Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

At almost the same time, Tombs shouted an order down the open roof hatch. The gun-port shutters dropped aside and the Texas poured her three guns broadside into the 0nondaga's turret. One of the Blakely's 100-pounder shells crashed through an open port and exploded against a Dahlgren, causing a gush of smoke and flame and terrible carnage inside the turret. Nine men were killed and eleven badly wounded.

Before the guns from either vessel could be reloaded, the rebel ironclad had melted back into the night and safely steamed around the next bend in the river. The Onondaga's forward turret blindly fired a parting salutation, the shells whistling high and aft of the fleeing Texas.

Desperately, Commander Austin drove his crew to up anchor and swing around 180 degrees. It was a futile gesture. The monitor's top speed was barely above 7 knots. There was no hope of her chasing down and closing on the rebel craft.

Calmly, Tombs called to Lieutenant Craven. "Mr. Craven, we'll hide no more under an enemy flag. Please hoist the Confederate colors and close the gun-ports."

A young midshipman eagerly sprang to the mast and untied the halyards, pulling down the stars and stripes and sending up the diagonal stars and bars on a field of white and red.

Craven joined Tombs atop the casemate. "Now the word is out," he said, "it'll be no picnic between here and the sea. We can deal with army shore batteries. None of their field artillery is powerful enough to make more than a dent on our armor."

Tombs paused to stare apprehensively across the bow at the black river unwinding ahead. "The guns of the Federal fleet waiting for us at the mouth of the river are our greatest danger."

A barrage burst out from shore almost before he finished speaking.

"And so it begins," Craven waxed philosophically, as he hurriedly retreated to his station on the gun deck below. Tombs remained exposed behind the pilothouse to direct the movement of his ship against any Federal vessels blocking the river.

Shells from unseen batteries and musket fire from sharpshooters began to splatter the Texas like a hailstorm. While his men cursed and chafed at the bit, Tombs kept the gun-ports closed. He saw no reason to endanger his crew and waste valuable powder and shot at an unseen enemy.

For two more hours the Texas endured the onslaught. Her engines ran smoothly and pushed her at speeds a knot or two faster than she had been designed. Wooden gunboats appeared, fired off their broadsides, and then attempted to take up the chase as the Texas ignored them like gnats and dashed past as if they were stopped in the water.

Suddenly the familiar outline of the Atlanta materialized, anchored broadside-on across the river. Her starboard guns poured forth as their lookouts recognized the unyielding rebel monster bearing down on them.

"She knew we was coming," Tombs muttered.

"Should I pass around her, Captain?" asked Chief Pilot Hunt, displaying a remarkable coolness at the helm.

"No, Mr. Hunt," answered Tombs. "Ram her slightly forward of her stern."

"Smash her to the side out of our way," Hunt replied in understanding. "Very well, sir."

Hunt gave the wheel a quarter turn and aimed the Texas' bow straight toward the stern of the Atlanta. Two bolts from the ex-Confederate's 8-inch guns drove into the rapidly approaching casemate, cracking the shield and pushing the wooden backing in almost a foot and wounding three men by the concussion and splinters.

The gap quickly closed and the Texas buried 10 feet of her heavy iron prow into the Atlanta's hull and then drove up and through her deck, snapping her stern anchor chain and thrusting her around in a 90-degree arc as well as forcing her deck under the river's surface. Water gushed into the Union ironclad's gunports and she quickly began to slip out of sight as the Texas literally rode over her.

The Atlanta's keel sank into the river mud and she rolled onto her side as the wildly churning screws of the Texas spun within inches of her upturned hull before thrashing into the clear. Most of the Atlanta's crew rushed from the gun-ports and hatches before she went under, but at least twenty men went down with her.

Tombs and his ship hurtled on in their desperate effort to reach freedom. The running battle continued as the Texas shrugged off the constant fire and the pursuing Union gunboats. Telegraph lines strung along the river by Federal forces hummed with news of the ironclad's approach as a mounting wave of chaos and desperation increased among army shore batteries and navy ships determined to intercept and sink her.

Shot and shell continuously plunged against the Texas' armor with thumps that made her shudder from bow to stern. A 100-pound bolt from a Dahlgren mounted high above an embankment at Fort Hudson bashed into the pilothouse, stunning Chief Pilot Hunt from the concussion and leaving him bloodied from fragments that flew through the viewing slits. He gamely stayed at the wheel, keeping the ship on a straight course in the middle of the channel.

The sky was beginning to lighten in the east, when the Texas thundered out of the James River past Newport News and into the wide estuary and deeper water of Hampton Roads; scene of the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack three years before.

It seemed the entire Union fleet was lined up and waiting for them. All Tombs could see from his position above the casemate was a forest of masts and smokestacks. Heavily armed frigates and sloop-of-wars on the left, monitors and gunboats on the right. And beyond, the narrow channel between the massive firepower of Fortress Monroe

and Fort Wool that was blocked by the New lronsides, a formidable vessel with an ironclad conventional hull mounting eighteen, heavy guns.

At last Tombs ordered the ports opened and the guns run out. The Texas was finished making no show at resistance. Now the Federal navy would feel the full fury of her fangs. With a great cheer, the men of the Texas cast loose and, trained their guns, primers in the vents, the locks thrown back, and the gun captains poised with the lanyard.

Craven calmly walked throughout the ship, smiling and joking with the men, offering words of encouragement and advice. Tombs came down and gave a brief speech, sharp with barbs at the enemy and optimistic about the thrashing that tried and true southern boys were about to dish out to cowardly Yankees. Then with his telescoping glass tucked' under his arm, he returned to his post behind the pilothouse.

Union gunners had plenty of time to prepare. Code signals to fire when the Texas came in range were run up. To Tombs, as he stared through his glass, it seemed his enemies filled the entire horizon. There was a terrible quiet that hung over the water like a spell as the wolves waited for their quarry to sail into what looked to be an inescapable trap.

Rear Admiral David Porter, thickset and bearded, his flat seaman's cap set firm, stood on an arms chest where he could oversee the gun deck of his flagship, the wooden frigate Brooklyn, while studying the smoke from the approaching rebel ironclad in the early light of the coming dawn.

"Here she comes," said Captain James Alden, commander of Porter's flagship. "And she's coming like the devil straight for us."

"A gallant and noble vessel going to her grave," murmured Porter as the Texas filled the lens of his glass. "It's a sight we'll never see again."