CHAPTER 1
Washington, DC
October 1863
He’s looking tired, Gideon Welles thought as he
entered the familiar office. The figure seated behind
the desk, his back to the French windows, looked up at the
sound of the door latch clicking shut.
The long legs were splayed out under the desk. The
awkward, angular body seemed too frail to support
the over-large head. The craggy face with its shaggy,
unkempt-looking beard, hawklike nose and prominent
cheekbones was familiar to the entire country – admired,
even loved, by many; reviled by almost as many others.
But for all the distinctive elements that made up that
face – and there were enough to gladden any cartoonist’s
heart – none was more striking than the eyes. Dark,
intense, framed by those outlandishly bushy eyebrows,
they held a light of intelligence and determination that
burnt through the disappointment and weariness that
three years of largely unsuccessful war had lain upon
this man.
‘Good afternoon, Mr President. You’re looking well.’
Lincoln allowed a half-smile to crease his lips. ‘You’re
a poor liar, Gideon. I’m looking bruised and battered in
body and spirit. And I have every right to be.’ He gestured
to a chair and Welles took it.
Welles didn’t bother replying to the President’s statement.
He knew he hadn’t been summoned to offer
sympathy.
The two men studied each other in silence for a moment,
as if seeing each other for the first time. Welles noted that
Lincoln’s silk bow tie was slightly awry under the wing
collar and it occurred to him that he had never seen it any
other way. He wondered vaguely if this were not an intentional
device, an artifice on the president’s part, designed
to create a picture of a man who had not been entirely won
over to the trappings of high office but was still, at heart,
a simple country boy – Honest Abe himself, who couldn’t
quite get the fancy clothes to fit.
On reflection, he decided that it might well be. Lincoln
was dedicated and passionate, yes. But he was also a consummate
politician and by no means above such simple,
albeit effective, tricks of the trade.
Lincoln broke the eye contact first, looking down at a
sheet of paper he had been writing on when Welles had
first entered. He considered it for a second, then turned
it around and pushed it across the desk to the other man.
‘You were a writer,’ he said. ‘What do you think of this?’
‘I was an editor,’ Welles corrected him.
Lincoln shrugged and gestured for him to read. Welles
scanned the scrawled words for a few seconds. He
looked up.
‘This is a speech?’ he said, and when Lincoln nodded
assent, ‘When are you planning on delivering it?’
Again, the president shrugged. ‘I don’t know, as yet,’
he said. ‘When the time is right. There will be a moment
that’s right for it, I know that. When the opportunity
comes, I want to be ready for it.’
Welles pursed his lips. ‘It reads that way,’ he said. ‘It’s
striving too hard for greatness.’
He saw the flicker of annoyance cross Lincoln’s brow.
When that face scowled, it scowled in spades, thought
Welles, an avid whist player. It seemed that down-to-earth
country boys liked criticism no better than any other kind
of president.
‘I’ve worked on that all afternoon,’ Lincoln said indignantly.
‘It’s florid,’ said Welles. ‘It’s too . . . high-falutin’ in tone.
Say what you mean. Don’t dress it up in self-conscious,
overstated language. That’s not what the country expects
of Honest Abe Lincoln. They expect you to get to the
point. Speak their language, not the language of some
self-important lawyer.’
He knew how much Lincoln disliked the ‘Honest Abe’
sobriquet. Few people used the term to his face but Welles
had earned the right to take the liberty. As much as anyone
else in the country, he had been instrumental in Lincoln’s
securing the Republican nomination. He passed the page
back across the desk.
‘You didn’t call me here to critique your writing,’
he said.
‘And I won’t in the future,’ Lincoln replied tartly.
Welles smiled inwardly. As a newspaper editor, he had
seen many a reporter take offence when he changed their
words. Strange how people developed an overweening
vanity for their own phrases once they were committed to
paper, he thought.
‘You have a problem,’ Lincoln said and again, Welles
smiled inwardly. He had no doubt that if he had praised
the draft of the speech, the statement would have been,
‘We have a problem.’ He already had a shrewd idea what
it was.
‘I take it this problem affects me in my official capacity?’
he said mildly.
Lincoln looked quickly at him, sensing from the cool
tone that Welles had correctly interpreted the reason for
his intentional use of the second person. He made an effort
to stifle the annoyance that had crept into his tone.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘As Secretary for the Navy.’
Welles nodded, leant back and crossed his hands over
his stomach. ‘Would I be correct in assuming that the
name of this problem is the Manassas?’ he said.
Lincoln let go a savage exhalation of breath at the name.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That damned Rebel pirate ship has
caused us nothing but trouble for the past year and a
half! People are up in arms about it and they demand that
something be done.’
‘And of course, the Honourable William Seward is
foremost among those demanding action?’ Welles said, a
wintry smile touching his face.
Lincoln nodded several times. ‘Yes, yes. William has had
much to say on the matter.’
Welles let out a short bark of laughter. ‘He usually does
when there’s a chance to attack me.’
Seward, currently Secretary of State, had been Lincoln’s
principal opponent for the nomination in Chicago in
1860. It was largely due to Welles’ efforts that he had been
rejected. Seward knew it and there were bitter feelings
between the two men still.
Lincoln said nothing and Welles couldn’t resist the
opportunity to launch a further barb at his enemy. ‘You
should never have made him Secretary of State,’ he said.
The look on Lincoln’s face told him that he was on
the brink of going too far. It was not his part to criticise
Lincoln’s appointments, the look said.
‘He’s a very capable man. And I can control him.’
Welles raised an eyebrow at the words. ‘That’s what he
thought about you,’ he said.
Now the anger was evident on Lincoln’s face. ‘And . . .
he . . . was . . . wrong,’ he said, very deliberately and very
forcefully. ‘He has learnt that the President, or at least this
President, does not dance to his tune.’ He paused, enough
to let the next words develop a none-too-subtle message.
