Rebels of Babylon (37 page)

Earlier, I had judged the captain falsely, thinking him a plunger and no strategist. But as he and his officers studied the charts, he proved himself to be a lively thinker, weighing his enemy’s possible actions and plotting his course accordingly. He would not have been liked in our regiments in India. Nor, I fear, in our Army of the Potomac, where genius is employed to explain failure, not prevent it.

Abruptly, Captain Senkrecht looked up from the talk of depths and currents.

“If we have to choose, which is more important to you? Capturing the crew or freeing the niggers?”

“The negroes,” I said. Although the crew deserved hanging.

He made a sound deep in his throat, neither approving nor disapproving. Turning back to his subordinates, and with especial attention to the pilot, he said, “If she still isn’t under steam, we can probably overtake her here.” Placing a forefinger on a map of the river, he traced a course. “Or there, at the latest.”

The pilot nodded.

“I don’t want to run past her,” the captain continued, “in case her crew decide they’d just as soon ram us. Given what they’re carrying, they might feel desperate enough. We’ll come alongside … say, here … and edge them toward that bar.” He looked at the pilot once more, who nodded and sucked on an unlit cigarillo. “I believe they’ll choose to run her aground, gentlemen, as close to shore as possible. Once they realize we’re onto them, their prime concern will be to escape the gallows. They’ll want to get off that ship. So we’ll encourage them.” He shifted his eyes to Lieutenant Gray. “Place your best sharpshooters in the masts. Shoot the crew in the water, if they won’t surrender. They’ve forfeited their right to be called human. Should any of them reach the shore, shoot them before they can slip into the swamps.”

“They won’t much like it in there, anyhow,” the pilot interjected.

“I want two longboats ready to lower the instant we mark her turning for the bar. Swiftly, gentlemen, swiftly. Lieutenant Gray, you will divide the remainder of your men. Half will pursue the crew if they flee and gather up any wise enough to surrender. The other boat will ferry the boarding party. I don’t expect much of a fight, but we’ll give them one, if they want it.”

He turned again to me. “Lieutenant Gray will be master of the
Anne Bullen
until her crew has been secured. Thereafter, Mr. Fox will take the vessel, but he and Lieutenant Gray will give you every assistance in freeing the contrabands. If her crew runs the
Anne Bullen
aground, we’ll take the darkies off before we leave her.” He took a manly breath and spoke to all of us. “It’s
all straightforward, gentlemen. But pay attention, in case our quarry indulges in any foolishness.”

“Shall I run out the guns, sir?” the fellow in command of the
Cormorant
asked. “For effect?”

Captain Senkrecht shook his head. “They’ll know we don’t intend to sink her.” He grimaced. “They probably wish we would. To get rid of their cargo. No, Mr. Brock, if they don’t obey our order to lay by, the sharpshooters will scour her decks. Then we’ll board her.”

They all seemed to think it a fine plan. But I did have one question, of course.

“And if they are under steam?” I asked the captain. “And we do not overtake them as your plan supposes?”

In his element now, he was imperturbable. “Then we’re in a race to the Gulf of Mexico,” he said. “In a deep channel, we’ve got fourteen knots to their ten or eleven.”

But we were not in a race to the open sea. I wish I could report a ripping chase, but we come upon our quarry precisely where Captain Senkrecht thought we should. There was still no hint of smoke from her bowels as she floated slowly downstream, lazy as Cleopatra’s royal barge. The wind had taken the side of the Union and justice, putting so little swell in the slaver’s sails that they looked like untucked shirts.

The captain and I stood just outside the wheelhouse as we closed on the
Anne Bullen.
He peered through a pair of those newfangled spyglasses, moving his lips just slightly, as if asking the air a question.

“She’s busy amidships,” he told me. “My guess is that they’ve been having problems with the engine all along. Only explanation for it. Contraband boat doesn’t want to draw attention by running all out, but she doesn’t dawdle, either. And that canvas isn’t doing them much good.”

We were not yet in hailing range and the captain wished to surprise them, so we made no more show than any Federal vessel to-and-froing on the Mississippi. But the sharpshooters were crouched in their buckets atop the masts, while the Marines
and sailors to man the boats sat quietly on deck, concealed from the
Anne Bullen
by our gunwale.

