The black swan (49 page)

They had successfully passed the first barrier, but dawn brought renewed danger. There was no release from constant vigil. The Ullah steamed steadily at ten knots, sitting low in the water because of her heavy load of cotton. It was a crowded sea and dangerous waters. Several times the lookout spotted a ship. Each time tensed muscles relaxed when it turned out to be a merchant vessel and not a cruiser.

By noon the sky was overcast, a bluish gray haze lowering to the water's surface every hour. Throughout the early part of the day Adam and Beau were alert, expecting to be attacked momentarily. By late afternoon, when they had not sighted the cruising blockaders and the weather grew steadily worse, their nerves were raw with tension.

"I can smell the son of a bitch. Beau. Where the hell is he?" Adam squinted at the vast expanse of moving gray haze. He strode to starboard, peering at what seemed to be a deserted ocean.

"See anythin'?" Beau asked, searching too.

"Nothin' . . ." Then: "Sweet Jesus! There she is," as the cruiser emerged from the fog, five miles astern of the Ullah. "Full steam ahead!"

Beau raced below, bellowing orders to his firemen to build a full head of steam in both Ullah's boilers. His crew was about to be tested for the first time. He checked

the bunkers, trying to guess how much scarce and precious anthracite coal it would take to outrun and outmaneuver the cruiser.

As Beau's crew built pressure in the boilers, the heat grew intense under Adam's feet on deck. The vibration made everything creep that wasn't secured. His men made bales of cotton fast, shifted others aft. With the ship vibrating so hard that Adam expected it to lift from the water, they were making no better than thirteen knots. The cruiser gained steadily on them, rapidly drawing near enough to fire upon the Ullah. The cruiser, having no bow gun, began to yaw, sending hundred-pound shot from the long-range Parrott gun over the Ullah. Then their aim improved. Part of the passenger deck shattered, spraying decorative gingerbread and splintered lumber onto the cotton bales. Losing speed because of the yawing, the cruiser dropped back, th& jshots falling short.

Adam knew as well as the Federal captain that the Ullah couldn't outrun the cruiser. His only remaining course was to pit his knowledge of the waters against the superior speed of his pursuer. As soon as he saw the cruiser enter the Gulf Stream, he angled toward its outer reaches, slipping out of its two- to three-mile current. If the cruiser remained in the stream going against the powerful current, Adam could make up some of the speed the Ullah didn't possess of herself.

Beau, satisfied with the efforts belowdecks, ordered the cotton bales on the foredeck shoved into the sea, lightening the load. The white bundles hobbled along in the Ullah's wake. Lightened and giving everything she had, the Ullah was barely reaching fourteen knots. Her decks shuddered. The flooring was almost too hot to bear standing on. From her stacks billowed smoke and cinders blown from the overheated furnace. But was giving Adam what he needed.

The cruiser, beating against the Gulf Stream and the time she lost by yawing, had dropped about seven miles astern. With dark approaching and the Florida Straits near, Adam began to believe they'd make it. He glanced at the sky.

There was a loud but strangely muffled crumpp! A ragged red hole bloomed in the deck sheathing. Flames burst around them in one great fiery gasp. Pieces of splintered planks, cinders, and large murderous metal

shards flew up to land on the deck. As though by a giant hand, Adam was slammed against the helm, his breath knocked out sickeningly. Beau and the crewmen were flung across the deck amid the debris.

Belowdecks, men screamed.

Adam stumbled to his feet, grasping the helm, testing it gently to see if the UUah still responded. Satisfied, he ordered the mate to take the helm. He catapulted down the ladder to assess the damage to ship and crewmen.

He ordered injured men hauled to the captain's dining hall while those still whole were to keep the remaining boiler full of steam. Beau and the crew worked feverishly to put out the fire that would act like a beacon, spotlighting them as darkness fell. Men worked with scalded skin, uncomplaining and determined as Adam again asked for all the power UUah had left.

With the number two boiler blown, the Ullah's speed was reduced to a maximum of eight knots. He set a course straight for New Orleans, then veered sharply, reversing the engines, coming to a stop in the dubious protection of a fogbank just beyond the western Florida coast. The UUah blew steam beneath the surface, causing no dark billowing clouds to give them away.