‘Nor to any man’s.’
Welles inclined his head, acknowledging the rebuke. ‘Of
course,’ he said, ‘and regardless of Secretary Seward’s . . .
distaste . . . for me, the Manassas is still a problem.’
Glad of a new focus for his anger, Lincoln rummaged
among his papers for a file and slammed it on the desk
between them.
‘Do you know how many ships that damn pirate has
sunk or burned?’ he asked.
‘Sixty-two,’ Welles told him and the president was taken
aback for a moment.
‘Sixty-two? I’ve only had word of sixty.’
Welles shrugged. ‘We received advice today of another
two. They’ve been overdue for weeks but their crews have
finally turned up and confirmed that they are gone. Both
of them were burned to the waterline by Manassas, off the
Newfoundland coast. I have their names and cargo details
in my office. I’ll send them across to you.’
‘Damn that man Pelle for a black bloody pirate!’ Lincoln
raged. He stood abruptly and turned to face the French
doors behind his desk, where rain from a grey Washington
afternoon ran down the panes.
Welles coughed gently. That sort of rhetoric was for the
masses. Somehow, painting the captain of the Confederate
raider as a pirate seemed to excuse the federal navy’s
inability to stop him. But it served no purpose in a rational
discussion.
‘He is acting perfectly within the law, you understand,
Mr President?’ he said.
Lincoln turned back to face him, his face dark with
anger. ‘You’re taking his side?’
Welles allowed a little asperity to creep into his reply.
‘Of course not. But we are at war and Manassas is a
Confederate cruiser –’
‘A Rebel cruiser,’ Lincoln interposed.
6 the grey raider
Welles hesitated. There was that rhetoric again, he
thought.
‘If you prefer. But whatever we call her, it is perfectly
within the rules of war for a commerce raider of a belligerent
to attack our shipping. And Pelle is scrupulous
about observing the rules of engagement. He doesn’t fire
on unarmed ships and he disembarks all passengers and
crew and ensures they have safe passage to a neutral port.’
He paused. Lincoln already knew that, of course. But
the Manassas tended to raise Northern passions to a
remarkable degree.
‘It may be within the rules of war, but have you seen
what it is doing to insurance rates? The premiums our
shipowners are being forced to pay now are ruinous.
Ruinous! And they become worse with each new vessel
that she takes!
‘Sixty-two ships! That is an outrageous figure, Mr Secretary!
An intolerable figure! Our shipowners and traders
are facing ruin – and that is not rhetoric! That is hard fact!
People are losing heart for this war. I can sense it. I hear it
whispered. I see it in their eyes.
‘My God, we’ve even had riots in New York over
the draft! Hundreds of people killed. Property destroyed!
Negroes beaten and hanged! This country is losing its heart
for the war, I tell you.’
There was no need for the statement, Welles thought. He
knew it already, as did most of the cabinet. The war had
dragged on too long, with too many deaths in its wake, and
too little prospect for success.
Lincoln continued. ‘We have had too many defeats on
land – far, far too many! And we are losing too many ships
at sea. We need to buy guns and equipment and boots and
uniforms and we need to export our grain and timber and
hides to pay for them. And while this . . . Manassas is at large,
our traders are refusing to take the chance. They’ll keep their
ships and cargoes in port rather than risk losing them!
‘The cost of this war is appalling in terms of lives and
money and material. I can feel the resolve of the people
wavering – and this I cannot have!’
The President threw himself into his rocking chair and
it slewed dangerously back and forth for a few seconds
under the onslaught.
Welles gave him a few seconds to calm down, then
asked, ‘Mr President, what would you have me do?’
‘Catch this damn Manassas! Assign a squadron. Or a
fleet if you must. Take them from whatever they are doing
now and set them to catch this damned raider and sink her!’
He realised that Welles was shaking his head halfway
through his statement and his voice rose again. ‘You are
saying me no, Mr Secretary? Then let me tell you, you will
do this if I say you will! I want this pirate caught. I want
his ship sunk and I want Pelle himself hanged. From the
yardarm! That’s where your naval people do it, isn’t it?’
Welles sat, unblinking, unmoved, his hands still folded
calmly across his stomach. Finally, the tide of Lincoln’s
rage abated and the older man spoke again.
‘Of course, Mr President, if you order it, I will assign a
squadron to hunt her down. Just tell me, which Southern
ports do we no longer need to keep under blockade?’
This time, his expression was grim as he faced the flush
of rage growing again in Lincoln’s face, suffusing the
gaunt cheeks above the beard.
Lincoln saw the determination in his eyes and reined in
his anger, holding it under control, at least for the moment.
‘What do you mean? You know that the blockade is vital
to our overall war effort.’
Welles nodded. ‘Just so, sir. And our navy is stretched to
breaking point keeping watch over a dozen harbours and
a hundred creeks and rivers and inlets up and down the
coast. There is no squadron to spare from this duty. You
can have a squadron to hunt the Manassas or you can have
the blockade maintained. You cannot have both.’
8 the grey raider
A wise man never tells kings or presidents what they
may not have, he thought. Unless he is being asked to
carry out two mutually exclusive tasks, he added.
‘So you are telling me there is nothing to be done about
Pelle?’ Lincoln’s voice was dangerously quiet.
Welles shook his head. ‘No, sir. I think there is a
solution. Not a squadron, but one ship. One ship assigned
to the task of finding and sinking the Manassas. Of concentrating
on that task until the job is done. We can spare
one ship indefinitely. And even if she doesn’t capture
Manassas straight away, she’s bound to cramp her style
to a degree. Nothing like having someone on your tail to
keep you distracted, looking over your shoulder.’
‘One ship? You believe that is enough?’ Lincoln asked.
‘It’s one ship has caused all the trouble so far,’ he
replied. ‘And with the right ship and the right captain to
hunt her down, yes, I think we have an excellent chance.’
