Scores of cargo sloops and passenger schooners competed for mooring space with smaller barges and hoys. It could have been a scene lifted from the Thames or the Seine, had it not been for the tree-clad hillsides rising from the water on the opposite shore and the extraordinary-looking vessel that was churning into view beyond the intermediary forest of masts and rigging. The throbbing sounds that enveloped the craft as it manoeuvred towards the jetty were as curious as its appearance and like nothing Hawkwood had heard before.
There was no grace in either its movement or its contours. Compared to the other craft on the river, it occurred to Hawkwood that the clanking behemoth, with its wedged bow and wall-sided hull had all the elegance of an elongated canal boat, while the thin, black, smoke-belching stove-pipe poking up from the boat’s mid-section wouldn’t have looked out of place on the roof of a Cheapside tenement.
The threshing sound was explained by what appeared to be two large mill wheels, their top halves set behind wooden housings on either side of the hull, forward of the smoke-stack. They were, Hawkwood saw, revolving paddles; it was their rotation that gave the vessel its momentum through the water.
Another drawn-out screech rent the air, sending a flock of herring gulls, already displaced by the first whistle, wheeling and diving above the nearby rooftops in raucous protest.
Quade moved to Hawkwood’s side. “She’s the Paragon, up from New York. She can do six and a half knots at a push. Seven dollars a ticket, I’m told, and it only takes thirty-six hours. It takes the schooners four days. You’ve not seen any of them in action?”
Hawkwood shook his head and watched as the steamboat shuddered and slowed. For a few seconds the clattering from her paddles seemed to diminish before suddenly increasing in volume once more. Hawkwood realized the wheels were now revolving in the opposite direction and that the vessel was travelling in reverse.
“Takes ninety passengers,” Quade said matter-of-factly as the boat’s stern started to come round. “Fulton used to swear they could turn on a dollar – the boats, that is, not the passengers. Don’t know if that’s strictly true. No one’s thrown a dollar in to find out.” He chuckled.
For a moment Hawkwood thought he might have misheard.
“Fulton?” he repeated cautiously, trying to keep his tone even.
“Robert Fulton,” Quade said. He looked at Hawkwood askance. “Good God, man, you must have heard of him! How long did you say you’d been away?”
Hawkwood said nothing. His mind was too busy spinning.
Fulton?
It had to be the same man. Robert Fulton, American designer of the submersible, Narwhale, in which Hawkwood had fought hand to hand with Fulton’s associate, William Lee, beneath the dark waters of the Thames, following Lee’s failed attack on the newly launched frigate, Thetis.
Hawkwood had killed Lee and left his body entombed at the bottom of the river, inside Narwhale’s shattered hull. It seemed like an age ago, yet memory of a discourse he’d had with the Admiralty Board members and the scientist, Colonel William Congreve, prior to the discovery of Lee’s plan, slid into his mind. Hawkwood heard an echo of Congreve’s voice telling him that at the same time as Fulton had been petitioning the French government to support his advances in undersea warfare, he’d also been experimenting with steam as a means of propulsion.
Hawkwood stared at the vessel, which was now side on to the quay, and watched as mooring lines were cast fore and aft. While Fulton’s dream of liberty of the seas and the establishment of free trade through the destruction of the world’s navies might lie in tatters at the bottom of the Thames, it appeared that his plans for steam navigation had achieved spectacular success.
“Can’t say the schooner skippers are best pleased,” Quade said. “They’ve lost a deal of passenger trade since the steamboats started running.”
“How many are there?” Hawkwood asked.
“I believe it’s five or six at the last count. I do know that two of them operate alternating schedules up and downriver. Others are used as ferries around New York harbour.”
“I’ll be damned,” Hawkwood said, nodding as if impressed. “Y’know, the time’s gone so quickly … I’m blessed if I can remember when they did start.”
“Back in ’07.” Quade leaned on his stick and gazed admiringly at the boat as the gangplank was extended. “If you recall, Clermont was the first. It made its maiden run that August.”
The year after Fulton had left London to return home. The British government had thought that his departure meant they would hear no more of the American and his torpedoes – until Lee’s appearance five years later.
“Of course,” Hawkwood said. “How could I forget?”
“Not the most amenable fellow, I’m told,” Quade murmured. “Arrogant, and not much liked, by all accounts, though you can’t deny he’s a clever son of a bitch. There’ve been rumours he’s trying to design some kind of military version, but last I heard, he’s not in the best of health, so I wouldn’t know how that’s proceeding.”
With the steamship now berthed and its passengers disembarking, Hawkwood was able to take stock of her. She was, he guessed, about one hundred and fifty feet in length, with the top of the smoke-stack rising a good thirty feet above the deck. There were two masts: one set forward and equipped for a square sail, the other at the stern, supporting a fore and aft rig. The sails, Hawkwood presumed, were to provide her with additional impetus if her engine failed. The paddle wheels had to be at least fifteen feet in diameter. There was no bowsprit and no figurehead. Even to an untrained eye, with no attempt having been made to soften her lines, it was plain the vessel had been constructed entirely for purpose. As if to emphasize the steamboat’s stark functionality, the top of the cylindrical copper boiler, set into a rectangular well in the centre of the deck and from which the smoke-stack jutted, was fully exposed, not unlike the protruding intestines of a dissected corpse.
“They say the machine that controls her wheels has the power of thirty horses,” Quade offered admiringly. “I’ve no idea how they work that out. I can only assume they tied them to her bow and held a tug of war. Your guess is as good as mine.” The major shook his head in wonder. “Y’know, there’s also a story that Fulton tried to interest Emperor Bonaparte in an undersea boat, and when that didn’t work he changed his allegiance and approached the Limeys for funding. Sounds a bit far-fetched, if you ask me. Not sure I believe it, frankly.”
“It does sound unlikely,” Hawkwood agreed.
“Well, he’s on our side now, and that’s the main thing,” Quade said. He reached into his coat and dug out a pocket watch. Flipping the catch, he consulted the dial and tutted. “Damn, I should go – wouldn’t like young Lavinia to start without me. If they do insist on sending me up into the wilds, this could be our last ah … consummation for a while.” Snapping the watch shut, he looked at Hawkwood and cocked an eyebrow. “You’re sure you won’t …?” He left the suggestion hanging open.
Hawkwood shook his head. “Enjoy yourself, Major.”
Quade tucked the watch away and grinned. “Oh, I intend to, don’t you worry.” He extended his hand. “My thanks for your intervention, Captain. It was good to meet you. We’ll likely run into each other again, I expect, after we’ve taken up our duties; either here or at Greenbush. They’re small towns, when all’s said and done. That’s if they don’t send us to Plattsburg, of course. Or if you’d like to meet for a libation before then, you’ll likely find me at the Eagle or Berment’s. I’ve taken a room there.”
“That’s most kind, Major. Thank you.”
“Excellent, then I’ll bid you good day.”
And with a final wave of goodbye, Major Quade limped off to his assignation.