Free Stars & Stripes Forever by Harry Harrison Page B

with the angels."
    She leaned over to kiss his cold forehead one last time. And unbidden the last words he had spoken sprang poisonously to her mind.
    "The Trent Affair. Those Americans did this. They have killed my love."
    She screamed aloud, tore at her clothing, screamed again and again and again.

    Across the Atlantic the winter was just as bad as that in England. There were thick sheets of ice in the river water that were struck aside by the ferry boat's bow, to thud and hammer down her sides. It was a slow passage from the island of Manhattan. When the ship finally tied up in its slip on the Brooklyn shore of the East River, the two men quickly went from the ferry and hurried to the first carriage in the row of waiting cabs.
    "Do you know where the Continental Ironworks is?" Cornelius Bushnell asked.
    "I do, Your Honor—if that is indeed the one on the river in Greenpoint."
    "Surely it is. Take us there."
    Gustavus Fox opened the door and let the older man precede him. The cab, stinking of horse, was damp and cold. But both men were warmly dressed for this was indeed a bitter winter.
    "Have you met John Ericsson before?" Bushnell asked. They had met at the ferry and had had little chance to talk before in private.
    "Just the once, when he was called in by the Secretary of the Navy. But only to shake his hand—I had to miss the meeting, another urgent matter."
    Bushnell, although chairman of the navy committee funding the ironclad, knew better than to ask what the urgent matter was. Fox was more than the Assistant Secretary of the Navy; he had other duties that took him to the Presidential Mansion quite often. "He is a mechanical genius... but," Bushnell seemed reluctant to go on. "But he can be difficult at times."
    "Unhappily this is not new information. I have heard that said of him."
    "But we need his genius. When he first presented his model to my Naval Committee I knew he was the man to solve the problem that is troubling us all."
    "You of course mean the ironclad that the South is building on the hull of the Merrimack?"
    "I do indeed. When the Confederates finish her and she sails—it will be a disaster. Our entire blockading fleet will be in the gravest danger. Why she could even attack Washington and bombard the city!"
    "Hardly that. And not that soon as well. I have it on good authority that while her hull and engines have been rebuilt in the drydock, there is a serious shortage of iron plate for her armor. There is no iron in the South and they are desperate. They are melting down gates and fences, even tearing up disused railroad sidings. But they need six hundred tons of iron plate for that single ship, and that is far from easy to obtain in this manner. I have men reporting from inside the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, the only place in the South where armor plate is rolled. There is not only a shortage of iron—but a shortage of transportation as well. The finished plates just lie there, rusting, until railroad transportation can be arranged."
    "That is most gratifying to hear. We must have our own vessel ready before she is launched, to stand between her and our vulnerable fleet."
    The cab stopped and the driver climbed down to open the door. "Here she is, the ironworks."
    A clerk took them to the office where Thomas Fitch Roland, owner of the Continental Ironworks, awaited them.
    "Mr. Roland," Bushnell said, "this is Mr. Gustavus Fox who is Assistant Secretary of the Navy."
    "Welcome, Mr. Fox. I imagine that you are here to see what progress we are making on Captain Ericsson's floating battery."
    "I am indeed most interested in that."
    "Work goes according to plan. The keel plates have already been passed through the rolling mill. But you must realize that a craft of this type has never been built before. And, even as we begin to assemble the ship, Mr. Ericsson is still working on the drawings. That is why I asked Mr. Bushnell's committee for just a bit more time."
    "That will not be a problem,"