind, as Bowater walked Wendy to the boardinghouse at which she was lodging to have their private farewell.

They stood on the porch, catching a bit of a lee from the house, stood for a long time, not moving or speaking. A part of Samuel’s mind raged against the impropriety of it all, a part wanted to sweep her away, to use the war as his excuse for throwing all of his well-worn propriety overboard. At last he reached out for her, took her in his arms, hugged her, and she hugged him. A real hug, and not a brotherly one. He looked in her eyes. “I have missed you.”

“I have missed you. You’ll send word?”

“I will.” He kissed her, and she kissed him back. They said nothing more, and she pulled herself from his arms.

Bowater caught up with his men at last on the dock, and Bayard Quayle, who was on sentry duty, did no more than peek out from where he was huddled in the engine-room door to see who it was boarding the vessel. The men each thanked Bowater for the experience and disappeared forward.

“Well, damn me, that was somethin,” Taylor said as he and Bowater walked forward.

“Did you enjoy it, Chief?”

“I surely did, Cap’n. I always figured that Mozart and such was too highfalutin for a simple country fiddler like me, but now I see there ain’t so much to it. And all together, with them…whatta ya call ’em, the bigger ones?”

“Violas? Cello?”

“Yeah. Why, it sounds like a choir of angels!”

“I’ll admit the first violin was not the best I have heard. But the music itself is very complicated. It sounds simple, well played, but that is deceptive.”

“Aw, I don’t know,” Taylor said. “Hmmm, hmm, hm, hm…” The chief began to hum the first violin’s part with surprising recall. “Reckon I could scratch that out.”

“You remember that part?”

“Oh, hell, yes. I got a great head for remembering little ditties and such.

I hear a tune, I got it”-Taylor snapped his fingers in the air-“like that.”

“Yes, well…” It was irritating that Taylor should think remembering and reproducing a “little ditty” by Mozart was the same as hearing and then playing some campfire song. “I fear it is a bit more than that, you know.

Well, good night, Chief.”

Taylor pulled a cigar from his pocket, clamped it in his teeth. “Good night, Cap’n. We’ll have a full head of steam by sunup.”

“Very good, Chief.” Bowater walked to the forward end of the deckhouse, climbed the ladder to the boat deck. He stepped though the wheelhouse and into his cabin. The steam pipes that ran along the deck filled the cabin with glorious warmth, like stepping into a lover’s embrace.

Jacob was asleep below, and Bowater had given him permission to remain asleep and he was glad that he did. He wanted to be alone. He was in an irritable mood. His night ashore had been ruined, and all his telling

himself that he was glad to introduce his men to such finer things as classical music was not enough to make him believe it.

Hieronymus Taylor…son of a bitch white trash peckerwood… The chief never failed to irritate him, and then it irritated him further that he let Taylor irritate him, until he had irritation built upon irritation.

It was irritating that Taylor was so damned good at his work. Taylor had a sense for engines that was profound, almost mystical. Every steamer on which Bowater sailed had always had a myriad of problems with the engines. But nothing beyond the most minor of difficulties ever seemed to take place aboard the Cape Fear. Bowater had watched Taylor once fix the small steam engine that drove the steering gear-an engine that had squealed its way to what seemed an untimely death-with just a twist of a wrench and a feather touch of a screwdriver. It was like a laying on of hands. It was spooky.

Samuel unbuttoned his coat and hung it on a hanger, smoothed it out, hung the hanger on a rod. He pulled his braces off his shoulders and took off his shirt and hung it up with equal care.

From the galley below he heard a screeching sound, like straining metal or a cat in great pain. He stopped, cocked his ear, frowned.

The sound again, but less discordant, and he realized it was Taylor’s violin. He was tuning his violin in the galley below.

Is he intending to play at this damned time of night?

Bowater stood in that spot and listened and did not know what to do. He wanted to tell Taylor to quit it, that he did not care to hear his caterwauling when he was going to bed, that he did not care to hear the damned “Bonnie Blue Flag” at that hour, or any. But he did not want Taylor to know he had irritated him.

Then the screeching stopped and there came up through the deck a series of notes that were not “Dixie” or “Roll the Old Chariot Along” but rather Mozart. Mozart’s Quintet in G Minor.

Bowater got down on his hands and knees, held his ear an inch above the deck. Taylor was playing the piece flawlessly, remembering note for note what he had heard two hours before. He went through the first movement, the notes rising and falling with the very passion the old master had infused into them. He did not miss a one. He made the first violin of the Norfolk and Elizabeth City Quintet sound like a hack in a minstrel show.

