Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

The calliope player, protected by a forest of brass plumbing, began playing "Yellow Rose of Texas," which fell on several flat tones as holes suddenly appeared in his steam whistles.

On the main deck, Major Laroche and his regiment, along with Pitt and Giordino, crouched out of sight. The cotton bales made strong defensive works, and no bullets penetrated. The open boiler area behind the main staircase caught the worst of it. Two of McGeen's stokers were hit and the overhead tubing was penetrated, allowing steam to escape in scalding streams. McGeen took his hat off the pressure gauge. It was pegged in the red. He expelled a long sigh. A miracle nothing had burst, he thought. The rivets were straining on the boilers. He quickly began spinning relief valves to let off the immense pressure in preparation for the coming collision.

The Stonewall Jackson's pandle wheels were still driving her at twenty miles an hour. If she had to die, she was not going to end up like her former sisters, rotting away in some forgotten bayou or broken up for wharf wood. She was going out a legend and ending her life on the water in style.

Brushing aside the waves that pounded her bow, shrugging off the frightful torrent of lead that shredded her flimsy superstructure, she forged ahead.

Lee Tong watched in bitter fascination as the steamboat came on steadily. He stood in an open hatch on the barge and poured a stream of bullets at her, hoping to hit a vital part and slow her down. But he might as well have been shooting air pellets at a rampaging elephant.

He set aside his Steyr-Mannlicher carbine and raised the binoculars. None of the crew was visible behind the barricade of cotton bales. Even the sieved pilothouse looked deserted. The gold letters of the smashed nameplate were visible, but all he could make out was the name JACKSON.

The flat bow was pointed square for the towboat's port side. It was a stupid, futile gesture, he reasoned, a stalling technique, nothing more. In spite of its superior size, the wooden pandle steamer could not expect to damage the towboat's steel bull.

He retrieved the Steyr-Mannlicher, inserted another ammo clip and concentrated his fire into the pilothouse in an attempt to damage the helm.

Sandecker and Metcalf watched too.

They sat captivated by the hopeless, irresistible magnificence of it all. Radio contact was attempted with the steamboat, but there was no response. Captain Belcheron had been too busy to answer, and the old river rat didn't think he had anything worth saying anyway.

Metcalf called Lieutenant Grant. "Spiral in closer," he ordered.

Grant acknowledged and made a series of tight banks over the vessels below. The detail of the towboat was quite sharp. They could pick out nearly thirty men blasting away across the water.

The steamboat, however, was obscured by the smoke shooting from her stacks and great clouds of exhaust steam spurting out of the "scape pipes" aft of the pilothouse.

"She'll bash herself to bits when she strikes," said Sandecker.

"It's glorious but meaningless," Metcalf muttered.

"Give them credit. They're doing more than we can."

Metcalf nodded slowly. "Yes, we can't take that away from them."

Sandecker came out of his chair and pointed. "Look there, on the steamboat where the wind has blown the smoke off to the side."

"What is it?"

"Isn't that a pair of cannons?"

Metcalf came alert. "By God, you're right. They look like old monuments from a town park."

At two hundred yards Laroche raised his sword and yelled, "Batteries one and two, train and prime your guns."

"Battery one primed and aimed," shouted back a man in antique wire spectacles.

"Battery two

ready, Major."

"Then fire!" The lanyards were jerked and the two antique cannon belched their loads of ballbearing grapeshot from their muzzles in earsplitting claps. The first shot actually penetrated the side of the towboat, crashing into the galley and mangling the ovens. The second soared into the pilothouse, taking off Captain Pujon's head and carrying away the wheel. Dazed by the unexpected barrage, Lee Tong's men slackened their fire for several seconds, recovered and opened up with renewed ferocity, concentrating on the narrow slits between the cotton bales where the cannon barrels protruded.

Now the smoothbores were run back while the artillery men quickly rammed home the sponges and began reloading. Bullets whined over their heads and shoulders, and one man was struck in the neck. But in less than a minute the old Napoleons were ready to blast again.

"Aim for the cables!" Pitt shouted. "Cut the barge away!"

Laroche nodded and relayed Pitts orders. The guns were run out and the next broadside swept the towboat's bow, causing an explosion of coiled rope and cable, but the tenacious grip on the barge remained unbroken.

Coldly, almost contemptuous of the deadly blitz that swept the Stonewall Jackson, the make-believe soldiers lined up the sights on their single-shot muskets and waited for the command to fire.