CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

Tim sheathed his sword.

“Your sword and pistol,” the lieutenant said.

Tim unbuckled his belt, slid off his bolstered pistol and held it toward the man. “I’ll surrender my sword to the officer who commands this battery,” he said.

The lieutenant nodded. “As you wish it, sir,” he said, raising his voice above the rattle of musket fire and pointing to a man who was stripped to the waist and covered with grime and sweat. “There’s Captain Chichester. Surrender your sword to him.”

The Confederate captain turned as Tim walked toward him. The Captain nodded respectfully. He reached for his pistol and handed it to a boy not more than twelve years old who stood by his side. “Guard this prisoner,” he said, “and mind you don’t shoot him by mistake.”

Tim walked with the boy to a place near a bombproof shelter where empty powder barrels were thrown helter-skelter on the sand. “I’ll sit on one of these,” he said to the boy. “I’m tired.”

The boy stood nearby, serious and manly, but frightenedtoo. He pointed the revolver at the ground and looked at it to be sure he knew how it worked. With his chin down he looked back at Tim.

Tim sat on the barrel, looking off through the smoke, the racket of battle in his ears, the screaming of soldiers, the thunder of cannon and the chatter of rifle fire. His spirit was chilled. Fitch was dead. He wondered whether Red and Kautz were lying lifeless in the moat, or were they prisoners too? He thought of the Rebel soldier he had wounded, was it yesterday? The man had said, “The war is finished for me now.” And now, Tim thought, the war is finished for me too.

A huge siege gun was fired close by, shaking the earth and sending a puff of acrid smoke rolling along the sandbags at the top of the parapet, making the gunners cough and choke. All at once the firing stopped, the last musket cracked. The smoke of the battle rose above the fort and thinned as it was blown away. The sun filtered through the gloom and there were voices in the silence, loud at first, then soft, like the voices of schoolboys when the teacher comes into the room.

Captain Chichester, his shirt draped loosely around his shoulders, walked toward Tim through the thinning smoke.

Tim stood up, reached for his sword and handed it to the captain. The man’s sand-colored hair and eyebrows were dusted with powder that ran in streaks down his tanned face. His blue eyes reflected a sleepless night and a morning of battle. “No cause for Yankee shame today,” he said.

The powder monkey stood by his captain now, handing him his pistol, looking up at his face.

Tim looked toward the big guns. “Captain,” he said,“I wonder if I could see the field beyond the parapet?”

The captain lowered his eyes. “It’s a heartbreaking sight,” he said, and he raised his eyes and held Tim’s gaze, as if he wished he could say more.

The two men walked toward the parapet, the boy tagging along behind. The Rebel soldiers gawked, and one big sergeant spat hard on the blackened sand.

“Save your spit for the next assault,” the captain said with a look of towering disgust. As they reached the gun he turned to Tim. “There’s an armistice in effect,” he said, “to give your men a chance to carry off the wounded and bury the dead. The boy and I will stay back here. I’ve seen enough today.”

Tim moved up beside a gun and looked across the plain. The dusky, shadowy world of early morning had given way to a sunlit day. There were no shellbursts or knifelike tongues of flame—just silence and the litter of death, scattered in terrible profusion on the sand.

Under a flag of truce ambulances moved along the beach, hurrying to gather up the wounded before they were claimed by the incoming tide. A surgeon who was working at the edge of the moat signaled to a driver. “Here’s one alive,” he called. An ambulance creaked and rattled to where the man lay. The surgeon and the driver lifted the wounded man gently into the canvas-covered vehicle.

With sickening dread Tim’s eyes moved across the distance, studying the men who lay on the sand. He fancied he saw a red-haired officer lying in the distance with his feet to the sun, but he couldn’t be sure. Men lay at the base of the parapet, almost covered by the waters of the moat which was fed by the ocean tides. Tim suddenly wondered what had happened to Private Greene.

He looked once more across the plain at the dead and broken and dying. Then he turned to the captain and the boy who stood by his side.

“There are other prisoners waiting by the sally port,” Chichester said. He looked down at the boy. “Billy Moore will show you the way.”

“Thank you for your courtesy, sir.”

“What is your name?”

“Lieutenant Bradford, Seventh Connecticut Volunteers.”

“Maybe we’ll meet again on a happier day,” the captain said. He turned and walked away with two swords swinging and rattling at his side.

As Tim followed the boy past the bombproof the boy spoke. “All Yankees aren’t bad,” he grinned, “but most are devils, sure enough.”

“You come from Charleston, lad?”

“I come from Beaufort, sir,” he said with a sudden frown. “It was the Yankees chased us away.”

They left the shadow of the bombproof and walked through the sally port, and there, guarded by half-a-dozen men, were forty or fifty Yankee captives. There was Dawson, hatless, with his corn-colored hair shining in the sun, his face like death. An ugly welt ran across his cheek.