Lincoln stood again, thrust his hands in his pockets and
began pacing the office. ‘Do we have the right captain?’
he asked, bitterness evident in his tone as he launched into
one of his favourite topics. ‘Please tell me that the navy
is not like the army, where every halfway capable officer,
every general with a whit of ability, seemed to desert to
the Rebel cause five minutes after Sumter was fired upon.’
‘I think we have the right man, sir,’ said Welles, but
Lincoln was inexorable now as he recounted the disappointments
and what he called the betrayals his generals
had handed him over the years.
‘How can I prosecute this war with incompetents,
Gideon?’ he asked. ‘You know, I thought McClellan was
a man with grit. But he let me down. He let me down.’
He stopped from his pacing and whirled to face Welles,
towering over him. ‘D’you know what I had to say to him
while he sat on his hands, doing nothing?’
Welles did know. Every member of cabinet had heard,
at least half a dozen times, what the president had said
to his latest commanding general. Usually, the story was
told by the President; Welles was willing to bet that it
was never told by the General.
‘I said to him, “General, if you’re not planning to use
my army, would you mind if I borrowed it for a spell?”’
Lincoln nodded emphatically several times, making sure
that Welles had got the point.
Welles felt some response was required. ‘You won’t have
to do that in this case, Mr President. I’ve been looking
through our captains’ list and I believe I have the one for
the job. Samuel Scott Stacy, captain of the sloop Oswego.’
‘Stacy? What’s he like, this Captain Stacy? Is he capable,
d’you think?’
‘Exceedingly so, Mr President. He’s a good officer, sir.
Career man. Annapolis background. Brave as a lion they
say – he was cited for gallantry in the Mexican War. Best of
all, he’s a bulldog, sir. Once he sets his teeth, he won’t let go.’
Lincoln began to smile at the words. ‘A bulldog, you
say?’ He liked the sound of that. It was a quality he felt he
could understand and depend on in a fighting man.
Welles nodded. ‘Capable, brave, skilled and dashing, sir.
And a bulldog.’
The President smacked one large fist into the palm of his
hand. ‘And by the Almighty, Mr Secretary, that’s just the
sort of fellow we need!’
Suddenly, he was fired with enthusiasm for the project,
seeing a moment somewhere in the not too distant future
when Welles would report to him that the Manassas had
been destroyed.
‘There is one other interesting point about him, sir,’
Welles continued. ‘Apparently, he and Pelle served together
in Mexico.’
That wasn’t surprising, given the small size of the
pre-war navy. But Lincoln frowned at the news. ‘So they
were shipmates?’ he said. ‘Will that be a problem for Stacy –
being asked to hunt down his shipmate?’
Welles smiled. ‘I doubt it, Mr President. I don’t have any
details but apparently it’s an open secret in the navy that
there’s a longstanding feud between them. He hates Pelle.’
A savage smile lit up Lincoln’s face. ‘No more than I do,
I’ll warrant,’ he said. Then he rubbed his hands together
in satisfaction. ‘Excellent, Mr Secretary! Let’s get orders
to this bulldog of yours, this Captain Stacy, straight away!
Let’s not waste a minute more in getting rid of the damned
Manassas.’
Gideon Welles rose and took the President’s handshake.
‘His orders are already being written, Mr President,’ he said.
Lincoln’s free hand gripped his shoulder and the handshake
tightened.
The President had strong hands, Welles thought.
‘Thank you, Gideon,’ he said, ‘I knew I could depend
on you.’
He released Welles’ hand and the secretary turned
towards the door. As he opened it, Lincoln’s voice stopped
him.
‘Gideon?’
He turned. The President had that damned page of
script in his hand again. He was frowning at it.
‘Mr President?’ Welles said.
‘Florid, you say?’
Welles nodded. ‘Florid, sir,’ he said firmly.
Lincoln shook his head, a bemused smile on his face as
he read through the words. Welles knew the look.
The President could see no fault in his phrasing. ‘Where
is it florid, might I ask?’
Welles sighed. But he was weary of pandering to presidential
vanity any longer. ‘Right from the first words, sir.
If you say it that way, you’ll have people counting on their
fingers to see what you mean and they’ll miss the next two
sentences while they do it. Nobody will understand it that
way. Just come out and say it in simple, everyday terms:
eighty-seven years ago . . .’
Lincoln frowned, shaking his head again as he studied
the page.
Welles opened the door. ‘Good afternoon, Mr President,’
he said.
But Lincoln said nothing. He was still looking at the
page, mouthing the words silently as Welles shut the door
behind him.
CHAPTER 2
CSS Manassas, sloop of war
Bay of Biscay
October 1863
Late in the afternoon watch, they ran alongside a
Spanish fishing boat out of Santander and took her
under their lee.
‘Speak to her, Mr Havelock,’ Captain Pelle told the first
lieutenant.
Havelock, tall and gangly, saluted quickly and ran down
the companion ladder from the bridge. He’d come up
shortly after the foretop lookout had sighted the Spanish
fishing fleet, guessing that he’d be needed before long. He
swung up onto the catwalk and then into the mainchains,
where he could call down to the skipper of the boat.
Pelle listened to the brief exchange in Spanish. He spoke
the language tolerably well himself but Havelock was
fluent and it was best to leave the talking to him. There’d
be less chance of misunderstanding that way.
Eventually, the lieutenant swung back to face the bridge.
‘He says he’s seen several ships this afternoon, sir,’ he
called. ‘One Yankee – a sailing barque flying the stars
and stripes.’
‘What heading?’ Pelle called back to him.
Again there was a brief exchange between the fisherman
and Havelock, then the latter swung back to face his
captain. ‘He says east of north, sir. Making about eight
knots when he saw her some three hours back. Says he
doesn’t know what cargo she might have, sir.’
‘No reason why he should.’
