The Peripatetic Coffin and Other Stories Read Free Page A

inspection on the torpedo, “how about a full band and seven of South Carolina’s finest, untouched beauties?”
    “We’ll see about a celebration,” Lieutenant Joosten, who has a beauty of his own, says, “when you guys actually do something.”
    O ur first chance actually to do something comes at the end of December when we receive an order to engage the U.S.S. Camden, a sloop of war that has just arrived in the harbor. As we make our preparations, the thump of artillery sounds in the distance. It has also come down from General Beauregard that, for our own safety, we are not to use the Hunley as a submersible, but to remain partially surfaced, using the night as camouflage. When this news reaches us, Augustus says nothing. Carleton says nothing. I say nothing.
    “Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of this thing?” Frank says.
    “You’re looking at me like I have a reassuring answer to that,” Lieutenant Dixon says.
    We retrieve the torpedo from the armory and carry it the three hundred yards to the dock. My hands are sweating and twice Carleton asks us to stop so he can get a better grip. We fasten the boom to the bow, sit on the dock, and listen to the waves lap the iron sides of the hull. The night is moonless, and very dark.
    Without a word, we lower ourselves into the Hunley . Infantrymen line the dock wearing expressions caught somewhere between skepticism and disbelief. As we cast off, one of them, a kid wearing a uniform three sizes too big, slowly waves. I close and secure the hatch without waving back.
    Lieutenant Dixon sights the Camden and calls for a rotational speed of three quarters. He floods the front ballast tank and then gives the signal for Carleton to flood the rear. Beside me, Frank whispers a Hail Mary. Augustus triple checks the i-bolt at his feet. We dive incrementally until only the conning towers are surface-visible and then secure the tanks. Two minutes in, the Hunley ’s a hothouse. Six minutes in, Lieutenant Dixon blows out the candle, and we’re moving in a darkness so complete I feel outside of myself.
    It takes us an hour to get to the mouth of the harbor. It takes us another hour to get within half a mile of the Camden . Lieutenant Dixon calls for a lower speed, and we’re surprised at the sound of his voice. My body’s aching from sitting in the same position for so long. My shoulders are on fire. Sweat pools in my boots.
    When we’re what must be a hundred yards from the ship, Lieutenant Dixon orders us to stop. We take our hands off the propeller, and everything goes silent. We can hear the water breaking in wavelets over the conning towers as we glide forward. We can hear voices, indistinct. Laughter. Shouting. Part of a song. It sounds infinitely far away. For a moment we wonder if we’re prepared to do what we came out here for—it seems, suddenly, ungraspable and remote—and then Lieutenant Dixon hisses, “Stop. Reverse.”
    We do nothing at first. “Reverse,” he says again. “It’s not the Camden, it’s just a picket ship.”
    “What’s the difference?” Frank says.
    “The difference is that we only have orders to engage the Camden, ” Lieutenant Dixon says. “Reverse.”
    “Why don’t we just ram it?” I say. “We’re out here.”
    “Reverse.”
    Because the tide is against us, it takes us four hours to get back. By the time we reach the dock, morning has broken. We sit at our stations, cold with sweat, furious with humiliation. No one wants to get out. Finally Lieutenant Dixon unscrews the hatch. As he heaves himself out, he shakes like he has a palsy. “It wasn’t the Camden, ” he says, to someone at the dock.
    “Well, I’ll be,” the voice comes back.
    O pportunities come, opportunities go. We set out to engage the Hoboken, but the weather turns us back. We try the next night, but a tiny seam opens in the hull for no apparent reason and we turn back. A week later we get caught in the tide at the mouth of Breach Inlet and are