One guard laughed when he saw the unarmed boy with the tall Yankee. “Big fish this time, little Billy,” he rasped. “Give him over to me.”

Tim nodded to the boy and went to Dawson. “Glad to see you still alive,” he said.

Dawson looked sullenly at Tim. “I’m tired,” he said with bitterness. “I’m glad to be out of it, if you want to know the truth.”

“Any word of Kelly or Captain Kautz?”

“None that I know of.”

A big Rebel sergeant moved close to them with studied ease and snapped, “That’s enough talking. You’ll have plenty of time to talk in jail.”

Tim thought, If Red is dead I’ll visit his wife and child when I get home. But I pray to God he lives.

Off to the east thunderheads were piling up, and a stiff breeze sprang up.

A rusty steamer came puffing and wallowing across the choppy waters and made fast to the pier just to the west of the Confederate battery at Cummings Point.

As the prisoners clattered along the pier Tim wondered if the flimsy structure would hold them all. It creaked and groaned as one by one the men jumped to the heaving deck.

As Tim stood by the rail he caught sight of a familiar face. “Private Greene,” he said.

Greene turned a happy face and worked his way behind the crowd of men along the rail. Tim clasped the boy’s hand. “Glad to see you, lad.”

Greene just smiled.

“Have you seen Lieutenant Kelly or Captain Kautz?”

“No, Lieutenant.”

As the steamer moved away from the shelter of land it was lifted by swells that swept in from the open sea. The little ship rolled and tossed and smacked the waves, sending up sheets of spray and wetting the men who were wedged along the rails. It seemed to Tim she was carrying too many men.

“If we make it to Charleston I’ll be surprised.”

Greene smiled shyly. “Let’s mutiny,” he said, “and sail to Boston on the afternoon tide.”

Suddenly there was a commotion near them at the rail and one of the prisoners jumped over the side. Tim sawthe flash of a shirt then he saw a boy swimming and drifting swiftly astern. He said, “What chance does he think he has?”

A guard dashed out of the wheelhouse onto the shuddering deck. He raised his rifle and fired. Greene gritted his teeth and clenched his fists in a helpless fury as he watched the head of the struggling boy. “For the love of mercy, why don’t they give him a chance?”

Two shots followed the first, but the boy’s head still bobbed above the water. The fourth shot hit its mark. One of the swimmer’s hands thrashed weakly for a moment and he dipped below the surface, leaving a slick of blood to mark the place where he had disappeared.

Greene’s face was pale. He quivered with rage and fear. He stared transfixed and then, with a convulsive shudder, leaned over the rail and was sick. Tim put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and looked across the water at the stretch of beach that led to the mouth of the creek and the freedom of the Yankee lines.

The steamer made straight for Sumter. The fort stood like a block of granite in the harbor’s mouth, the sea dashing against the outer walls.

Now the sky was solid lead, washed across with moving clouds. The steamer nudged Fort Sumter’s wharf. The sailors looped the hawsers around the pilings, the sergeant of the guard leaped to the dock and was admitted to the fort. The steamer creaked and groaned against the pilings and Tim leaned on the rail with Greene beside him, looking up at the silent gray walls.

The sergeant walked back along the pier with his head down and his arms swinging at his sides.

As the steamer moved toward Charleston, leaving the silent gun ports in its wake, Tim noticed a flag at the top of the pole inside the fort. It snapped in the stiffeningbreeze, its colors sharp against the flat, gray sky. I wonder, he thought, how long that flag will fly?

The harbor was dotted with the sails of fishing boats seeking shelter from the coming storm. The city of Charleston was strung across the horizon, her rose-brick and white-walled buildings like spots of color in a child’s painting, her church towers standing high above the piers and parks and the houses that lined the waterfront. Off to the right, masts and spars and a complex of shrouds marked the wharves on the eastern shore of the peninsula.

Greene’s voice barely rose above the thump of the paddle wheels. “Where are they taking us, do you suppose?”

“There’s a jail in Charleston,” Tim said, “and others scattered throughout the South.”

“Are the stories of Rebel prisons true?”

“I’ve never been in a Rebel jail,” Tim said. “There’s always hope of being exchanged. The Confederacy can’t afford to have her soldiers wasting away in Northern prisons.”

Tim watched Greene’s face. “Promise me something, will you, Greene?”

“What would that be, Lieutenant?”

“Promise me if you try to escape you’ll pick a time when you have a fair chance.”

Greene spoke earnestly. “I wasn’t thinking of escape just yet. I’ll have to see the prison first. I’ll have to think on it a while.”

Tim laughed. “I’ll waste no more of my worry on you.”

The little steamer swung slowly around as it maneuvered to move toward one of Charleston’s piers. Now in the moment before the storm Tim saw a little island at the mouth of the river. Part of the island was struck by sunlight. On the sandy shore three men struggled to beach a boat, their figures distinct in the slice of light.