Pelle’s Virginian drawl was more evident when he
spoke reflectively like this. What the cargo might be was
relatively unimportant, so long as it existed. Of course,
the ship could be in ballast, but he doubted it. Yankee
shipowners were too fond of profits to have a ship sail
without cargo of some kind. If the barque were taken and
the cargo, whatever it might be, destroyed, that would
mean a loss for some Boston shipowner and trader – and
a subsequent rise in insurance and shipping rates, all of
which would mean the Manassas was doing the job she
was intended for.
The Confederate States Ship Manassas was a commerce
raider and the second confederate warship to carry the
name. Her predecessor had been a river gunboat, sunk
during the Federal attack on New Orleans. The sinking
had taken place around the time when Pelle took delivery
of the as-yet-unnamed ship from her English builders. He
had christened her Manassas to commemorate the plucky
little gunboat – and to provide an uncomfortable reminder
to the Union forces of their ignominious defeat early in the
war at the Battle of Manassas, better known to Southerners
as Bull Run.
She was a sloop of war, powered by both sail and steam,
armed with two pivoting seven-inch Brooke rifles and six
32-pounder smoothbore broadside guns. She was an ideal
design for the role: ship-rigged, with three masts carrying
square topsails and topgallants and fore and aft main and
headsails. This gave Manassas a respectable turn of speed
under sail alone, with the fore and aft rig allowing her
to point higher into the wind than a pure square-rigged
arrangement would have. Under sail, she could roam far
and wide in search of Union shipping, conserving her
supplies of coal until the chase was joined. Then, when she
sighted a quarry, her steam engine gave her the ability to
close with it, no matter where the wind might lie or what it
might do, at which point her powerful armament quickly
settled the matter.
The Brookes alone, cast in the Confederate foundry at
Tredegar, were exceptionally accurate weapons, capable of
firing solid shot or explosive shells, each one 110 pounds
in weight. Merchant ships were usually armed lightly, if
at all, and they stood no chance against her. In fact, there
were few Union warships that would have engaged the
Manassas with total confidence in the outcome.
That is, of course, had Captain Pelle been willing to risk
Manassas in an action against a Union warship, which
he was not. She had not been bought and paid for with
increasingly scarce Confederate funds to seek combat
with Federal warships. Her task was to harass the North’s
merchant fleet, destroying them wherever she found them,
disrupting trade, creating havoc and sending shipping
rates and insurance premiums sky high in the process. In
an eighteen-month cruise that had taken her south and
east to the shores of Malaya and India, then back and
forth between the Caribbean and European waters, she
had enjoyed spectacular success. If she were to catch the
barque the Spanish fisherman had seen, it would become
her sixty-third victim. Millions of dollars worth of ships
and their cargo had been sent to the bottom by this lone
wolf raider. That was her role in the war between the
states and she fulfilled it superbly.
Captain Pelle moved to the lee-side wing of the bridge
and called his thanks to the Spaniard. He nodded to
Havelock, who tossed a five-dollar Mexican gold piece
down to the fisherman. The Spaniard grinned, testing the
coin with his teeth, and waved them farewell as they drew
away. Manassas was well known to the Biscay fishermen –
as was her reputation for paying generously for information
about Yankee ships.
As they cleared the fishing boat, Pelle ordered the helm
over and the Manassas swung in a wide arc until she was
heading just east of north, in the wake of the federal ship.
The sea was quartering them now, and she swooped and
rolled as the chase progressed. Once on course, Pelle went
below, accompanied by Havelock and Judd, the sailing
master. They studied the chart of the area, laying off a
north-north-east course from their current position.
‘Heading for La Rochelle, maybe?’ Judd guessed.
Pelle nodded and pointed to a spot a little further south.
‘Or the mouth of the Gironde. Could be he’s heading to go
upriver to Bordeaux.’
‘Maybe he’s heading inshore a little to follow the coast
further north,’ Havelock suggested but the other two men
shook their heads. No master of a pure sailing vessel, as
this had been described, would put himself any closer
inshore than absolutely necessary in the Bay of Biscay. The
risk of being caught on a lee shore was too great.
Pelle studied the chart thoughtfully. He was a tall, slim
man in his early forties. He carried himself gracefully
and his old-fashioned uniform, with the long frockcoat
favoured by so many Confederate officers, was immaculately
tailored – if by now a little the worse for wear. He
was a handsome man, with a rather high forehead and a
slightly receding hairline. The nose was straight and the
mouth and chin firm. As was the fashion, he wore bushy
mutton-chop whiskers and a thick, carefully tended moustache.
His hair was brown, tending now to grey and his
eyes were blue, brilliant blue, with a light of intelligence
and a hint of humour in them. Men would describe him
as dashing. Many women might find him irresistible. His
officers and crew revered him. For his courage, his leadership
and his fair-mindedness.
He drummed long fingers on the chart as he studied it.
La Rochelle and the Gironde estuary were close enough to
each other. But even the moderate diversion between the
two meant that the wrong choice would put the Yankee
ship out of reach. He tapped his forefinger on the chart
table, conscious of the other two men looking at him.
‘La Rochelle,’ he said finally. There was no rhyme or
reason to it. It was an even-money chance and an intuitive
guess. He looked at Judd now that his decision was made.
‘Lay us a course for La Rochelle,’ he said. ‘And calculate
the speed we need to make if we are to bring her into sight
at first light. We’ll assume she maintains the eight knots
the Spaniard estimated.’
‘Aye aye,’ replied the sailing master, reaching for his
parallel rule and dividers.
Pelle left him to it and returned to the bridge. He was
a good enough navigator – in fact, well above average for
his time – but the more complex calculation of the differential
in speeds and distance covered would be a chore to
him. He could do it well enough but he knew Judd would
do it more accurately and, more to the point, more quickly
than he could.