For ten minutes Bowater remained in his supplicant position, listening to the music coming up through the deck, nodding his head to the rhythm, mouthing the melody as it floated through the deck. He listened to Taylor breeze effortlessly over sections of which, he recalled, the first violin had made a hash. He listened to the chief engineer’s beautiful interpretation of that classic work.

Devil take that peckerwood son of a bitch… Bowater thought, despite himself. Now he was more annoyed than ever.

Hieronymus Taylor sat on Johnny St. Laurent’s stool, in the warmth of the galley, eyes closed, and let his fingers dance over the neck of his violin, let the music flow from his head, down his arm, up the bow, to be coaxed at last out of the body of the instrument.

He hummed softly as he played the Quintet in G Minor. He had not heard it for two years at least before that night, was not sure he could execute it perfectly, but his fingers and his bowing arm knew what to do, once he stopped thinking and just let them go.

The first violin of the Norfolk and Elizabeth City Quintet had not been so very bad, though he had no genuine feel for the music. Still, Taylor could sense Bowater tightening every time the poor bastard made a hash of it.

From the corner of his eye he saw the captain shake his head in disgust with each minor imperfection.

Goddamned blueblood, stick-up-his-ass patrician son of a bitch…

Taylor thought.

Wendy Atkins…son of a bitch… he thought.

He heard the music go awry as his concentration drifted, and he refocused on Mozart. Not one damned thing good enough for that bastard…

Bowater made him feel insignificant, a poor relation, the hired man who lives in the barn. It irritated him and it irritated him that he allowed it to irritate him.

He crept up on the section where the first violin had made a mess of the tempo. He stood, climbed up on an apple crate so that his instrument would be as close to the sole of the captain’s cabin as it could get, played the part with a perfection of timing, as loud as he could.

He heard the galley door open, felt a blast of cold wind sweep away the steam heat. He looked over, expected to see a furious Samuel Bowater.

Instead, he saw Ruffin Tanner, framed in the door, lit by the soft light of the

single lantern burning in the galley. Tanner stepped in, shut the door behind him, leaned with folded arms against the door.

Taylor looked away, closed his eyes, finished the movement, but the mood was broken with Tanner there, and he felt a bit foolish, having been caught standing on top of the crate.

He bowed the last note, opened his eyes, let the bow fall to his side, and took the violin from his chin. He turned and regarded the sailor, who was patiently waiting for him to finish. He found Tanner gruff, often unpleasant, highly competent at his job. Tanner was the kind of man he liked, a kindred irascible bastard.

“That there,” Taylor said, hopping down from his crate, “is what you call ‘classical music.’”

“That a fact? Reckon I’d call it a lot of goddamned noise for seven bells in the evenin watch.”

“Would you, now?” Tanner’s attitude was something different for the sailor. Aggressive. He wondered if he was going to have to whop Tanner’s ass. Wondered if he could. It would be a good fight.

“Well, lucky for you, you done broke the mood, you know what I mean?” Taylor laid the violin and bow in the case. “You done broke my creative spell.” He snapped the case shut, set the instrument well out of the way on the galley counter. Turned, faced Tanner, arms folded the way the sailor’s were. “I don’t much appreciate that.”

“No? Well, I don’t much appreciate bein kept awake by some white trash peckerwood standin on an apple crate like some kinda dumb ass.”

“‘Dumb ass,’ you say?” Taylor let his arms drop to his sides, shook them out. Didn’t know what was up Tanner’s behind, but he reckoned it was time to beat it out of him. “You want to do somethin about this problem of yours?”

Tanner nodded. He unbuttoned the top few buttons of his heavy overcoat, reached a hand in. Taylor braced for what would come out of there-a knife, a blackjack, a gun.

But it was a bottle, a flask-style bottle more than half full of a liquid that looked very much like whiskey. “Long as your goddamned fiddle’s put away, guess I can give you something, might bring back that ‘creative spirit’ you s’all fired worried about.”

Tanner pulled the cork from the bottle, took a deep pull, wiped the neck on his coat, and handed it to Taylor. Taylor tipped the bottle back. Whiskey.

Quite good whiskey, in fact. “Yup. Yup. I hear that ol’ muse singin again.”

He handed the bottle back, and Tanner stepped across the galley, rustled up two glasses, half-filled each with the liquor. Handed one to Taylor.

“Tanner, you got a goddamned funny way of sayin you’d like to have a drink with a man.”

“That ain’t what I want to say. I want to say, you too damned hard on the cap’n.”

