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 Liverpool Bay, 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.”