At the academy, calculus had been one of his weaker
subjects. Judd, on the other hand, was one of those men
for whom figures were a language – and one that was
readily spoken and understood. That, after all, was why he
was the sailing master aboard the Manassas. That was why
Pelle had recruited him over two years ago when he was
forming his crew. It was typical of the man that he would
delegate so readily – as he had done with Havelock,
leaving him to talk to the Spanish skipper. His officers and
men liked the fact that he trusted them, trusted their abilities.
It did nothing to diminish him in their eyes. In fact,
the opposite was true.
Pelle surveyed his ship as he waited for Judd’s calculation.
The concept of a transverse bridge set forward of the
funnel and deckhouse was still something of a novelty to
him. He had gone to sea in an age when the traditional
conning position for a ship was aft, on the quarterdeck.
But he had to admit this new position gave the commander
a better vantage point and provided an improved all-round
view of the ship and her immediate surroundings.
It was the introduction of steam, of course, that had
led to the development. The bulky deck housing and tall
smokestack set amidships would restrict vision from the
quarterdeck, as would the inevitable clouds of coal smoke
what would issue from the stack. Heading into the wind,
the stern half of the ship could all too often be blanketed
in the thick, gritty smoke. The quarterdeck in those conditions
would be no place to be making split-second
decisions about course changes or rudder orders.
He felt the vibrations of Judd’s heavy feet on the
larboard bridge ladder, then the stocky sailing master was
alongside him, peering at a scrap of paper in his hand.
‘I figure if we make a shade over nine knots, we should
come up on her around first light,’ he said.
Pelle glanced up at the sails, seeing how they were
drawing in the brisk south-westerly wind.
‘We’ll need a little more canvas then. Mr Sommers,’ he
called, raising his voice.
Sommers, third lieutenant and currently officer of the
deck, took a couple of paces closer. ‘Sir?’
‘We’ll have a cast of the log, if you please.’ Pelle was
always polite with his officers. He had no need for abruptness
or brusqueness to bolster his authority. After two
years’ successful cruising, he knew he had the respect of
his officers and crew.
‘Aye aye, sir,’ replied Sommers, and turned away to
call for a master’s mate and a ship’s boy. Receiving their
instructions, the two hurried away to the quarterdeck. The
trio of officers waited as the log line was run out against a
sand-glass and measured, then the master’s mate returned.
‘Eight and a half knots, sir.’
He reported to Sommers, although Pelle was only a few
feet away. The captain insisted on the proper chain of
command. Sommers had issued the order, so it was to him
that the report should be made.
Sommers turned to Pelle, knowing it was unnecessary
to repeat the figure, raising his eyebrows in an unspoken
question.
The captain was already looking aloft again. They
wouldn’t need too much alteration in sail area to achieve
the slight increase in speed required. Like most skippers of
sailing steamers, he used his sails as much as possible. Coal
was a precious commodity and needed to be hoarded and
conserved for those times when he really required it.
‘We’ll have the fore topgallant on her,’ he said. ‘Cast the
log again when she’s settled. We want to make just a shade
over nine knots. If she’s doing more, take in a reef in the
fore t’gallant and check her again.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ Sommers took the speaking trumpet from
a bracket beside them and began issuing orders to the
watch on deck. Topmen swarmed into the rigging and the
topgallant sail on the foremast was let fall. It shivered a
moment, then swelled, then hardened into a perfect curve
as Sommers directed the deckhands to sheet home.
Pelle watched with a sense of satisfaction. Steam engines
were well and good and a mighty handy invention when
it came to heading straight to windward. But there was
nothing to match the living, vibrant feeling of a wellfound,
well-handled sailing ship, which the Manassas
certainly was. He sensed the increase in speed as she
surged more forcefully through the water and nodded in
satisfaction. That should be all the change they needed. He
glanced at Judd and saw the master nodding in reply. The
two men’s years of experience told them already what the
next cast of the log would confirm for the younger officer
of the watch. Pelle nodded to the other two men.
‘I’ll be in my cabin,’ he told Sommers. ‘Tell Mr Ablett
we won’t be needing his engine until around first light –
unless we lose this wind. Tell him to keep his fire banked
and he can stand down his men as he sees fit.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ Sommers replied. He called for a bridge
messenger and began scrawling the instructions Pelle had
given him on a signal sheet.
Judd glanced around them, sniffing the damp, salt air.
‘This un’ll hold all right,’ he said. ‘Won’t have no call for
that tea kettle.’
Pelle smiled at the older man. ‘You’re showing your
prejudice, Samuel,’ he told him. ‘Many’s the time you’ve
been glad of that engine, when we’ve had a Yankee prize
to windward.’
Judd smiled in response. ‘Maybe so, Captain,’ he said.
‘But I can’t help it if I prefer this to all that clanking and
hissing.’
‘Can’t say I blame you –’ Pelle began, then was seized
by a fit of coughing.
Both officers stepped forward to assist him but he
waved them away, doubled slightly over by the bridge
railing. He smothered the coughs with his handkerchief
until he finally had himself under control.
‘I’m fine,’ he gasped eventually, then, in a more normal
tone: ‘Just can’t seem to shake this damned cough.’ He
straightened and turned away for the starboard bridge
ladder, but not before he saw the worry in Judd’s eyes and
the concern on the third lieutenant’s face. With an effort,
he forced himself to walk normally to the ladder and
descend to the starboard gangway. He felt another almost
overwhelming urge to cough, knowing this outburst
would be even worse than the first. They seemed to be
coming more often these days.
With immense determination, conscious of the eyes of at
least a score of the crew upon him, he drove the sensation
back, overcoming the physical need with willpower alone.
Straight-backed, he walked aft along the gangway to the
quarterdeck, then descended to his stern cabin.
There, with no eyes upon him, he fell face down across
his cot, burying his face in the rough pillow as the coughing
fit racked him, over and over, seeming all the more vicious
for the time it had been denied.
