Iron Thunder Page 3

I WAS WALKING HOME, not thinking about much of anything. Maybe dinner, because my stomach was growling. Hadn’t eaten since coffee and bread that morning.

  “Hey, Tom!” I heard.

  Thinking it was some friend, I stopped and looked around. Right off I recognized that Rebel spy. He was standing in front of a café.

  This time he had his hat in hand, so I could see his face. Narrow, with high cheeks. Long graying hair. Beneath his smallish nose, a droopy mustache. His smile was easy, but his eyes, even from ‘cross the way, were fierce.

  “How about something to eat?” he called.

  I stood there, not sure what to do. My head filled with all kinds of thoughts: Just run away. We sure could use the money. The man’s a traitor. But I also thought, I’m hungry. My father died for the Union—what did that get us? For sure, not much food.

  I crossed the street.

  “Glad to see you,” said the man, holding his hand out for me to shake like I was a gent. “I was just sitting here eating when I saw you walk by.”

  I didn’t believe that. I was sure he had been waiting for me.

  “Come on in,” he coaxed. “How about a steak?”

  My mouth watering, I followed him into the cafe, a place crowded with workmen as well as gentlemen. Sawdust on the floor. Oil lamps on the wall. Waiters, napkins ‘round their waists, scurried about with heavy trays. The smell of food was something fine.

  “Take yourself a seat,” said the man. It was a small corner table. He said he’d been eating, but no food was there.

  I just sat there, barely looking at him and not talking.

  “Bet you’re hungry,” he said. “Boys are always hungry. Work hard today?”

  “Maybe …”

  He grinned. “My name is Quinn. Ogden Quinn. And your name is … Tom. Right?”

  I nodded.

  “Tom what?”

  “Tom.”

  An old waiter came up to us. “Evening, Mr. Parker,” he said to the man who had just called himself Quinn. “What’ll it be?”

  “This boy needs a steak. A big, juicy one. Throw in a potato. That okay?” he asked me.

  “Fine.”

  “Will do,” said the waiter, and withdrew.

  Mr. Quinn said, “He must have taken me for another fella.” He laughed, but it sounded false.

  I just looked at him, trying to get at what he wanted.

  He sat back in his chair, returning my look with those sharp eyes of his. “Not much of a talker, are you?” he said.

  “When I want.”

  Then, “How’s that floating battery coming along?”

  “Pretty well.”

  “You just see it?”

  “Working on it.”

  His smile turned hungry. “Lucky you,” he said. “Now, that steak will be here in minutes. Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  “The steak?”

  “The battery.”

  I said, “How come you’re talking to me?”

  “You’re smart-looking. See it in your face.”

  I just sat there, barely looking at him and not talking.

  “But I’m just a boy.”

  “Pshaw, grown-ups can be stubborn. Boys are all go-ahead. They know a good thing. Your father employed at the Works?”

  “He got killed.”

  “In the war?”

  I nodded.

  He pulled on a sad face. “Awful sorry to hear that. Terrible war. Terrible. You on your own?”

  “With my mother.”

  He seemed disappointed.

  Just then the waiter came back and put the sizzling steak and tater in front of me. They did look grand. “Anything for you, sir?” he asked Ogden.

  “Not now.” He waved the waiter away.

  Instead of talking, I bolted food. Have to admit, couldn’t remember when I’d eaten so good.

  “Can I ask you some questions?” pressed Mr. Quinn, or Parker—whatever his name was.

  “About what?” I said.

  “That ironclad.”

  “I was told not to talk about it.”

  “By who?”

  “Captain Ericsson.”

  He sat straight up. “You working for him?”

  “Sure.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Calling her Ericsson’s Folly, aren’t they? I’d love to know more.”

  “I guess you would,” I said, eating as fast as I could, avoiding his eyes.

