As Tim finished his game with Red they heard the familiar rattle of
keys and the sound of the lower door. “There’s Bull Head,” said Red,
“coming to take us to the yard.” Tim swept the chessmen off the board
and set them on the mantle.
They had been in the jail for nearly five months now. After a week or
so they had been joined by the officers captured in the second attempt
to take Fort Wagner. This room where they had first been imprisoned
wasn’t used for sleeping now. The Army prisoners had been given the run
of the second floor, and this had been kept as a sort of common room.
They had thought of escape almost constantly, but they hadn’t found a
plan that was good enough. If they worked together they might overpower
the guards, but the hue and cry would come too soon. Some might escape
but some would surely lose their lives. Prisoners went outside under
guard every day, but they were carefully watched. An open wagon came
into the yard several times a week bringing food, but it went out
empty. There was no place to hide on the wagon.
Shortly after the arrival of his prisoners Captain Senn had realized
that their stay was to be an extended one, and he’d had double-decker
bunk beds installed in the cells along the corridor. The beds were
furnished with straw mattresses and one rough woolen blanket each,
supplied by some kindhearted women of Columbia.
For a time the floor above the Army officers had been occupied by Army
privates, but these men had been sent to Belle Island prison to suffer
through the winter in the open air. Now the second floor was occupied
by Navy men captured in Admiral Dahlgren’s unsuccessful attempt to land
an assaulting force at Sumter.
Corporal Addison appeared at the top of the stairs, his holstered
pistol bumping foolishly against the curve of his stomach. Another
guard stood behind Addison, his bayonet glistening in the gloom. “Fall
in,” Addison said. “Time to take you to the yard.”
He might have saved himself the trouble of giving the command. Most of
the men already waited in line and now they filed along the corridor,
talking to each other in quiet tones.
The day was warm for late fall, but Tim shivered as he moved down the
stairs and walked through the lower corridor, buttoning his ragged
uniform.
There was sunlight in the yard. Tim’s spirits rose a little as he and
Red began their walk. Some of the prisoners took out playing cards and
settled against the wall, or marked out games of tick-tack-toe on the
ground, but Tim and Red had discovered they could endure prison life
better if they took regular exercise. They passed the one-story brick
cookshack with its two doors, each leading to a separate kitchen.
Red kicked at a little mound of dust. “You seem downhearted this
afternoon.”
There were six guards in the courtyard. Two were standing near them by
the wooden gate at the end of the yard. Tim spoke softly. “It’s been a
week since we’ve talked about escape. Prospects of exchange have grown
dim. There’s been no mail from Kate or your folks or mine for more than
a month. Our money has given out and our rations are poor.”
While the money had lasted, the Army prisoners had pooled their funds
and paid the colored woman who brought in their rations to bring in
extra food and do the cooking, but when their money was gone Senn, in
his methodical way, had taken seven volunteers, telling each to cook
two meals one day a week. The midday meal was cold. Tim cooked on
Mondays.
He was glad to do it, to break up the routine, but Red had said he had
no love for stirring pots. The meals were served in a long room on the
first floor of the jail.
The Navy had a separate mess. Two sailors had volunteered for permanent
duty in the kitchen. One cooked and the other was a kind of handyman
who helped the cook and did the laundry for the Navy boys.
As Tim and Red swung around the yard they saw the two sailors lounging
by the door. One of them was large and ugly. He had a jolly nature and
a great mop of black hair. The other was slight with bright blue eyes
and light brown hair. Both sailors expected to be exchanged.
The big man cheerfully bore the name of “Devil” given him by shipmates
of a happier time. When he saw Tim and Red he raised his hand in
greeting, and the little sailor smiled.
“Hello, Devil,” said Tim. “What are you serving tonight?”
The smaller sailor, whose name was Bell, said, “Chicken cooked in wine.”
“Indeed,” said Red. “I’ll dine with the Navy tonight.” He smiled at
Devil. “You boys are privileged characters. How does it happen Senn
lets two Navy men work in the cookshack at once?”
Devil screwed his face into a grin. “It’s because we’re such capital
fellows and they trust us,” he said. “Nobody can trust an Army man.”
Tim laughed softly. “And you cook for Senn sometimes.”
Devil leaned forward and fixed Tim with a roguish stare. “I plan to
poison him,” he whispered.
There was a pounding at the gate before their time was up, and the
prisoners were ordered into the building again. Tim was on kitchen duty
tonight. He stood with Devil and Bell and watched as the guards opened
the gate and the wagon came through. The colored boy, Tom Jackson, whom
Tim had first seen in the vacant lot months before, was holding the
reins. His mother, whom the prisoners called “Aunty,” sat beside him.
As the wagon pulled up to the cookshack the woman’s thin face wrinkled
into a smile.
Devil said, “You’re late today.”
The woman slapped her knee and laughed. “Sorry indeed.”
Tom shouted, “Evening, Lieutenant. Evening, sailor men.”
Aunty waited while her son and the white men unloaded the wagon and
stored the food on the shelves in the kitchens. When they had nearly
finished she beckoned to Tim. “Under the canvas just behind the seat
you’ll find a barrel of salt pork. Share it all around.”
“We have no money,” Tim said. “Did Captain Senn order the pork?”
“Never mind,” the woman cackled, “but if anyone asks you, tell them you
paid me fair and square.”
Tim kept his face as straight as he could. “You didn’t steal it did
you, Aunty?”
Aunty went into gales of laughter, and a guard who watched from a
little distance looked toward her uneasily.
She screeched, “You shouldn’t talk like that to poor old Aunty. You
unload the wagon now!”
When they had finished unloading, Tom whipped the horse around, the
guards opened the gate, and the wagon moved toward the end of the yard.
Tim watched as the gate swung wide.
The guards made Tom rein in when the wagon was halfway through. One of
them hopped to the hub of a front wheel and stabbed the ragged canvas
with the point of his bayonet.
Aunty screamed, “Don’t you poke my canvas full of holes.”
Addison came through the jailhouse door, and the guard who had been
watching them mumbled something in the corporal’s ear.
Addison looked toward Tim. “What were you and the old crow saying?”
“Aunty was having one of her jokes,” Tim said.
Addison stuck out his lower lip and motioned with his head toward the
other guard. “This fellow thinks I should inspect the stores.”
Devil grinned. “Why don’t you do that, Corporal?”
Addison, with a sour expression on his face, waddled after Tim to the
Army kitchen. He poked his way through sacks of com meal and rice and
boxes of crackers as Devil and Bell looked on from the yard. He shook
a keg of vinegar and kicked the barrel that held the pork. “What’s in
this?”
“Dried meat or sorghum molasses, I think,” Tim said. “If you want me to
pry off the top we can look.”
“Never mind,” Addison said, dipping his grubby hand into a tin of salt
and licking his fingers one by one. “I reckon nothing was smuggled in.”
Devil stood in the doorway, fingering his pie-shaped Navy cap. “What
did you expect to find?”
Addison frowned darkly and rocked a little from side to side. “Knives
or guns.”
“Oh,” said Devil, smiling wickedly.