There was a sudden gust of wind and the rain sluiced down, blotting out the little scene. It streaked down the faces of the prisoners and ran down their collars. At first it seemed a blessed thing, but as it drenched the men on the deck Tim stared across the flat, gray water whipped by rain, and a cold apprehension took root in his heart.

As the little steamer docked the rain stopped and the clouds blew away. The prisoners marched with their guards along the wharf, across a glistening cobbled street to a shedlike building that faced the waterfront. A short, sunny-faced woman came out and spoke to the sergeant of the guard. “We didn’t have much warning,” she said. “You’ll have to give us a minute or two.”

The sergeant frowned and mumbled something. Then the woman raised her chin and looked down the line of men, wet and disconsolate in their dirty uniforms. “Well, you’ll have to wait,” she said. Without pausing for an answer she went inside.

Tim stood on the cobbles and studied the row of fine brick houses that faced the river. This was the first time in months that he had stood on a street and looked at houses where people dined and slept, where children were born and raised.

The sunny-faced woman came out again, followed by others carrying trays of coffee and slices of buttered bread on squares of white paper. As the women moved among the men Greene straightened up and lowered his chin and brushed his cheek with the back of his hand.

“They’re just like the ladies of Philadelphia,” Tim said, “who served us goodies two years ago.”

One of the women, dark haired and young, turned to him. “Need is need, wherever it may be,” she said with a sweet, sad smile.

Tim noticed how graceful she was in her starched whitedress and pale blue shawl. She was so much like Kate that he felt his knees go weak. As she turned away he was filled with a yearning for home, a longing to sit on his horse and ride along the river road underneath the sunlit leaves until Kate’s house came into view.

When the women had disappeared into the building again the Rebel sergeant slapped the stock of his rifle. “Quiet,” he said. “Now we march to the railroad depot.”

They marched through the streets and alleys lined by houses, sometimes neat and tidy, sometimes deserted and forlorn. There were gardens filled with summer flowers still in bloom, palmetto trees along the sidewalk, dark green painted doors with knobs and knockers of polished brass. People leaned on their windowsills to watch the passing prisoners. Some of them hissed or spat. Others watched with expressions of compassion or concern. A scattering of ragged children ran ahead of the prisoners, spreading the word that they were on the way. They rounded a corner and walked along a wide cobbled street where most of the houses were of the “single style,” narrow at the front, with piazzas facing lawns and gardens at the sides.

People were gathering on the sidewalks, and as the prisoners approached St. Michael’s church the crowd grew thick, surged from under the portico and broke into catcalls and jeers. The soldiers of the Rebel guard flashed their bayonets and drove the people back. Most of the prisoners walked straight and proud. Tim set his jaw and stiffened his back but he couldn’t stop the trembling in his knees.

A gang of little boys dodged around the pillars of the church and one of them skittered through the crowd, made a face and flapped his hands like donkey ears. He reached into his pocket and brought out a tomato. Tim saw theboy’s arm arch back as he took deliberate aim. The love apple caught the Rebel sergeant just over his ear. The sergeant moved to catch the boy.

“I was aiming at a Yank,” the little fellow screamed as he dashed behind the skirts and capes that lined the street.

People in the crowd began to laugh, the women first, and then the men. The sergeant’s face turned red, and even Yankee snickers turned to laughs. Then there was silence. The laughter of the Yanks had made the joke go sour.

As they moved along the middle of the street, carriages and wagons pulled aside to let them pass. The drivers turned hostile faces on the men in blue.

Tim brushed past the bright red wheels of a gleaming carriage and for a moment he looked into the face of a woman in the back seat. She was about his mother’s age and dressed in black. Her face was beautiful and filled with sadness.

Now the urchins who followed the prisoners were joined by others led by a dark-haired older boy. They screamed and taunted. They threw pebbles as they surged along the sidewalks and into the street ahead of the prisoners’ line of march. The sergeant of the guard was flushed with anger. When the leader of the gang began to taunt the prisoners the sergeant grasped the boy’s collar, tearing the shirt right off his back. “Next time I’ll give you the bayonet,” the sergeant said.

The boy grabbed his shredded shirt from the dirty stones and ran ahead with his gang behind him to the shelter of a narrow street. The sergeant and the other guards watched as they passed the street. All at once the boys appeared again and pelted the column with stones. A mean-faced Rebel corporal was hit in the leg, and heand the sergeant, with another guard, dashed after the boys as they scattered like quicksilver into the alleys and doorways of the dingy street.

Greene’s face showed his excitement as the column was left with just one guard. Tim grabbed Greene’s arm. “This is no time to think of escape. Charleston is a cul-de-sac. They could seal off this peninsula easier than closing a cracker box.”

Greene relaxed. “Never even crossed my mind,” he said with a smile.

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