  “Just wondering how big her crew is. And her guns. How many? What kind? How fast can she shoot? That kind of thing.” He reached into his vest pocket and brought up another gold piece. Laid it on the table. “I told you I had more of these, didn’t I?” he said. “But look here, Tom.” He pulled back his vest so no one in that cafe but me could see a holster strapped to his chest. In the holster, a pistol. On the holster he had affixed a copper penny, the one with “Lady Liberty” stamped on it: the symbol of the copperheads.

  That killed my appetite. I said, “I don’t know anything about those things.”

  “But you will, won’t you?” He grinned, closed his vest, and nodded toward the coin on the table. “Go on. That’s yours.”

  I looked down.

  “But that other thing might be for you, too. And it wouldn’t be so much fun, would it?”

  I tried to swallow my meat.

  “Well,” he said, “how about it? Just tell me how many guns are on her.”

  “None,” I muttered, grabbed the coin, and bolted out of the café. I could hear him laughing.

  Before I got home, I decided I couldn’t tell Dora I found another coin. She wouldn’t believe it. Instead, I hid the coin out in the backyard under a stone.

  As I walked up our steps, I found myself thinking of what my father might have said if he knew I’d taken money from a copperhead. None of it would have been pretty.

  Not that I had told Quinn anything. In fact I told myself I had tricked him out of that money. Then why did having the coins make me feel so bad?

  CHAPTER NINE

  I Learn the Ship’s Name

  MOST TIMES SHIPS were given names of places, like the Minnesota, or something important, like the Congress. They named our ship the Monitor. Not that I knew what that meant.

  Since Mr. O’Keefe seemed to know such things, I asked him.

  “Captain Ericsson picked it,” he said. “He wants to teach them Rebs a lesson!”

  I thought for a moment. “I get it. A monitor—like a teacher.”

  O’Keefe grinned. “That’s right. But here’s the really important news going around. Remember that Merrimac I told you about?”

  “The Confederate ironclad?”

  O’Keefe leaned over and whispered, “Word has it she’ll be ready to sail by first of February.”

  “Will we?”

  “Look for yourself.”

  I glanced toward the Monitor. She was sitting as still and flat as an iron bed—on land, too. No guns. No turret. Just men—almost two hundred—working like ants on a kicked-over anthill.

  “Of course,” said O’Keefe, “it’s fine and dandy to name her the Monitor. But guess what the papers are calling her now?”

  “Ericsson’s Folly.”“Where’d you hear that?”

  I shrugged. “Just did.”

  “God willing, the Monitor won’t be so full of folly as all that. Mind, we’ve got three things to do. First, we got to build her. Second, make sure she floats.”

  “What’s the third?”

  “See if she can fight.”

  “What’s she going to fight with?”

  “Guns.”

  “What if she can’t?”

  O’Keefe grimaced. “They say we’ll lose the war.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of newspaper. “Look here,” he said.

  HARPER’S WEEKLY

  A JOURNAL OF CIVILIZATION

  The Merrimac

  News from Fortress Monroe

  A mechanic who came over under a flag of truce last evening furni
shes us with some very valuable information in relation to the steam frigate Merrimac. He said her hull has been cut down to within three feet of her light-water mark, and a bomb-proof house built on her gun deck, and that she is not iron-plated yet. Her bow and stern have been steel clad with a projecting angle for the purpose of piercing a vessel. Her armament consists of four eleven-inch navy guns on each side, with a one hundred-pounder Armstrong at the bow and stern. She has no masts, and only a pilothouse and smokestack are to be seen above the bombproof deck. Her bomb-proofing is three inches thick and made of wrought iron. He states that she will not be ready for at least two weeks.

  The Merrimac under construction as an ironclad. The Rebs had a lot of trouble getting iron for her plating.

  Later that day, I delivered a message from the Albany Iron Works to Captain Ericsson. He was working on his designs for the officers’cabins. The message was something about a change in the iron plate.

  “Captain Ericsson, sir?” I said, after I gave him the message.

  “Yes, Tom,” he said, without looking around.