“‘Hard on the cap’n? Are you jokin?”

“No, I ain’t. And you know it. Ride over him every chance you got. I don’t know what the hell you was doin up on that crate, but I bet it ain’t no coincidence you was right under the old man’s cabin.”

Taylor took a sip of his whiskey, hoped he was not flushing red, or at least that Tanner would not see it in the muted light. “This here the master’s division gettin all uppity about what us engine-room niggers is doin? Y’all think we should keep to our place? Don’t try to come into the big house, like?”

“Ain’t about that. I don’t give a damn about that. Some of my best friends is black gang. Do what you want to the luff. It’s just Cap’n Bowater.

I don’t appreciate the grief you give him.”

“And why are you so concerned about good Cap’n Bowater?”

“’Cause he saved my life, oncet. Man don’t forget that.”

Taylor took a drink, pulled out the remainder of his cigar, sparked it to life. He needed a moment to consider this. Bowater did not seem the life-saving kind to him.

After a long silence, Taylor said, “All right, Tanner. Reckon you best tell it.”

Tanner looked at Taylor, and for a moment seemed to consider whether or not he would. “You got another one of them cigars?” he asked at last.

Taylor frowned, but he reached in his pocket, withdrew his penultimate cigar, handed it over. Waited patiently while Tanner bit off the end, then handed him his own smoldering cigar to use as a light.

“It was in the Mex War,” Tanner said at last. “In ’46. At Veracruz. I wasn’t in the navy but five years or so. Thought I knew it all, ’course, but I didn’t know shit. Anyway, we was bringing ammunition ashore for a navy battery they was setting up south of the city there. Had these big, flat barges, crazy sons of bitches. Couldn’t hardly control ’em, even when the

weather was good. They’d get four or five of ’em on a hawser, get one of them little paddle-wheel schooners to bring up to the beach.

“So there’s Ensign Bowater, fresh from the Navy School, looks clean and proper, like a little sailor doll you’d buy for your daughter. He’s in command of this little paddle wheeler ’cause her proper captain’s assigned to the battery ashore. They figured that was the real work, let the green-horn take the barges back and forth.

“We’re bringin our barges on and off the beach, ain’t no thing. Made the last run of the day, sun’s goin down. We got about five miles to steam back to the fleet. They was anchored around that island the Mex call Sacrificios.

“Halfway there, and one of them Mex northers come rippin through.

You ever experience anythin like that?”

Taylor nodded. “I know about them northers.”

Tanner nodded as well. “Then you know, they come right outta nowhere, come tearin down like a bull gone mad. Right in the middle of that big bay, and a norther come down on us, just as it was getting dark.

First ya feel that blast of cold air, then the wind starts fillin in. Next thing we know we takin green water over the sides, fillin faster than we can bail.

Seas gettin bigger and bigger, and mind, them barges warn’t nothin in a seaway in the gentlest of times. Rain’s comin down, lightnin flashin around, and ol’ Ensign Bowater jest drivin that little schooner for all she’s worth, right for the fleet.

“But a mile from the fleet and I start thinkin, ‘Damn, we may live through this after all.’ Then, sure as hell, the hawser parts, right at our bow.

We was the last barge in the line, see? So away we go, twirlin around downwind, jest like a leaf in a damn stream. Last I seen of the schooner and Ensign Bowater, he’s jest steamin along still. I don’t reckon he even knew we was gone. And I jest shake my head, don’t even bother to cuss him out, on account of I didn’t reckon we could expect much more, and him a boy right outta school.

“For about an hour we bailed like hell and some prayed and some was cussin and finally we hit the surf, due south of where we lost the tow. It was full night by then-dark comes quick when you got one of them northers-and we didn’t know we was on the beach till the barge grounds out. Two good hits and it breaks all to hell and all us sailors on board, there was about twenty of us, we all in the water.

“’Bout fifteen of us managed to get ashore, the rest drowned, or was beat to death by the surf. Some of us managed to snatch up rifles and even some cartridge boxes and we kept ’em dry, and that was a good thing. See, the Americans was nearly surrounding Veracruz, but surrounding the Americans was all these gangs of Mex irregular cavalry, and guerrillas and any damn Mex got his hands on a gun and reckoned he’d kill and rob him an American soldier.

“So we didn’t know what in hell we was going to do, but we set up some kinda defense, there on the beach, ready to fight off whatever Mex comes at us. Didn’t take too damned long, either. We’d drifted way south of the American lines, right in Mex territory, and them guerrillas come on, just like sharks. Didn’t know they was there till we hear rifles and one of our boys jest falls dead.

