Stars & Stripes Triumphant (14 page)

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.

On the bridge Korzhenevski was just as cool as a naval officer should be. "Look," he said. "Her bow is still pointing upstream. She will have to turn to follow us."

"If we get by her," Sherman said grimly. "Won't her guns bear on us as we go past?"

"They will if I make a mistake," the Count said. Then he spoke into the communication tube to the engine room in Russian. "Half speed," he said.

Sherman's eyes widened at this, but he said nothing. He depended on the Russian's professionalism now. Korzhenevski took a quick glance at him and smiled.

"I'm not mad, General, not quite yet. I'm watching her bows, waiting for them to turn—yes, there they go. Hold the speed. She's turning to starboard, so we'll pass her on that flank." He snapped a command in Russian to the helmsman. "We'll stay as close to her bow as we can. That way she won't be able to depress her forward guns to reach us—and the rest of them will not bear until we are past."

It was a difficult maneuver, and had to be conducted with extreme precision. Too slow, or too fast, and the guns would be able to fire on them.

"Now—full speed!"

HMS
Defender's,
length was almost the same as the width of the river at this point. Her bow was in danger of striking the bank.
Aurora
had to get through the rapidly closing gap. The foam roiled from
Defender's
propeller as she went hard astern. The Count laughed happily.

"Her captain is not thinking fast enough for this emergency. He should have let her touch the bank, plugged up our escape hole. If he had done that, his ship would suffer no grave injury—but we certainly would if we had hit her ironclad bow—there!—we are through. Top speed now."

The little yacht surged downstream. The British battleship was now almost halted across the river. She was starting to turn again, but very slowly.
Aurora
hurtled on—and into sight of the warship's guns.

One after another, as they came to bear, they fired. Columns of water rose up before her and well beyond her.

"They can't depress the guns low enough to hit us yet. They should have waited. Now they must reload."

The Count was jubilant; Sherman cold as ever under fire. Smoke roiled up from
Aurora's
stack as they tore down the river at top speed. The guns began to fire again, but their aim was wildly erratic with the opening distance and the ship turning at the same time.

There was a sudden tremendous explosion in the rear of the cabin deck, fire and smoke. Someone screamed over and over. Luck could take them just so far.

"I'll take care of that," Sherman said, moving swiftly toward the stairway.

The shell had hit the rear of the main cabin, tearing a great hole in the wall. One of the stewards was lying on the floor, soaked in blood, still screaming. Fox was bent over him with the tablecloth he had torn from the endboard, trying to bind up the man's wounds. A crewman appeared with a bucket of water and threw it on the smoldering fire. Through the opening in the wall more explosions were visible in the river.

Then the shelling stopped.

The Count appeared, took in the scene with a single glance. "There has been no major damage to the hull. Poor Dimitri is our only casualty. And we are past a bend in the river.
Defender
will be after us soon, and it will then be a stern chase. I think that we are faster than her.
Aurora
was built for speed, while our pursuer was built for battle. It is for fate to decide now."

Fox stood, shaking his head unhappily. "I'm afraid that he is dead."

The Count crossed himself in the Russian Orthodox way. "A tragedy to die so far from Russia. He was a good man—and he died in a good cause." He called out orders in Russian. "I'll be on deck while this is cleaned up. Then we must wait. In the end we shall drink cognac to a successful voyage—or we will be prisoners of the British."

"What are the odds?" Sherman asked.

"Very good—if we can outrun our pursuer. If we can do that, why, then it is straight across the sea to Ireland."

They stood, side by side on the bridge, looking back at their mighty pursuer through the sheets of driving rain. Ahead of them the sky was getting darker.

"Are we faster than she is?" Sherman asked.

"I do believe that we are."

As sunset approached and the distance between them grew, the captain of HMS
Defender
reluctantly took a gamble. The ship's silhouette suddenly lengthened as she turned her bows so her length faced them. The guns fired as soon as they could bear. Once again
Aurora
suffered a bombardment, but none of the shells fell close.

The ship was a small target and constantly moving, changing course, elusive. The rain was heavy, night was falling, and soon after this last broadside
Aurora
was invisible to their pursuer.

"And now the cognac!" Korzhenevski shouted aloud, laughing and slapping Sherman on the back, then seizing his hand and pumping it enthusiastically. Sherman only smiled, understanding the Russian's happiness.

They had gotten away with it.

A DISASTROUS ENCOUNTER

The approaching British ironclad slowed her engines and her bow wave died away. Captain Semmes looked at her coldly as she drew closer to the USS
Virginia.
There was her name, spelled out in large white letters, DEVASTATION. Maybe, just maybe, the British captain would decide on aggression. Would that he did. Semmes knew that his ship was the match for any in the world, with three steam-powered turrets, each of them mounting two breech-loading guns. While the enemy outgunned him, he doubted very much that she outclassed him. Her muzzle loaders had a much slower rate of fire than his own guns.