  “Something’s been bothering me. It’s … how can iron float?”

  The captain turned around and gazed at me. “Fair question,” he said. “When you put a ship in water it pushes aside—we engineers say displaces—water. Pushing aside that water makes the water push up with its own force. If the force of the object pressing down is greater than the force of the water pushing up, the ship will sink. If the water’s force is greater, the ship will float. Understand?”

  “Sort of.”

  The captain continued, “A solid block of iron won’t float. But a ship made of iron can float because it is hollow, filled with air. And air is less dense than water.”

  I thought hard. “So the ship just has to weigh less than the water it is pushing aside—I mean, displacing?”

  “That’s it.”

  I had to see it. So later, I found a tin can and took it down to the river. Laid it on the water. It floated. Then I took that same can and crushed it flat. When I put it in the water, it sank.

  I felt smart. And knowing that the Monitor wasn’t some crazy idea made me feel good about her, and even proud that I was working on such a modern ship.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I Battle for the Monitor

  SATURDAY, my family went to our neighborhood church for a funeral. It was for Willie Hicks, a boy from our street. He had been in the same regiment Pa fought with, the Brooklyn Fourteenth. I don’t think he was more than seventeen, but he was killed in some skirmish. He was cut up so bad they wouldn’t open the coffin. I didn’t want to go, but Ma said I had to. Made me upset to be there. Aside from Willie’s death, it reminded me of Pa’s.

  After Mass, a few of my friends gathered on the sidewalk in front of the church. Sean Roberts was telling stories about Willie, how, on a dare, he once swam across the East River to Manhattan. It was sad talk, but then, like so often those days, the talk turned to the war.

  “Can’t wait ‘til I join up,” said Garrett Falloy, who was the biggest of us boys. “I’ll teach them Rebs.”

  “I’m going to be a sharpshooter,” said Sean.

  “You hear about them balloon spotters?” said Luke Pator. “That’s for me.”

  I got to saying what Captain Ericsson told me, that his floating battery—which I was working on—would win the war for sure.

  “What’s a floating battery?” Garrett demanded.

  “Any fool knows a battery is a bunch of cannons,” I said.

  Garrett’s father was a corporal in the army. And one of his uncles was a Brooklyn policeman. That and his size made Garrett sort of our street boss. He and I got on pretty well, but sometimes he used his bigness as an argument. So when I said “any fool,” he snatched off his cap, flung it to the ground, and took a step toward me. “You telling me cannons can float?”

  “If they’re sitting on a ship, they will.”

  “On Ericsson’s Folly?”

  “She’s called the Monitor.”

  “Made of iron, ain’t she?” said Sean.

  “Pretty much,” I said.

  “Iron can’t float,” said Garrett, giving me a shove. “Not nowhere.”

  “If the ship weighs less than the water it’s displacing, it’ll float.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said Luke.

  Before I could answer, Garrett asked, “You sailing on her?”

  “She don’t sail. She’s steam-driven. With a screw propeller.”

  “And you’re screwy enough to go on her.”

  “I might,” I returned, which was a might I hadn’t thought of ‘til then.

  “You do,” Garrett said, “and you’ll be laid out like cold mackerel on Malachi’s fish wagon.”

  “Right,” hooted Luke. “We better start saving pennies for having Father O’Rourke say the drowned sailors’ mass for you. Then we’ll call your iron boat Carroll’s Folly!”

  The argument grew warmer, with me feeling bound to defend the ship as best as I could. Pretty soon all three of them were pushing me around. I began to hit back, not that I was a match for them.

  Good thing Father O’Rourke stepped in. An old, white-haired man, he might not have been very big, but he had a strong grip and a stronger eye. “For shame! Your friend barely put to rest. Be off with you! Or you’ll answer for it, first to me and then to God!”

  I mean no disrespect when I say what sent them scurrying was mostly fear of Father O’Rourke.

  “Let’s go, Tom,” he said, and with an arm around my shoulder, he led me away.

