Casimir Janeczek grunted as he helped load another shell into the four-inch gun he was crewing, the thunderous sound of the Davenport’s twelve-inch main guns, firing at the Confederate ships three miles upriver, causing him to flinch every time they sounded out. The Alton-class monitor was part of a four-ship patrol that had been sent to this sector of the Ohio River to knock out several Confederate shore batteries that were east of Louisville and spotted by Aerial Corps dragon and balloon reconnaissance. They did manage to spot one, hidden amongst the trees, but were quickly ambushed by a similar-sized Confederate force that appeared around a bend in the river.
In conjunction with the shore battery, the Confederate monitors started firing away at their Union counterparts, sinking the Davenport’s sister ship Peoria and heavily damaging the larger Neosho. He took a moment to pause, gazing at the Confederate ships, which were painted grey in contrast to the Union ships, which were painted white and gold. He was brought back into the fight by a harsh, Bostonian-accented voice screaming in his ear: “Hey, Cassie, are you just gonna stand there, starin’ at the Reb ships, or you are gonna frickin’ help us?”
That was the voice of Reggie Sharpe, a weathered-looking Opthalmosaurus who had been a fishersar before the war and had often requested permission from the captain to help catch fish for the cook (though he was always denied). Now, Reggie was glaring at Casimir, his elongated snout just inches away from physical contact with the Pole’s own nose. The Rhabdodon frowned at the usage of his new nickname; he had been named by his parents after two great kings of Poland: Casimir III and Casimir IV, rulers whose very names carried with it a sense of pride in Poles and Lithuanes everywhere. Ever since he arrived on the deck of the Davenport, though, his fellow crewsars nicknamed him ‘Cassie’; a rather undignified name to be associated with the memory of great Polish kings.
“So long as you stop callin’ me Cassie,” Casimir grunted as he heaved up a shell and handed it to the loader.
The loader, a broad-shouldered fellow from South Dakota named Arni Kjartansson, commented, “It’s hard to say Kahs-emm-mehr.”
“It’s not that hard,” said Casimir as he flinched from the blast of the gun. “Not compared to other Polish names, anyway.”
“Who gives a shit about names?” Growled Harl Maggert, the gunner, “We’re stuck here, gettin’ our tails blown off by the Rebs, our boys on the Peoria are bein’ left to drown, and you sons of bitches are arguin’ about how to pronounce a Goddamn name?”
Casimir sighed as he grabbed another shell; as much as he disliked Maggert (who had an ego problem, always boasting of how he was previously an outfielder for the Pirates and was a batter for the Keokuk Indians when he got drafted), he did have a point in that it was rather idiotic to argue about name pronunciation in the midst of battle. He had to set aside his own pride for the moment, if they were to work effectively as a crew, working the gun. Maggert opened fire, the shell blazed forward, smashing into the superstructure of the larger ship to the right. The crew whooped for joy at having finally scored a hit on their Confederate adversaries. “Got to hand it to you, Harl,” Kjartansson began as he looked over at the smoking enemy ship, “if you kept scoring hits like that, you probably be picked up as a pitcher in the National League in no time.”
“Don’t remind me,” the gunner grumbled. His response elicited some chuckles from the rest of the crew. For all his bluster about his baseball career, Maggert did admit his two seasons with the Indians prior to his draft into the Navy were not all that worth bragging about. As he was handing a shell to Arni, Casimir said, “Look on the bright side, you’d probably make a better pitcher than a batter. Who knows, you might even end up as the next Mordecai Brown.”
Right before he pulled the lanyard, Harl sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. And I heard he got drafted into the Navy too.”
Firing the Driggs-Schroeder gun just as he finished his sentence, Harl watched as the shell hit its mark, smashing into the forward turret on the smaller monitor. The crew, again, let out a cheer in celebration.
“We just very well could turn this battle around after all,” commented spotter Ferdinand Bronewitz, a scrawny Emausaurus wearing spectacles.
Shaking his head, Reggie muttered, “Still no consolation for the Peoria.”