Captain Senkrecht passed me the glasses. With the aid of the lenses, I began to make out faces. The crew were as mixed as the lot who had tried to capture me on that rooftop, black and white and every shade in between. Busy they were, indeed, although there seemed to be some fine confusion.

Then I saw him. The gargantuan colored fellow with the scars cut into his cheeks. The one Mr. Barnaby referred to as Petit Jean.

I do not know if he was a proper sailor, but he seemed to be in charge of the doings on deck.

“We may be in for a bit of a fuss,” I warned the captain. Passing the glasses back to him, I added, “You’ll see a tall, brown fellow. He likes a scrap.”

The captain raised the glasses again, although we were coming on at such speed that we could see much without them. The chaos on the
Anne Bullen
only increased.

“Good God!” the captain said. He was a steady fellow on the water, strict and stalwart, with a voice long practiced not to rise until necessary, in order to keep secrets from the crew. But his tone at that moment was such that it alarmed me.

I squinted to see what he might mean. I did not think the mere sight of Petit Jean could have much disturbed him.

“They’re splashing pitch on the decks,” he said in a sharpened voice. “Pitch and maybe oil. Can’t tell.”

I nearly grabbed the glasses from his hands. I understood, see.

“They know we’re after them now,” he said. “They’re going to burn her.”

He swept into action, ordering Lieutenant Gray’s sharpshooters not to wait for his challenge, but to start shooting down the crew as soon as they could. Ordering the longboats into the water, he advised me to join the boarding party immediately.

Before I climbed down to the main deck, which was a minor trial with my leg, I saw the
Anne Bullen
shudder and halt a rifle shot ahead.

The captain had been right about that much. Her crew had run her aground. Not a hundred yards from shore.

But not a one of us had foreseen that the slavers might burn their human cargo alive.

Atop the masts, the sharpshooters opened fire.

I hastened to the boats, expecting to find the confusion that attends a plan rushed forward. But the Marines were crisp and the sailors were methodical.

“This one, sir,” Lieutenant Gray called to me. “In this one, with me.”

I passed my greatcoat to a sailor who would remain aboard. I meant to fight.

Now, I am a fellow who can prance about with bayonet or sword. Despite the bit of bother to my leg. But that is on dry land. Although the river was not so turbulent as the ocean seas, I was not at my best while clambering into the boat.

The Marines were of assistance, for which I was grateful, despite a shade of soldierly embarrassment.

Tugged along on a line at first, our longboat was a plaything for the sidewheel. The mighty instrument churned and groaned, creating a choppy, artificial tide. I held to the side of the boat and took a splashing.

The crackle of shots from the sharpshooters come regular as drill. Our sailors sat erect, with oars raised high. When the sidewheel sent us a nasty wave, the Marines shielded their rifles, not themselves.

As the
Cormorant
maneuvered close, I saw the first men leap from the
Anne Bullen.
They struggled with the current and strove landward.

A cloud of smoke rose from her deck. It was not from her boiler. The pirates had fired their ship, as the captain feared.

Furious and sick inside, I was about to shout at Lieutenant Gray. But he forestalled me. Ordering the line cast off, he told the sailors to speed us to our goal.

A bluejacket who looked as though he had survived all the world’s diseases called the rhythm as the sailors rowed. We rose and fell from atop a last wave fashioned by the sidewheel, which had already creaked to a halt.

I looked, again and again, to see if Petit Jean would jump from the ship. I could not spot him. Soon the
Anne Bullen
’s stern blocked my view of the landward side.

The sharpshooters kept up their fire from the
Cormorant.

Twas queer. A bucket bobbed by. Then another.

“Scum,” Lieutenant Gray declared. “They’ve heaved their buckets overboard. So we can’t fight the fire.”

That fire was running high, if flaring unevenly.

Just before we closed with the hull, I heard the first cries of terror, then of agony. There were only scattered voices at first, like the opening shots of a skirmish. Then the ship before us shuddered again, this time with a roar of human fear.

The poor creatures in the hold knew the ship was burning.

