Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

"Let us hope so," Tombs sighed.

He climbed through a rear hatch and stood on the casemate roof as the Texas reached Drewrys Bluff and surged through the moored gunboats of Admiral Semmes' James River Fleet. The crews of her sister ironclads, Virginia II, Fredericksburg, and Richmond, sick at heart as they prepared to blow their ships into the air, suddenly broke into wild cheering as the Texas swept past. Black smoke spewed from her stack and obscured the stars. The Confederate battle flag stretched out taut in the breeze from the ship's forward thrust, presenting a stirring sight that would never be seen again.

Tombs doffed his hat and held it high. It was the final dream that would soon become a nightmare of bitterness and defeat. And yet, it was a grand moment to be savored. The Texas was on her way to becoming a legend.

And then, as suddenly as she appeared, she was gone around the river's bend, her wake the only sign of her passing.

Just above the Trents Reach, where the Federal army had stretched an obstruction, across the river and dug several artillery emplacements, Tombs ordered the United States colors raised on the mast.

Inside the casemate, the gun deck was cleared for action. Most of the men had stripped to the waist and stood at their guns with handkerchiefs tied around their foreheads. The officers had removed their coats and quietly strode the deck in their undershirts beneath suspenders. The ship's surgeon passed out tourniquets and instructed the men on how to apply them.

Fire buckets were spaced about the deck. Sand

was spread to soak up blood. Pistols and cutlasses were issued to repel boarders, rifles loaded with bayonets fixed on their muzzles. The hatches to the magazine rooms below the gun deck were opened and the winches and pulleys readied to hoist the shot and powder.

Pushed by the current, the Texas was doing 16 knots when her bow crushed the floating spar of the obstruction. She surged through into clear water with hardly a scratch on the iron ram bolted to her bow.

An alert Union sentry spotted the Texas as she slipped out of the dark and fired off his musket.

"Cease fire, for God's sake cease fire!" Tombs shouted from the roof of the casemate.

"What ship are you?" a voice from shore came back.

"The Atlanta, you idiot. Can't you recognize your own ship?"

"When did you come upriver?"

"An hour ago. We're under orders to patrol to the obstruction and back to City Point."*

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*General Grant's Union army supply port on the James River.

The bluff worked. The Union sentries along the shore appeared satisfied. The Texas moved ahead without further incident. Tombs exhaled a deep breath of relief.

He'd fully expected a hail of shot to lash out against his ship. With that danger temporarily passed, his only fear now was that a suspicious enemy officer might telegraph a warning up and down the river.

Fifteen miles beyond the obstruction, Tombs' luck began to run out as a low, menacing mass loomed from the blackness ahead.

The Union dual-turreted monitor, Onondaga, 11 inches of armor on her turrets, 51/2 inches on her hull, and mounting two powerful 15-inch Dahlgren smoothbores and two 150-pounder Parrott rifles, lay anchored near the western bank, her stern aimed downstream. She was taking on coal from a barge tied to her starboard side.**

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**The original Monitor was only the first of her class. Almost sixty more were built of varied design as late as 1903.

The Texas was almost on top of her when a midshipman standing on top of the forward turret spotted the Confederate ironclad and gave the alarm.

The crew paused from loading coal and peered at the ironclad that was hurtling out of the night. Commander John Austin of the Onondaga hesitated a few moments, doubtful whether a rebel ironclad could have come this far down the James River without being exposed. Those few moments cost him. By the time he shouted for his crew to cast loose their guns, the Texas was passing abeam, an easy stone's throw away.

"Heave to!" Austin cried, "or we'll fire and blow you out of the water!"

"We are the Atlanta!" Tombs yelled back, carrying out the charade to the bitter end.

Austin was not taken in, not even by the sudden sight of the Union ensign on the mast of the intruder. He gave the order to fire.

The forward turret came into action too late. The Texas had already swept past and out of its angle of fire. But the two 15-inch Dahlgrens inside the Onondaga's rear turret spat flame and smoke.

At point blank range the Union gunners couldn't miss, and didn't. The shots struck the sides of the Texas like sledgehammer blows, smashing in the upper aft end of the casemate in an explosion of iron and wooden splinters that struck down seven men.