He didn’t hear the cabin door open, didn’t see the
worried face of his steward appear around it. The former
tobacco planter shook his head in concern, then quietly
closed the door again, leaving the captain alone.
CSS Manassas
Bay of Biscay
The coughing subsided and Pelle lay gasping and
breathless on his cot, his chest heaving as he drew in
oxygen. Gradually, his breathing stabilised and he lay,
exhausted, his face filmed with sweat. It was only a matter
of time now, he knew. He couldn’t go on much longer.
Not like this.
His chest had always been a weakness, for as long as he
could remember. As a child, he had always been susceptible
to chills and bronchitis. Now, there had been simply
too many months of bad weather, too many miles of
soaking wet clothing and freezing cold winds.
The racking cough had started four or five months ago,
when they were deep in Southern Ocean waters, prowling
for Yankee ships that sought to round Cape Horn and
begin the long trek north to California. He remembered
it as a time when everything about him was wet, when
cold was the order of the day, the inescapable, invariable
condition. Moisture dripped from the deckhead in his
cabin. Frozen mould grew on leather, ice formed around
the panes in his stern gallery windows and hung in fantastic
dagger-like shapes from the rigging. His clothes were
never warm, never completely dry, no matter how long his
steward kept them in front of the galley fire – sometimes
scorching the material in his efforts to provide his captain
with warm clothing.
Warmth had been a dimly remembered concept in those
days. The blankets and sheets on his cot were clammy
to the touch and icy against his skin as he lay shivering
under them at night, waiting for his body to warm them,
exhausting his physical resources as it did so. And each
day, after comfortless hours trying to sleep, he would
drag himself to the bridge again, slowly mounting the iron
ladder, feeling the icy touch of the metal through the thick
woollen gloves he wore. The cold, raw air would sear his
lungs and he would cough – endlessly and without relief.
It had started then and it had never left him. Sometimes,
in the warmer latitudes, it would recede into the
background until it was nothing more than an occasional,
uncomfortable constriction at the back of his throat. But
then as they sailed further north or south and the glass
dropped and the damp, cold wind filled the Manassas’
sails, the cough would re-emerge, as if strengthened by its
absence. Sometimes wet and rumbling. Sometimes hard,
dry and unbreakable, striking like a sword blade through
his chest.
And sometimes, like a sword, it drew blood.
The acrid coal smoke belching from the ship’s funnel
was another constant irritant. One incautious breath, one
chance eddy of wind, could set him off, coughing and
wheezing helplessly as he tried to rid his lungs of the sharp,
foul-tasting smoke.
The others on board had endured the same conditions,
of course. Some had even fallen sick from them. But most
had recovered. Sailors seemed possessed of rude, indefatigable
health and endless stores of energy. For them,
sickness would come, visit, be defeated and depart. For
Pelle, it was an ever-present companion.
He knew Havelock, Judd and the others worried about
him. But there was little he could do or say to allay their
fears. Sometimes, he considered having himself set ashore
and making his way back overland to Virginia leaving the
Manassas under Havelock’s command. But he hesitated.
Havelock was a capable officer. Brave. Loyal. Steadfast.
But he was lacking in one vital attribute – imagination.
Havelock’s steadfast nature lacked the sort of instinct
and decisiveness that a successful raider needed. Were
Havelock in command, he would still be agonising
over whether the barque they pursued was heading for
Bordeaux or La Rochelle. Pelle had taken a guess, guided
by his instinct. If he were right, all to the good. If he were
wrong, there would be other Yankee ships. Havelock
lacked the ability to make such instinctive decisions and
then live by them.
Pelle knew that Manassas had survived this long because
he had that ability, coupled with the knack of putting
himself into his enemies’ minds, of thinking as they might
think. And so he had avoided the Union’s warships successfully
for nearly two years. But he shrank from turning
over his precious ship and men to the first lieutenant’s
care. There would be no official recriminations if he were
to do so. His poor health was obvious to anyone with
whom he had more than a passing acquaintance. But if
the Manassas were taken or sunk, he was conscious it
would be a blow to the Confederate cause that far would
outweigh the loss of one ship.
In practical terms, the Confederacy could afford to lose
Manassas now. She had taken, burnt or sunk over sixty
Union ships in her cruise, so in simple dollars and cents, she
had long ago repaid her side of the ledger. War, however,
was more than simple dollars and cents. War concerned
itself with ideals. With symbols. With individuals or
groups who captured the public imagination and became
icons of hope, tacit confirmation that the cause was just.
For, after all, wasn’t success the ultimate justification – the
proof that distinguished right from wrong? Would God,
that severely overworked and frequently invoked figure in
any conflict, allow the unrighteous to prosper?
On land, J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry were one such icon. Lee
himself was another, larger than life, charismatic, revered.
His mere presence on the field of battle was worth a half
dozen divisions, his successes against the odds legendary.
And at sea, the Manassas was another. She embodied
the spirit of the Confederacy. She was a daring will-o’-
the-wisp that defied the North and its overwhelming
numbers, its crushing technological and logistical might.
The Southern press had dubbed her the paladin of the sea
lanes: appearing and disappearing at will, a cavalier who
struck at the Yankees where they were most vulnerable –
in their purses.
If the Manassas were lost, an ideal would go with her.
Pelle simply couldn’t take the chance on Havelock. Particularly
now, when the ship needed all her captain’s guile
and ability to survive. For the ship was almost as tired
and worn out as he was himself. Eighteen months at sea.
Hundreds of thousands of miles under steam or sail, with
no port in her home country able to receive her. Her sails
were threadbare and patched. Her rigging had been spliced
too often and replaced too rarely. Her engine was in desperate
need of an overhaul, its steam lines choked with
boiler scale and her furnaces thick with clinker.
