“Good. Keep the Castle surrounded — but hold the troops well back from the walls. We are not going to lose good men in a head-on assault.”
Reports kept coming in and, overall, the battle for Dublin seemed to be going as well as possible at this early juncture. Going as well as any engagement can go when the battle is within a city. British strongpoints were holding out and had to be attacked one by one. There was a sniper firing from one of the upper windows of Trinity College and the sharpshooter had to be winkled out. When the last of the troops were committed Sherman changed his headquarters, as had been planned, to the Customs House on the banks of the Liffey. A saddle had been found for a magnificent bay that some gentleman of means had inadvertently supplied to the Irish cause, and Sherman rode it through the empty streets of the city. Gunfire sounded in the distance, the popping sound of individual rifles — then the tearing roar of a Gatling gun. Wisely, the people of Dublin were staying behind locked doors.
As he galloped along Eden Quay the general passed a party of engineers. They had commandeered a cart, along with the wall-eyed mule to pull it. Now, safely harnessed up, the beast was far more placid than it had been. The engineers were stringing the wire to the buildings, from the spool on the cart. As Sherman climbed down from his horse at the Customs House on the bank of the Liffey, he saw a dark form at the mouth of the river, still outside the harbor; he nodded at the pleasurable sight of the ironclad moving slowly towards him.
On the bridge of the USS Avenger her commander, Commodore Goldsborough, stood to one side looking grimly at the small, roughly dressed man in the battered cap. He was sucking at a clay pipe that had gone out, but still stank strongly.
“That’s it boyo,” the stranger said to the helmsman. “Dead slow. Keep the Poolbeg light to port, the North Bull to starboard and you’ll be in mid-channel.”
Barely keeping steering way, the iron ship was moving into Dublin harbor and the mouth of the Liffey.
“What’s your depth?” Goldsborough couldn’t help asking.
“She’s dredged deep, Captain, dredged deep,” the pilot reassured him. “But I’ll only take you as far as the Customs House. You can tie up at the North Wall. Keep that beacon to starboard, that’s a good man.”
Ever so slowly the great gunship crept forward.
In the Customs House, now that the attacks had begun, the resurrected telegraphs began to clatter.
“From General Hooker, sir,” handing the folded paper to Sherman. This was a vital report and overdue; the general opened it calmly. Read it and nodded.
“Hooker’s brigade has detrained at the meeting place, just outside Monastereven. The volunteers with the horses were waiting. He is moving against the barracks in the Curragh now. His scouts report no enemy activity and he hopes to engage the enemy by dark.”
But not if Lieutenant Knight of the Royal Hussars had his way. He had been exercising his horse on the Kildare road when he had seen the train come to a stop in the empty field ahead. He had made only casual notice of it until he had seen the blue-uniformed soldiers emerge. Blue? What regiment could that possibly be? He had tied his mount to a tree by the side of the road and pushed his way through the hedge to get a better view. His jaw dropped with amazement — then he recovered and pulled himself back behind the hedge.
Those weren’t British troops — they were bloody Americans! He knew them well from the long retreat up the Hudson valley.
Americans here? There could be only one reason.
“Invasion,” he said through gritted teeth, as he pulled himself into his saddle. Bloody cheek. Right in Britain’s back garden.
He started off at a trot — then spurred his mount into a gallop as soon as he was out of sight of the train. The general at the Curragh had to be told. The soldiers had to be warned, they must stand to arms. There had been almost ten thousand of them there at the last muster. More than enough to give the Yankees the drubbing that they so richly deserved.
High in the bell tower of Christ Church, Lieutenant Buchner had a fine view across the city, with all of Dublin opened out before him. Off to the left there was a hint of water, the River Liffey, just barely visible between the buildings. The Green of Phoenix Park was behind him, while in front of him he could clearly see the buildings and the quad of Trinity College. All around were the church towers and chimneypots of the city — and the smoke from burning buildings. Men were fighting — and dying — out there. And here he was, perched on top of a church, miles from his guns and his men of the 32nd Pennsylvania. But he still had a job to do.
“Anything yet?” he called out to the soldier who was crouched behind the wall and industriously working a telegraph key.
“Almost, sir, got an answer — then was cut off again. Won’t be long — wait! There it is.”
“Ask them if the ship has tied up yet — and where.”
Lieutenant Buchner looked again at the map that was tacked to the board. He aligned the compass heading yet one more time, noted the degree on the compass rose. This plan had worked out all right when they had rehearsed it. But anything could happen in the stress of battle.
Aboard the Avenger Commodore Goldsborough felt a great relief when the propeller had finally stopped and they had tied up against the granite wall of the river. On the bridge next to him, the signalman was looking through his binoculars at the upper story of the Customs House.
“I have him, sir,” he called out. “Signalman Potter.” He looked at the moving flags. “Message reads — are you ready to receive?”
“We certainly are. What does he say.”
“Range… estimated at nine hundred and sixty yards. Compass bearing—”
The information was passed on to the first turret, which rumbled around to port as one of its guns elevated.
“Fire on the bearing,” the captain ordered.
The plume of fire and smoke roared out: the tight cables to shore creaked as the recoil rocked the ship.
“Over!” Buchner shouted as the shell exploded in the street below. “Nearer to us than the Castle. Signal that they are over by two hundred yards. Lower range. Change bearing right by one degree. Tell them that they can fire again — but only one gun at a time so I can mark the fall.”