“You got to understand, it was dark as hell. Couldn’t see a thing. And most of our powder was wet, and us sailor boys, we ain’t so good at loading and firing in the rain, not like them infantry sumbitches. We figured we was done for, and it was only a matter of time. I seen that first one go down, and I figured that was it. Never reckoned to get it on no damned Mexican beach.

“Then, right out of nowhere, we hear a steam engine! Steam engine, there on that beach, and we don’t know what the hell it was. Then there’s a flash of lightning, and there’s the paddle-wheel schooner, with them barges still behind, but they’re empty now, and backing down into the surf. I never thought no one would come for us. Twenty sailors? On a night like that?

Didn’t reckon anyone would think it was worth it. Then I reckoned someone musta relieved Bowater of his command, ’cause I sure as hell didn’t think that toy sailor’d do it on his own.”

Taylor took a last gulp of whiskey, refilled his glass and Tanner’s.

“And?”

“And I was wrong. Once Bowater realized our barge was gone, he called for volunteers amongst the other barge crews to go after us. Happy to say they all volunteered. Then Bowater, he jest let the paddle wheeler drift downwind and current, reckoned he’d fetch up where we did. Damned stupid thing to do, but he didn’t know no better. Then he sees our gunfire.

Drops anchor, backs the paddle wheeler down on the beach until the last of them barges is right in the surf. He had ’em tied together, see, to form sort of a bridge. All we had to do was climb over ’em.”

“So that’s how he saved your sorry ass?”

“Nope. Problem was, those Mex had us under fire. We tried to go back across the beach, they would have come out and slaughtered us. So after a while, Bowater figures this out. Next thing we know, here he comes, leadin the barge crews, with whatever weapons they got, climbin over them barges and into the surf, and right up to where we was hidin. The Mex is firin at us, and we firin at the Mex and some of those poor bastards is getting shot down. But we held ’em. All night, in the damned rain and the wind, we held

’em off.

“First light we starts movin toward the barges. We had half a dozen of the fellows was United States Marines, and they was the only ones knew how to cover a retreat, like. So they organized the thing, and we backed off down the beach, got on them barges, and all the while we can see the Mex gettin closer, firin the whole time, and we’s nearly out of ammunition.

“’Course, as cap’n of the steamer, Bowater’s duty is to get on board her, get her ready to get underway.”

“That what he done?”

“Nope. He wouldn’t get off that damned beach until all of us was.

Stupid bastard, and I told him so, but he wouldn’t go. Me and him, we was the last ones off that beach. See here…” Tanner bent over, pulled up his right pant leg. The lantern light shone on the smooth, hard skin of a scar that wrapped itself halfway around his calf.

“That was a Mex bullet I took just as we was gettin in the barge. Warn’t nothin would kill me, but I sure as hell wouldn’t have got off that beach if Bowater wasn’t there to help. None of us would. He never asked for permission to do what he done, just done it.”

Taylor nodded. “Very impressive. It must have been a tearful reunion, you two, up there at Norfolk, all huggin and carryin on about old times. Be enough to make a body puke.”

Tanner shook his head. “Bowater don’t remember me, and that’s how I keep it. I seen him on and off, over the years. Then when I seen him in Norfolk, and fightin for the South, then I said, ‘Wherever that sumbitch is goin, that’s where I want to go.’ That’s when I finagled my way on board, here.”

“All right. So Bowater saved your flea-bitten hide oncet. That’s got nothin to do with me.”

“No, it don’t. All’s I’m sayin is this. You think Cap’n Bowater’s a fancy, upper-crust sumbitch, got a broomstick up his ass, and I ain’t saying he

don’t. But the man’s got grit, you hear? Kinda grit it took to come get us off that beach, that ain’t somethin a man loses. It’s somethin you born with.

You seen him go after the fleet back there at Hampton Roads, seen him march right through them shells at Fort Hatteras. You may not like him, but he’s a man deserves respect. That’s all I gots to say.”

Taylor was silent, chewed on his cigar. “All right. You done said it.”

Tanner picked up the whiskey bottle, examined it, drained the last vestiges of whiskey. “Good night, Chief,” he said.

“Good night.”

Tanner opened the galley door. The wind whipped in, made the hanging pots clang against each other like bells on a buoy. Then he stepped out, closed the door, and it was quiet again.

Taylor remained sitting, looking at the door. Tanner was a good man. He had respect for a man like Tanner.

Well, goddamn… he thought. This sure as hell complicates things.

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