The very coal she burned, taken from a prize and occasioning
eight hours of backbreaking work for officers and
men alike, was brown and damp and unreliable. It burned
at a lower temperature than good black Appalachian coal
and so generated less steam pressure to drive the pistons
and the screw. Of course, she was designed for speed and
assuredly she could still muster enough to overhaul most
merchant ships. But if she were to be pitted against another
of her own kind, her deficiencies could well prove fatal.
JOHN FLANAGAN 25
The bald truth was that the daring will-o’-the-wisp
of public imagination, the paladin of the sea lanes, was
a patched and shabby homeless fugitive, with never the
time to overhaul engines or re-reave standing and running
rigging. On those rare occasions when Manassas entered a
neutral port, she did so without fanfare and slipped away
again as soon as possible, with time for only the simplest
repairs, before word of her presence might reach the ears
of any patrolling Yankee warship.
The ship’s bottom was foul with weed – huge banners of
it that dragged beneath her and robbed her sails and engine
of their power. He longed for a sheltered cove where he
might beach her with the tide then unload her and careen
her to scrape the hull clean and replace the copper sheets
that he knew she must have lost over the months.
But the thought of his ship, his precious ship, empty and
laid over on her side on the land, her guns removed and
her magazines emptied, was like a waking nightmare for
him. He could picture her that way – and picture the first
sight of the Federal flag as a Northern cruiser rounded the
point and found her helpless under its guns. Careening,
like Havelock, was a risk he couldn’t take.
There was a discreet knock at the door. Edelston, his
steward, had waited until the coughing paroxysm died
away. Like Havelock and the others, he knew it was not a
topic for discussion. So, like all of them, he pretended to
ignore it. Now that there had been some minutes’ silence
from the captain’s cabin, he knew that Pelle would allow
him to enter.
‘Come in,’ the captain said. He sat up, swinging his legs
off the cot.
‘I made tea, sir,’ Edelston said as he entered, placing the
tray on Pelle’s desk, by the stern windows.
It was a strong herbal concoction and both steward and
captain knew it would ease the unbearable urge to cough,
hold it at bay for another brief respite. Pelle smiled.
26 the grey raider
‘Thank you, Edelston. What would I do without you?’
he said.
Edelston ducked his head in a semi-bow and eased his
way out of the cabin, leaving the captain to his tea. He
looks tired, he thought. But then, don’t we all?
CSS Manassas
Off the French coast, near Ushant
In spite of Judd’s optimistic forecast, the wind died
away to a breeze during the night, then veered to the
north-west and freshened once more. Pelle returned to
the bridge an hour after midnight and the Manassas made
more sail.
An hour later he was back, and Mr Ablett’s men were
called to begin raising steam once more. As ever, Pelle was
the soul of courtesy as he passed the order to the lanky,
grey-haired engineer.
‘My apologies, Nathaniel. I hoped your stokers might
have a few more hours’ rest. But we’ll need the extra speed
to overtake this Yankee of ours.’
Nathaniel Ablett grinned broadly as he ordered his mate
to rouse the engine-room gang. As a practitioner of a relatively
new branch of maritime technology, he was always
glad of a chance to show up the deficiencies of the old
ways. He sensed the master, Mr Judd, sniffing disdainfully
on the far side of the bridge.
‘Any time, Captain. Any time at all,’ he said. ‘My men
are always ready to give you as much speed as you require,
no matter where the wind lies or how she’s blowin’.’
He added this last for the master’s benefit. Judd sniffed
more loudly.
Pelle smiled inwardly at the internecine battle between
the two men, knowing it was founded in goodwill. He
nodded to the engineer, dismissing him. Ablett saluted and
clumped down the bridge ladder, heading for his hissing,
clanking domain below decks.
Within five minutes, the wisp of smoke that had been
issuing from Manassas’ single funnel became a dense cloud
as the stokers poured coal into the hungry furnace. Ten
minutes later, with the steam pressure up, Pelle felt the
rhythmic thump of the pistons begin under his feet and
the sloop began to surge more eagerly through the water,
leaving a broad banner of brown coal smoke heavy against
the night sky behind her. After a quick consultation with
Pelle, Judd left the bridge to calculate courses and speed
once more now that the situation had changed.
Conlon, the second, was officer of the deck. Pelle turned
to him and ordered a course correction, swinging the
Manassas further west of north. Conlon passed the orders to
the helmsman and the bowsprit swung across the dark sky
and sea. He was a young officer and Pelle, conscious of the
responsibility incumbent on him to train his officers for their
role, thought it worthwhile explaining the action to him.
‘With the wind veering to the west like this, the Yankee
skipper will likely give himself more sea room,’ he said.
The younger man’s eyes were on him; he nodded his
understanding as Pelle continued. ‘I’ll come westward as
well. It’s my plan to come up on him out of the west.’
He paused, and the question was evident. Why am I
doing this? After all, a lee shore held no fears for a steampowered
ship and the change of course would add miles to
the distance they would need to cover.
Conlon hesitated a moment. In older times, an attacker
would always look to achieve the weather gauge on
another ship, to have the wind behind him so he could
run down at will. But Manassas’ engine made such tactical
positioning unnecessary. There would be another factor,
he knew.
‘The sun,’ he said, after a few seconds’ thought. Pelle
nodded approvingly.
‘Exactly, young Mr Conlon. The sun. I want our quarry
nicely framed against it as it rises, while we come up on
him out of the darkness.’
‘Do we know is he armed or not, sir? Will he fight, do
you think?’ the younger man asked.
Pelle began to answer, but the ever-present urge to
cough asserted itself and he crouched slightly over the
bridge rail as his shoulders shook with it.
Conlon looked away until Pelle recovered.
Slightly breathless, the captain continued. ‘He may well
carry a few small guns – but nothing to equal our two
Brookes. Still, it’s always wise to assume an enemy will
fight, and approach him accordingly.’
‘Few of them ever do, sir,’ Conlon said.