  Pretty soon all three of them were pushing me around.

  “Now, what’s the trouble?” he asked when he got me alone.

  “They were making fun of Captain Ericsson’s ship, saying it won’t float.”

  “That the iron boat they’re building over at the ironworks at Greenpoint?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “What’s that to do with you?”

  “I’m working on her.”

  “Are you, now? Now tell me, Tom—man-to-man—do you think she’ll really float?”

  I sighed. “I’m sure she will, Father.”

  “We live in amazing times, we do,” he said. “But even so, I’ll offer up my prayers for added ballast. Now be off with you, and show some respect!”

  Days were chilly, but we kept working on the Monitor. As soon as her decks were covered with iron, they painted her with white zinc paint, then black for color. Mostly they were working inside her now, not that it was any warmer below deck. Iron plating was cold!

  I was doing what I always did: carrying orders, lugging pails, fetching tools, sometimes just holding things. And when I received my seventy-five cents each week, I gave it to Ma. It wasn’t much, but she was grateful all the same, and took pains to praise me. I felt good about it, but wished I could make more. Still, I just couldn’t touch those gold coins. It felt wrong.

  Then Captain Ericsson made an announcement. Though the Monitor still didn’t have her turret, he was going to send her down the ways and into the river. January the thirtieth.

  That was in a few days.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I Have a Meeting

  WHEN WORD GOT OUT about the launch, there was nothing but talk about what might happen. Then Captain Ericsson—he being so sure of himself—announced that during the launching he’d be standing on the Monitor’s deck. I suppose in my head I did believe she would float, but I have to admit all that teasing left me uneasy. So I was glad I didn’t have to be there.

  But the day before the launch—it was almost quitting time—Captain Ericsson and I were alone in his drafting shed. He was working on his plans, making changes as always.

  “Now, Tom,” he said, as if he were going to ask me to fetch a telegram, “when the ship is launched tomorrow, I expect you to be by my side.” He said it without so much as turning around to look at me. Or asking me what I wanted.

  My stomach sank—not, I hoped, like t
he ship would. I felt some pride that he wanted me there. But for all my talk about how I was sure the Monitor would float, the idea of setting off on her made me jittery.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

  As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, when I was heading out from work, I saw Mr. Quinn across the street. I knew he was waiting for me.

  I hesitated, thinking I should head back into the Works. But the crowd of workers pressing out of the gates forced me on. Then I thought of stalling by talking to Luke, who was selling papers nearby. But he was real busy. Anyway, what could I say? The regular policeman was also there, but I was too scared to tell him what was happening. What if he thought I was a spy?

  So, acting as if I hadn’t seen Quinn, I started walking fast for home. Still, I knew he was behind me. After I’d gone a few blocks, I looked back. Quinn was nowhere in sight.

  Feeling better, I slacked my pace but kept going, head down. I never wanted to see him again and was annoyed at myself for having taken his coins. And food. I knew why I did: we needed money. Even so, I wasn’t going to have anything to do with copperheads. It was wrong. I’d rather be with Captain Ericsson. He wanted me by his side, and he didn’t flash a pistol at me.

  Just as I was feeling easy, I looked up. My heart lurched. Blocking my way was a grinning Mr. Quinn. How he managed to get there I never knew.

  “You missed me,” he said.

  I took a quick look over my shoulder and saw another man—big and burly—come up behind me. I didn’t even have to ask him what he was doing. I knew.

  I took a quick look over my shoulder and saw another man—big and burly—come up behind me.

  I looked back to Mr. Quinn. He’d stopped smiling.

  “Come on, Tom,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  “Don’t want to,” I mumbled, trying to keep the shakes out of my voice.

  “Now, see here, Tom. I guess you took my money, didn’t you? You ate my food.”

  “I didn’t make any deal.”

  “Hey, Tom, you’re smart. I guess you know what I am. Suppose I got word to Captain Ericsson about us talking? What do you think he might do?”