Adam, Beau, and the crew stood in rigid silence on the ruined deck and bridges, each man praying that the cruiser would pass them by. Adam held his breath as it neared. Its guns roared and spit fire, certain that somewhere before them lay the crippled, easy prey of the UUah. The Federal ship passed, a ghost more felt than seen, shooting its Parr rott guns wildly at the night air.

At New Orleans the Federal ship Brooklyn guarded the Pass a rOutre. Thirty-five miles away the Powhatan guarded the Southern Pass. In between were the unguarded South and Northeast passes, both open to small vessels, both possible for ships of shallow draft, but not the UUah. Adam thought longingly of the sleek blockade runners waiting for him in Nassau.

He headed for the Pass a I'Outre, both he and Beau braced for the guns to begin roaring once more. Rain came down in a steady drizzle, threatening a coming storm. Thunder rumbled, nearer with each drumming roll. Only the thick cloud covering near the shore saved the UUah from being dangerously illuminated by the distant flashes of lightning out at sea. Unable to risk the storm coming

nearer, Adam again called for all the speed the ship could muster. Low on coal, Beau dismantled the wood fittings from passenger cabins to burn. He broke into one of Jem's cotton bales, saturating it in kerosene and adding that to the firebox.

As they neared the Pass h. I'Outre the Brooklyn's rockets shot up into the air, warning the Powhatan a blockade runner had been spotted. Adam tensed at the helm. There was little evasive running the Ullah could do now. He watched awestruck as the Brooklyn sailed with a full head of steam away from her post, leaving the Pass k I'Outre clear.

"God bless the poor bastard she's chasing." Adam laughed in relief. He steamed through the pass into a two-mile square of water called the Head of Passes. From this point they were safe. Exhausted, he turned the helm over to a crewman, clasped Beau's arm, and steered him to the captain's cabin, where they broke open a bottle of French brandy Adam had brought back from Europe and drank until both were too sleepy to lift the glasses to their lips.

By morning the Ullah had limped the remaining ninety-five miles to New Orleans proper. They docked at Poydras Street. The injured were transported to the hospital Repairs on the ship were begun.

The New Orleans docks rang with the melodious yell songs of the dock workers as they loaded and unloaded cargo:

Bend yo' back, tote it to de lift. White boss hollers if you ain't swift.

Beau and Adam hired a carriage, a room at the hotel, and a hot bath. After that their first stop was Brennan's Restaurant on Royal Street. For the first time in more than a year they ate a New Orleans meal: pompano toulouse, roasted quail in a potato nest, grillades in Creole sauce.

Sighing contentedly, they left Brennan's, their minds back to business. The courthouse was open daily until 6:00 P.M. to accommodate any man wishing to sign on as a privateer with the Confederacy. Adam signed the open book of subscription, designating the Ullah as a privateering ship manned by fewer than one hundred fifty men. He placed before the registrar the papers proving her a cleared vessel, then paid the five-thousand-dollar bond.

Others waited their turn, talking of ships already com-

missioned and plying their trade: the Triton, a schooner; the Phenix, a steamship of 1,644 tons and 243 men to man her; and a privateering submarine, the Pioneer. There was no limit to the imagination, daring, or hopes of the men who signed the subscription books.

Adam placed the commission papers in his pocket. Beside him Beau's eyes sparkled, filled with an eager love of this city. For Beau New Orleans was home. In no place on earth did he feel so alive or so much himself as he did here.

With some dismay he discovered that many gaming houses were closing because of the war. The gamblers had formed their own regiment, pledged to protect the city. "We're goin' on the town tonight, Adam. Look there— they've scribbled *Aux Armes, Citoyens!' on the wall. Before we know it. New Orleans'U be as closed down and stodgy as—"

Adam laughed deeply. "New Orleans could never be stodgy. Close down the city, and the bordellos'!! open business in the bayous."

"We're still goin' on the town. We've done our business, and I'm not takin' no for an answer. I haven't seen a good comique at the opera house for over a year."

"Wrong night for that." Adam chewed absently on the tip of an unlit cheroot. "Just vaudeville for the hoi polloi.'*

"I feel like the hoi polloi," Beau said, undaunted. "We'll see my mother, meet my future brother-in-law—jeez, Adam, can you fathom that? Barbara's gonna be married, my little sister. That damn Morgan Longworth better be the best damn husband a man ever was."

"With that clan of yours looking out for Barbara, the poor bastard's probably afraid to piss for fear he does it wrong."

Beau laughed gaily, feeling considerably kinder toward Morgan.

The front door spewed an assortment of demonstrative LeClercs, kissing, hugging and crying over Beau and Adam. Mrs. LeClerc insisted they stay for supper.

Morgan Longworth III was a handsome man of nineteen. He stood straight and proud beside Barbara in a spanking new gray captain's uniform. But his best credential was that he loved Barbara with a winsome, tender adoration.

Barbara, basking in Morgan's love, turned shy, enraptured brown eyes to her brother. "You won't miss our weddin', will you. Beau?"

Beau leaped from his seat, bounding over to his sister to embrace her. "Sweetheart, I'll be here if I have to swim the blockade. You can count on it. Come spring. Beau LeClerc is gonna dance at his sister's weddin'. Morgan," he said, taking the younger man's hand, "I'm truly honored to be your best man."

They left LeClerc's house with Beau still eager to taste the fruits of New Orleans' peculiar pleasures. Like a bee in a blooming clover field, he leaped from suggestion to suggestion, talking of his sister between times. "Did you see her face, Adam? She loves him! They'll be happy— don't you agree? He's a good man. What did you think?'*

Adam said thoughtfully, "They seem to love each other very much."

"Yeah." Beau sighed. "Makes me wonder what you and I are missin' out on. No one ever looked at me the way Barbara looks at him."

Adam mumbled his agreement, his mind in a fluttery turmoil as he remembered the soft vulnerability in Dulcie's eyes after he had kissed her.

"And seein' them ... I don't know. Sure gave me a powerful yearnin' for someone nice and soft—"

"We sure as hell aren't goin' to find anyone like that, walkin' the streets with you chatterin' like a magpie. Where do you want to go?"

"Orleans Ballroom." Beau turned on Chartres Street "Let's take a look."

"What do you want to go to a Quadroon Ball for? Those girls won't come with us. Their mamas are makin' permanent arrangements for them.'*

"We can look."

"Looking isn't exactly what I had in mind."

They paid the two-dollar admission and entered what was considered the finest ballroom in America. Here, under lofty ceilings lit by brilliant crystal chandeliers, on romantic balconies overlooking the gardens of Saint Louis Cathedral, were the famous beauties of New Orleans, flamboyantly gowned in silks and satins, arrayed in plumes and flashing jewels. Schooled in the subtle arts of pleasing men, they were women whose sole aim was to become the

faithful mistress of a wealthy white patron in return for financial security and one of the small white houses that sat in a neat row on Rampart Street.

Here, too, were the elegant men who had come to select a quadroon woman and, having made the choice, enter into artful negotiations with her mother so that he might pay court to his chosen beauty. It was an elaborate and dangerous ritual: Frequently more than one man desired the same girl, and the Quadroon Balls were renowned for duels precipitated by a fit of jealousy or a fancied insult.

Adam grumbled at Beau as they walked with slow nonchalance to the wine table in the flagstoned courtyard. "You realize all we can accomplish is to have some dandy hot to put a buUet in us if we touch the wrong girl." He surveyed the room as he spoke, eyes lingering on the lush feminine forms all around him. It was enough to make a man wonder if fighting a duel wasn't small price to pay for an evening in such a paradise. He hesitated, watching Beau, with his ready smile and gregarious nature, thrust himself into the midst of conversations private or otherwise. Somehow he managed it without calling disaster upon himself, Adam noticed with a twinge of envy.

Adam stood near the balcony, enjoying the playful breeze that gusted erratically through the open doors. He had been standing there for about fifteen minutes when a statuesque woman in her forties approached him. "Well, Captain," she said, fingering his lapel, "you already spoken for, or are you more selective than most?"

"A little of each, Madame." He introduced himself and offered to fetch her some wine.

They walked together to the seat she had vacated. "You'd make the perfect man fo' mah baby. Captain Tre-main."

"If she's your daughter, Madame, I'd find her irresistible. But I'm not in the market I sail day after repairs are made on my ship."

"What? So sure. Captain? Cannot a man be made to change his mind once, as a woman wisely does a dozen times in an hour?"

"Perhaps ... on rare occasions."

**This will be such an occasion. No man can look upon Solange Plafond and resist her, Captain. Not even a man with so determined a jaw as yours." In one graceful movement Madame Plafond rose from her seat and crossed the