Pelle recognised the tone of regret in his voice and
smiled. ‘You’re a fire-eater, Gregory,’ he told the second.
‘Don’t wish too hard for battle. You’ll find it sooner or
later. And when you do, it may be less to your liking than
you imagine.’
He coughed again, not so badly this time but enough to
forestall any reply from the younger man. Once more, he
glanced aloft. It occurred to him that a sea captain spent a
great deal of his time looking up at the sails spread above
him. As steam became more and more the prime moving
force of ships, he assumed this age-old habit would begin
to die out.
Studying the sails, Pelle frowned slightly. With the
engine heading them so far upwind, the fore- and aftrigged
sails were still providing some advantage. The
square topsails and top gallants, however, could only be
braced round so far and now they were as much hindrance
as help. He pointed the fact out to Conlon and waited
while the second lieutenant called the watch to take in
sail. As the square sails were gathered up and furled, he
felt a slight improvement in the ship’s motion. He nodded,
contentedly.
‘I’ll be in my cabin, Mr Conlon,’ he said. ‘Mr Judd will
be up presently with adjustments to our speed. Call me if
there’s any other change.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ Conlon replied and the captain left the
deck to him.
Barque Maine Dancer
Off the French coast
The first streaks of dawn were lighting the eastern sky as
Captain Jethro Weatherby came on deck. He nodded a
greeting to the second mate, currently in command.
‘Any change, Mr Pearson?’
Pearson shook his head, yawning at the same time.
He felt tired and crusty, after a four-hour stint through
the final hours of darkness. Somehow, that seemed to be
the most debilitating of watches – perhaps because this
was the time when the natural rhythms of the human
body demanded the deepest sleep. The fact that the ship
was short of men and officers, due to the demands on
manpower made by the war, made it even more so; there
were only three officers to stand deck watch. Now, the
glories of the new day held little attraction for him. His
bunk was foremost in his mind, as it had been for the past
hour and a half.
‘Wind’s still from the north-west, Captain. Sea’s calm.
Last cast of the log we were making seven and a quarter
knots. No ships sighted this watch.’
Weatherby grunted in satisfaction at the last piece of
news. These days, there wasn’t a Yankee skipper who didn’t
harbour, at the back of his mind, a fear of running foul of
the Rebel pirate Manassas. And Weatherby, with all his
assets tied up in what was to be his final trip, harboured
it more than most. The damned raider seemed to have a
knack for being everywhere at once – so much so that sometimes
Weatherby believed that there was really more than
one Manassas and the insistence that there was only one
was mere propaganda on the part of those incompetents
in Washington, who knew that Northern shipping would
be shut down in a matter of days if they were to admit the
existence of an entire Southron raiding squadron.
His officers and crew didn’t seem to entertain the same
fears of the Southern raider. Perhaps because they had less
to lose than he did. Consequently, he spent a great deal of
his time keeping his lookouts alert, and exhorting them to
keep a better watch of the horizon.
As the thought struck him, he leant back his head and
called to the lookout in the main crosstrees. ‘Masthead
there!’
Like all sea captains of his time, Weatherby had a voice
that could be heard above an Atlantic gale. In these calm
conditions, it carried to the lookout without any need of
the speaking trumpet by the compass binnacle.
The voice that replied was faint but clear. ‘Masthead aye!’
‘What do you see?’
There was a pause as the lookout scanned 360 degrees
of the horizon. Weatherby felt a familiar surge of frustration,
knowing that it was probably the first time the
lookout had done so in the past ten or fifteen minutes.
‘Deck! All clear all round!’
Weatherby felt the little knot of tension that had tied
itself into the pit of his stomach slowly unravel. Each
morning he suffered these few minutes of apprehension,
waiting for news that there was no sign of the Rebel ship
on the horizon. This morning the feeling had been particularly
strong. He knew the Spanish fishing fleet had sighted
32 the grey raider
them the day before – one of them had even followed in
their wake for several minutes, almost as if ascertaining the
Dancer’s course. It had long been Weatherby’s suspicion
that the Spanish boats were in league with Manassas and
he knew the Confederate sloop had visited these waters
several times in the past two years.
Relaxing a little now, he moved to the binnacle to
check the course. The helmsman nodded a greeting and
he grunted in reply. Behind him, he heard Mr Dodds, first
mate, relieving Pearson of the watch. He stretched once,
decided it was time to go below for a cup of coffee and a
bite of breakfast. He had actually started towards the companionway
when a further hail from the masthead stopped
him in his tracks.
‘Deck there! Something . . . mebbe something . . . on the
larboard quarter!’
Instantly, Weatherby was at the larboard rail. He could
see nothing from this lower vantage point. He faced the
lookout again and bellowed.
‘Something? What d’you mean something? Is it a ship?’
A pause, then the lookout replied, the uncertainty
obvious in his voice, even at this distance.
‘Dunno, Cap’n. Mebbe too big for a ship. A low cloud
mebbe . . .’
Weatherby strained his eyes westward. The sea and sky
were dark there, particularly in contrast to the dazzle from
the east. Abruptly, and with surprising agility for his fiftyfive
years and his bulk, he sprang into the mizzen mainchains
and ran halfway up the ratlines, turning to hang
back and peer into the darkness. There was something
there all right. A dark, amorphous shape that was blacker
than the darkness around it. Too big to be a ship, he
thought. And too low to be a cloud . . . at least, a natural
cloud.
As he had the thought, Weatherby recognised the shape.
It was the funnel smoke of a steamer, spreading dark and
thick behind a ship as she raced on a parallel course to
the Dancer, quickly overhauling the slower sailing ship.
Weatherby knew, illogically but without a shadow of a
doubt, that he was looking at the funnel smoke of the
Manassas. He raced down the ratlines, yelling before his
feet hit the quarterdeck.
‘All hands! All hands! Dodds! Get those frappings cast
loose from the guns!’
Share This Book: