Southern Seahawk by Randall Peffer

Author:Randall Peffer [Peffer, Randall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-44053-403-4
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2008-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

23

USS Powhatan

LATE JULY

Preposterous!” Porter stands the quarterdeck four bells into the noon watch, snarls at the dispatch in his hand. The luff casts his captain an uneasy glance, knows another blowup’s coming, shuffles forward to be out of the line of fire. It’s a good time to have a talk with the bosun about splicing the chafed spots in the foretop buntlines. When the skipper’s in one of these moods, his officers avoid him like the yellow jack.

The massive canvas awning that spreads over the Powhatan from foredeck to transom offers shade but not relief from the humidity of the Gulf in high summer. Both the officers and men are dripping sweat in the light afternoon breeze. Everyone’s feeling wretched from the heat, not to say pissed about the new water rationing plan the captain has instituted. The horizon in all directions is a pale blue haze. Not a squall in sight to bring cooling winds and rain to fill the water casks. There’s nothing on the horizon at all except the ghostly outline of the Mississippi Delta to the north. The schooner that has just tied alongside Powhatan with her dispatches from squadron command at Pensacola, thumps against the sloop of war as the two vessels roll against each other in the lazy swells.

Porter crunches the dispatch from the Secretary of the Navy into a ball, throws it overboard with a wicked back-handed toss. He closes his eyes to clear his mind, but sees the words again.

As per your request to leave your station to pursue the raider Sumter. … Your request is hereby denied. The Powhatan shall maintain the blockade of the Delta with all due vigilance. G. Welles.

“Fuck all!” Porter kicks the bulwark.

“Bad news?” The master of the dispatch schooner.

“It’s nothing.” He scowls, looks right through his guest as if he were a ghost.

The trim, bantam cock of a man was once a middie with Porter back on the Connie during the Med Cruise in ‘31. He’s a superb mariner, but he lacks political influence and has not got on well in the navy. Still a lieutenant. He came aboard to deliver the dispatches in person, see his old shipmate, catch some shade under the awning. No doubt, he hoped Porter would treat him to the courtesies usually due the master of a dispatch boat. A cigar and conversation between masters below decks in the great cabin. The life of a captain is a lonely one as protocol keeps him aloof from both his own officers and men. So sharing scuttlebutt with a fellow commander comes as a welcome antidote to a cloistered existence, the pressures of command. So … a cool libation, trays of smoked oysters or deviled eggs often appear from the pantry. But in this regard, things are not looking promising on the Powhatan today.

Porter rolls his massive shoulders, gazes off to the south.

The smaller man watches this, keeps silent until he’s almost sure no invitation is coming.

“I’ll have your dispatches for squadron, Commander. And be off then.

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