Casimir sighed. Reggie had always been grumpy, apparently even before the Pole was assigned to the Davenport. He was an older sar, who apparently had been aboard a fishing boat that struck a mine off Cape Cod; having survived the ordeal (and being rescued by a Coast Guard boat), the Bostonian immediately enlisted in the Navy in the hopes that he’d get to see the Confederate and British fleets get licked. Instead, however, he was stuck on monitors patrolling the rivers that served as the borders between the United States and Confederate States, getting reassigned several times due to fights he had with other sailors.
Harl was the first to speak, “Shut the hell up already and load the damn shells, Reggie.”
And muttering obscenities to himself, Reggie gave Ferdinand Bronewitz a shell just as the crew started hearing a strange buzzing noise that was audible even over the din of artillery, rifle, and machine gun fire that was currently ongoing. Casimir overheard a sailor mounting a nearby Lewis Gun exclaim, “What the hell is that noise?”
“What is it?” Bronewitz craned his neck upwards to see where the noise was coming from. While Casimir and most of the others were looking around, Harl seemed deep in thought before declaring, “I’ve heard that sound before, once or twice at fairgrounds or at the field.”
Casimir glanced at the former baseball player to see that he was pointing to the northeast. Looking in that direction, he saw two shapes in the sky, coming in over the hills. At first, he thought they were Dragons but as they continued to approach, he noticed there was no flapping of the wings. Finally, he could easily see the shapes and recognized them, for he saw something similar in the newspapers: they were pusher airplanes, recently purchased by the Aerial Corps to serve alongside the balloons and dragons. The crew watched as the planes dived towards the the monitors, opening fire with machine guns in a strafe run on the crew. As they climbed back up, Casimir could hear small arms fire emanating from the Reb ships and could easily imagine the panicked Confederate sailors firing whatever weapons at their disposal to shoot the aircraft down.
Everyone who was above deck on the Davenport cheered at the sight, even Reggie (in a rare moment of public joy on his part). “Yes!” The Bostonian hollered as he saw the planes come back around. “Lick those Reb bastards! Give ‘em what they deserve!”
After a second strafing run, the planes began targeting the shore battery. While it was rather hard to see the full details of what was going on there (due to the trees sheltering the guns and crews), he wouldn’t be surprised if at least a fair few Rebs had been hit by the machine guns. This lasted a couple minutes before an officer arrived, his once-clean blue uniform smothered with blood, oil, and sweat, who told the deck gun crews. “Captain is ordering full retreat while the planes are still in the air.”
The crewsars responded with a cavalcade of confused and angry shouts and muttering before the officer cut in. “We don’t have much time before the planes have to return to whatever airfield they came from. After that, the Rebs will go back to shooting at us, and we’ve already been licked enough already.”
Ferdinand swore in Yiddish before adding, “Damn, it was fun watching the Rebs get licked.”
Arni nodded in agreement. “It was for certain, Ferd.”
Casimir sighed, rubbing his snout as he felt the ship start to move, following the Ozark and the limping Neosho down river as the planes made a few last strafes. By the time they disappeared, the US ships were a good distance away, albeit still within range of the Confederate guns; however, there were no signs that the Rebs wanted to resume firing on the enemy ships.
“I guess they’ve had enough as well,” Reggie muttered as he took out a box of cigarettes from a pocket on his bell bottoms.
“Yeah,” was Casimir’s reply, staring at the small grey dots as the ship rounded a bend in the river. “That’s good, ‘cause it’s been a long day’s work.”
Striking a match on the sole of his shoe, Reggie lit the cigarette. “It certainly has. Lot of good sars lost here, especially on the Cairo. God only knows what happened to those poor sons of bitches who were stranded in the water.”
“All we can do is pray that at least some of them made it out okay,” Casimir replied before turning and heading below deck with Arni, Ferdinand, and some of the other crew members. After all that excitement, he was feeling hungry, and hoped that, down in the mess hall, Howie was cooking up something good (as good as Navy food can be, anyway).