He recognized her type; one of the newly built
Warrior-class
ironclads. She had all the strengths of the original—twenty-six sixty-eight-pounders and ten hundred-pounders—and could unleash a terrible broadside. Also, according to the intelligence reports that he had seen, the builders had overcome
Warrior's
weaknesses by armoring her stern, then eliminating the masts and sails. Semmes was not impressed, even by these changes. The greatest naval engineer in the world, John Ericsson, had designed every inch of his ship, and she was the most advanced ever known to man.

A signalman appeared on the other ship's bridge.

"They're sending a message, Captain," his signalman said. "It reads—"

"Belay that," Semmes snapped. "I have no desire to communicate with that ship. We will remain here on station until she leaves."

Devastation's
captain was infuriated.

"Doesn't she read our signals? Send the message again. We are well within our rights to inspect the manifests of a vessel suspected of breaking international law. Damme, still no response—yet I can see them on the bridge there, brazenly staring at us. Bos'un, fire off the saluting cannon. That should draw their attention."

The little gun was quickly loaded, powder and no shot, and went off with a cracking bang.

Aboard
Virginia,
Captain Semmes was just sending a signal to
Dixie Belle
inquiring as to her repairs when he heard the explosion. He spun about and saw the puff of white smoke just below the other ship's bridge.

"Was that a shot?"

"Yes, sir. Sounded like a saluting cannon."

Semmes stood, frozen for a long moment, while the smoke thinned and dispersed. He had a decision to make, a decision that might end these frustrating months of convoy duty.

"Bos'un—was there a cannon fired aboard the British ship?"

"Aye, sir. But I think—"

"Do not think. Answer me. You saw the smoke, heard the sound of a cannon being fired aboard that British ship?"

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Good. We will return fire. I want the gunners to aim for her upper works."

The six guns fired almost as one. The hail of steel fragments swept the other ship's decks clear, wrecked both her funnels, blew away her bridge and officers, steersman, everyone. The surprise was complete, the destruction total. No order was given to fire aboard the battered ship, and the guncrews, trained to obey orders and not to think, did nothing.

Semmes knew all about the ship he had just engaged. He knew that all of her guns were in a heavily armored citadel, an iron box that was separate from the rest of the ship. They pointed to port and starboard—and only a single hundred-pound pivot gun that was on her stern deck pointed aft.
Virginia
crossed
Devastation's
stern, and all of her guns, firing over and over, pounded this single target.

No ship, no matter how well built and heavily armored, could survive this kind of punishment. The pivot gun got off one shot, which bounced from
Virginia's
armor before being dismounted and destroyed. Shell after shell exploded inside the ironclad's hull, gutting her, blowing gaping holes in the outer armor. Igniting a store of powder.

The ripping explosion blew most of the ship's stern away, and the ocean rushed in. With the ship deprived of her buoyancy, the bow rose in the air. There were more explosions deep in the hull and immense clouds of vapor as the boilers were flooded. The bow was higher now, pointing to the zenith. Then, with immense burbling and retching, the ironclad sank down into the ocean and vanished from sight. Nothing but wreckage remained to mark the spot.

"Lower the boat," Semmes ordered. "Pick up any survivors." He had to repeat the order, shouting it this time, before the stunned sailors sprang into action.

Out of a crew of over six hundred, there were three survivors. One of them was so badly wounded he died even before they could bring him aboard. It was a resounding victory for American sea power.

And HMS
Devastation
had fired the gun that started the conflict. Captain Semmes had many witnesses to that fact. Not that there would be any real questions asked; the affair was a fait accompli. The act was finished.

There was no going back now. The deed was done.

Once the
Aurora
was out of LiverpoolBay, safe in the darkness and the open and rainswept Irish Sea, she slowed to a less strenuous pace and eased the reckless pressure in her boilers. There were extra lookouts posted, on the off chance that their pursuer might still be after them, while the sailors cleared away the wreckage and covered with a tarpaulin the hole that had been blasted into the cabin. Once this was done, they settled down for a late dinner with, as always, copious quantities of the Count's vintage champagne. Because the galley fires were still out, it was a cold meal of caviar and pickled herring; there were no complaints.

"How did they find us?" Wilson said, sipping gratefully at the champagne. "That is what I don't understand."

"My fault completely," Korzhenevski admitted. "After that little contretemps in Greenwich, I should have been more on my guard. Once suspicion was aroused, they would have easily traced us to Penzance. Plenty of people there saw us cruise north from there. I was equally foolish when we stopped for fresh supplies in Anglesey. I bought maps of the estuary here, and of the bay, in the chandler's. Once they knew that, they knew where to find us. The rest, as they say, is history."

"Which is written by the victors," General Sherman said, holding up his glass. "And a toast to the Count, the victor. Whatever crimes of omission you think you have committed in leading the British to us, you have well vindicated yourself by what to me, a mere landsman, appeared to be an incredibly skilled bit of boat handling."