A big Negro was cleaning fish at the end of a spindly pier. He looked
up as the two Yankee soldiers came toward him. He watched steadily as
they approached but he showed no fear. The hot air shimmered as it rose
from the sandy soil and the marsh grass whispered in a light breeze.
The midday sun flashed on the water, making the white men draw their
eyes into thin horizontal slits.
The taller soldier raised his hand in a casual greeting and stopped
before his boots touched the gray, weathered boards of the pier. “Good
catch?” he asked.
The Negro stood up slowly and hunched his massive shoulders and looked
down at a half-cleaned fish. “Good enough,” he said. Then he raised his
head. “I hear talk that most of you are leaving soon.”
The shorter soldier pulled at his red beard. “Soldiers are always on
the move,” he said.
“Why must you sail away from here? You buy our vegetables and fish; you
rent our boats. It’s good to have you here.”
The taller soldier smiled. “We have to fight.”
The fisherman lowered his head again. “If you must fight, you need a
swim before you go.” He pointed down the creek. “Take my boat and row
across the inlet to the beach.”
The taller soldier reached into the pocket of his blouse, but the big
man put up his hand. “No money today. Jus’ take the boat.”
The soldier stepped onto the pier, as if to shake the colored man’s
hand. “Thank you,” he said. “My name is Lieutenant Bradford and this is
my friend Lieutenant Kelly.”
The fisherman didn’t take the hand, but his mouth formed the hint of a
smile. “Thank you,” he said. “My name is Sam.”
Red Kelly took the oars of the little boat and Tim Bradford sat on
the sagging seat in the stern as they moved along the creek and into
the inlet that separated St. Helena from the complex of smaller
outer islands. These islands laced the coast of South Carolina from
Georgetown to Hilton Head. The Atlantic Ocean washed their beaches,
and their backs were honeycombed with deep creeks and rivers where
shallow-draft Confederate blockade runners had once found it easy to
move and hide.
Shortly after the start of the War the first expedition to these
islands had been mapped by President Lincoln and his military planners.
There had been good reasons for taking the War to South Carolina
without delay. The state had been the first to secede, the first to
fire on the flag, and there was need of a base of supplies for the
ships of the North.
Now Federal forces held most of the outer islands from Savannah to
Charleston. A base of supplies had been set up on Hilton Head, and the
town of Beaufort on Port Royal Island was occupied by Yankee troops.
Sixty miles northeast was the proud port of Charleston, heavily
fortified, Fort Sumter at the mouth of its beautiful harbor, the
place where the War had begun. Fast Confederate packets still ran
into Charleston under cover of night, taking supplies to the Southern
forces, but the Federal Navy had made it a dangerous game. Nowadays
most of the packets headed for Cape Fear, about a hundred and thirty
miles northeast of Charleston.
As Tim’s thoughts went back over the past two years, he was troubled by
a familiar restlessness. He looked into the fish-smelling bottom of the
little boat and across the inlet to the palmettos and scrub oaks that
lined the shore of the outer island, and he flexed his hands.
Red Kelly, watching him with piercing blue eyes, read his thoughts. “We
move tomorrow,” he said. “Be patient. God made this land and the sky
above it. Live at peace this lazy day.”
“Do you think we can win this war?”
“We have many more men under arms than the Rebs and we’re backed by the
might of our industry. But this is a big, far-ranging war. The good
Lord knows how long it will last.”
Tim pushed back his cap and ran his hand through his stiff sandy hair.
“The boys in the West are fighting a war that moves. We’re fighting a
sitting war.”
“They’ve done their share of sitting in the West and in Virginia.
Before this week is finished you’ll have your chance to fight again and
a chance to die.”
Tim smiled. “I have no wish to die.”
Red’s face was flushed as he pulled at the oars. They moved across the
inlet and glided into a tidal pool. They beached the boat, dragging
it into the marsh grass. They moved through the heavy undergrowth,
shielded from the sun by tall mop-headed palmetto trees. As they left
the shadow of the trees the sun flashed pain into their eyes.
The beach stretched away to the northeast, ending in a point of land
where palmetto trees hung over the sand on great shelves, their roots
stripped bare by stormy seas. The ocean was flat and vast, and on the
horizon the masts of a sailing ship barely moved in a distant, ghostly
mist. To the southwest a big steam frigate moved slowly into Port Royal
Sound. When its ensign had disappeared behind the trees they stripped
off their clothes and splashed into the water.
Red had never learned to swim, so he stuck close to the shallow places.
Tim swam into deeper water and paddled just out of his depth, letting
the current take him along the shore. Suddenly Red shouted, “Sharks!”
Tim saw two putty-colored fins sliding obliquely toward him. Terror
struck at his chest and he wheeled and swam for shore. As he reached
shallow water he leapt and dashed, the water dragging at his legs,
pulling him back. At last his ankles broke free.
Red was white as plaster in the sun, his arms crooked tensely. “Saints
preserve us,” he said, “that was a close one, indeed.”
Tim stood on the sand, his chest heaving, and scanned the water for
signs of the sharks but the fins were gone.
Red said, “They gave it up as soon as you started to splash toward
shore.”
“Thank God for that. I swam as if my feet were made of lead.”
The men pulled on their pants and sat on the sand. Red was quiet for a
while and then he said, “I’m thinking of Nancy and Tommy back in New
Haven, waiting for me to finish with the War. Tommy would be a little
boy now, not a baby any more. I’ve never even seen his picture. I keep
begging Nancy to send me a photograph of both of them, but I suppose
she doesn’t have the money to have one made.” He smiled. “You single
men are a happy lot. No family worries. Devil may care, that’s what you
are.”
Tim smiled. Then his face grew serious. “I have a girl,” he said. “We
have an understanding, but I haven’t spoken to her father yet.”
“A girl is it? Well, you’re a fox, Timmy boy. I’ve lived and fought
with you since we left the North and you’ve never so much as mentioned
a girl.”
Red’s face took on a faraway look. “Nancy and I were thinking of moving
away from New Haven after the war. Tell me, how is life in a country
town?”
Tim squinted his eyes. The distant sailing ship had scarcely moved,
but the mist had burned away. “The town is clean,” he said. “The yards
of the houses are neat, and the village green is really green. The
Connecticut River flows wide and deep below the houses. My girl’s name
is Kate. She lives three miles down river. Her eyes are blue and her
hair is dark. She’s full of life. Sometimes I worry that she’ll bust
loose and go to New York or Boston and marry some tall, dark handsome
man.”
“But she writes you still?”
“Sure she writes, and she sounds as loving-hearted as she ever did.”
“Then put away your fears of tall, dark city men.” Red smiled. “Tell me
more about the town. What do the men do for a living?”
“My father is the only doctor in town. I guess I told you that before.
Then there’s the owner of the general store and the parson and the
blacksmith. Most of the other men are farmers. It’s just like any
country town.”
Tim reached for a handful of sand and let it trickle through his
fingers. “My father worked so hard he never had time for me or the
twins. That grieved him sorely, I’m afraid.”
“That’s the way with doctors.”
The two men finished dressing and turned away from the stretch of
peaceful beach and the limitless ocean.
They walked to the boat and dragged it through the slime. Red stepped
in and sat in the stern. Tim took the oars.
Not a breath of air was stirring the trees. One of Tim’s oars smacked
the water, and a white egret flapped suddenly into the air from a
saffron-colored tidal pool, flickering white against the bluish Spanish
moss that clung to the trees along the shore.