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But you should know, lieutenant, that if you wire the Senator, there may be unfortunate consequences."
The lieutenant smiled. For you, sir?"
Jase laughed, to the lieutenant's surprise. Lord, no, he said. What I meant is that if you miss this fight,
you should ask for a transfer out of this department. Because you'll never be able to walk aboard Arcola
again and hold your head up."
The lieutenant stared, then swallowed, hard. Jase stepped back from the hatchway, gestured for the man
to enter. Come along, sir, he said. You can wire the Senator from Vicksburg as well as anywhere."
Euphemism pondered for a moment, then smiled, touched his cap again, and entered the ram.
Let the Senator stay away for the next fifteen minutes, Jase thought, and the ram is mine.
11.
The Argonauts faceth the peril of the Clashing Rocks
Black smoke poured from Arcola's twin stacks as the ram thrust down the Yazoo. The foredeck before
the casemate was almost awash with brown water. Jase sat on the edge of the roofless pilot house, his
seaman's soul thrilling to the glory of it all.
Who is she that looketh forth as the morning sun, he thought, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and
terrible as an army with banners?"
Arcola. His Arcola.
Oh, Arcola was a sweet boat! Fast despite her size and weight, trim, born for the water. Engines tuned
to a fare-thee-well, and if she was a little hesitant to answer the big rudder, well, that was just because all
the iron gave her momentum. It was a flaw for which a commander sensitive to her ways could
compensate, and Jase had learned her well in her trials.
He was so taken with Arcola that he had to forcefully remind himself, now and again, that this was all
about money.
Sitting next to Jase was the Gunner, Faren Smith, who held an English-made Armstrong target rifle
casually across his knees even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord, Jase thought.
Jase glanced over his shoulder and saw General Bee following two cables lengths behind. Bee towed a
pair of coal barges which would be cut adrift on the appearance of any Nationals. Above Bee's foredeck
towered a pair of wooden sheers that supported a forty-foot boom with a homemade tin canister on the
end, Harry Klee's spar torpedo. Behind the foredeck gun stood Put-Up-Your-Dukes, a handkerchief
slung beneath his broken jaw and tied over his head. It would be the big prizefighter's job to place the
canister under an enemy hull, then touch off the fifty pounds of black powder in the tin bucket.
The thing that most worried Jase was that he and Klee would be unable to communicate with one
another once the fight started. Each would have to remember his part in the plan. But there were several
plans depending on different contingencies, and it was more than possible to confuse one with the other,
and of course, there came a time in any fight when the plan went straight to hell....
Smoke downriver, boss, Faren Smith said. Jase turned abruptly, scanned the river ahead, saw nothing.
To the right, above the trees."
Jase corrected his gaze, saw the black smudge billowing above a tangle of cypress. Coal smoke, all right.
A lot of smoke, which meant more than one boat.
Jase felt his heart shift to a higher rate of speed, like an engine with the throttles opened. He turned again,
waved at the tugboat following behind, pointed to the smoke rising over the cypress. He saw Harry Klee
wave back from the pilothouse, then saw a plume of steam rise as Klee blew the whistle twice, the sound
unheard over the throb of Arcola's engines.
Jase dropped through the pilot house to the main deck, where Castor stood by the wheel. The inside of
the ironclad was hot as a blacksmith's forge, and the clank and hiss of the engines hammered on the ears.
Captain on deck! someone yelled. The crew shuffled into a state of attention. They'd been at quarters
since leaving Long Shanks, the boat cleared for action, guns loaded but not run out the ports.
Yankees around the bend! Jase shouted. Run out the broadside guns!"
Guarding against abrasions with their leather waist protectors, the crewmen threw their weight onto the
gun tackles, their bodies leaning almost to the deck as they hauled the heavy iron thirty-two-pounders to
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