The
Anne Bullen
’s gunwales did not ride high, for she was new and sleek, but the Marines still had to swing up hooks as we bobbed by the hull.

I smelled the fire and felt its warmth before I reached the deck. But more than anything else, I smelled the fear.

The wailing from the hold grew so loud that the Marines could hardly communicate one to another. I heard the unmistakable rattling of chains, a sound that seemed colossal.

Now, I am a strong enough fellow. In my salad days, I could climb a rope like a mischievous temple monkey. But that had been on land, before I was encumbered by a cane.

Fair raging at my awkwardness I was. I feared I would drop my stick into the river. And the Lord only knew what price that ancient Frenchman would demand once he learned I had lost it.

After watching me fumble and bumble, a red-haired Marine reached down and grasped my encumbrance. “Come on, sir,” he called, “for she’s burning like Betty’s behind when the fleet comes in.”

Relieved of my cane, I scaled the rope quite nicely.

The deck was a maze of fires through which a man roamed at his peril. One sail had caught, as well. Beneath our feet, the vessel shivered and shook with the cries of the negroes.

Stick in hand once more, I trailed the Marine. He plunged into a vertical hatch, disappearing into shadows. I could not go as quickly as him, for the steps were steep and treacherous, but I did not waste a second more than I needed.

Below decks, I bumped into Lieutenant Gray, who was plunging back through the smoke. Even though the loss of light had addled my eyes, I could tell the lad was shaken by what he had seen.

“Axes,” he shouted against the shrieks and the clang of chains. “Hammers.”

That was all he said. He rushed past and climbed to the main deck, followed by another Marine, who was coughing from the smoke and cursing roundly.

The fellow with me hesitated, unsure whether he should follow the lieutenant.

“Come on,” I ordered. I needed to judge the matter for myself. And I did not know the ways of the ship or just what might be waiting.

Sidling along a passageway, I smelled a stink that I knew all too well.

The roasting flesh of Man.

I should have drawn my Colt, but was too maddened. All my years of soldiering counted for little in the face of this.

Down another half-flight of steps, I found the stuff of nightmare.

Oh, light was not a problem any longer. I stared into an inferno in the middle of a long hold. The smoke swelled black,
but could not hide the scene. Above the flames, an open hatch mocked the doomed with daylight.

The pirates had poured pitch or the like directly onto the negroes below the hatch. Then they burned them. Perhaps only twenty or thirty were splashed of the hundreds crushed together, but those human beings—we all must allow them that claim—had become animate torches, raging with pain and struggling wildly against the chains that held them in their places. Many were already dead of course, for the body does not like the shock of fire. But others still squirmed in burning rags, helpless even to rise up to their feet.

Their brothers looked on, howling, as they waited for the fire to spread.

I coughed. From the smoke. And the smell of burning man-meat.

At the sight of me, the nearest negroes erupted in lamentation, struggling to raise chained hands to strengthen their pleas. The altered tenor of wails spread like an infection. Until the entire hold became a begging, clanking maelstrom.

Rails had been fixed lengthwise in the hold and the prisoners had been chained to them, ankles and wrists together. Left to relieve their bodily needs in their places. Yet, such discomforts must have seemed a heaven compared to what they suffered now.

For a terrible moment, I knew not what to do.

The Marine at my side said, “Jesus.”

Lieutenant Gray had been right, of course. We needed hammers and axes to do any good.

But I was on a still-unfinished quest. And all the negroes in that hold were males.

Beckoning the Marine to follow, I struggled through the ranks of desperate men, doing what I could to escape their grasps and their pleas that each might be first to be freed.

I believed that I had heard another sound. And I had a promise to keep.

To get round the burning men and corpses, we had to step among the rows of prisoners. I promise you I had no choice, but I beat men with my cane to keep them off me, while the Marine employed his rifle’s butt and barrel end. I feared they would seize me in their thoughtless terror, the way one drowning man pulls down another.

Their faces. Dear God, I shall remember their eyes beyond the grave. Their terror would have suited the Day of Judgement.

Up on deck, beyond the hatch and the snapping of the flames, white voices railed in frustration.