That evening when Tim had finished working over the big, black
woodburning stove he went to the Navy kitchen to have some food with
Devil and Bell. He looked down mournfully at his greasy pants.
When Devil finished eating he turned to Tim. “You’re downcast tonight,
Lieutenant,” he said, pulling at his long nose.
Tim knew by now that he could trust the Navy men. “I have to get away
from here,” he whispered. “Red and I are dying to get away.”
Devil was sitting on a barrel and Bell squatted on an empty wooden box.
Bell doused his empty plate in a pail of water and put it on the table.
He held his hands over his knees and cracked his knuckles. “Are you
more anxious than the rest?”
“Some others are anxious, too, of course.”
Bell got up from the box. He reached into a corner and brought out a
copy of a Charleston paper only two weeks old.
“Aunty brought me this a few days ago.”
He unfolded the paper and pointed to a column that was headlined
PRESENT POSITION OF UNION TROOPS. “Sherman’s in Memphis now, and
Burnside’s been in Knoxville since early September.”
Tim said, “Knoxville’s closer by some three hundred miles. But granting
that we’d have a chance to get to Burnside’s lines, how will we get
away from here?”
Devil stood up and walked to the door. When he was satisfied that none
of the guards was near he crossed the little room and pulled aside a
couple of ragged towels that hung across a corner on a piece of string.
A big rusty boiler was there. “Look here,” he said, pointing at the
wall behind the boiler.
There was a small, sashless window halfway up the wall. “That leads to
the woodshed, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” said Devil, “and the fence at the back of the woodshed
happens to be in sorry shape. If a man could find a time to do a little
work he could loosen a board in the fence.”
Bell was keeping watch in the doorway. He turned around to speak to
Tim. “The boards of the fence are wide, and the nails were hammered in
from outside.”
Tim’s heart thumped as thoughts of escape whirled through his mind.
Forgetting himself, he spoke with excitement, “One of us could loosen
a board while we were fetching wood. A couple of blows with a decent
sized log....”
Bell turned around again, this time with his forefinger pressed against
his mouth. Then he sauntered to the center of the room. “They’ll hear
you, if you aren’t careful.”
A guard put his head in the door. “The corporal says, finish your
chores,” he drawled. “He wants to take you back inside.”
Tim grinned foolishly at the guard, stood up and went around to the
Army kitchen. His hands shook as he lit the lantern and scraped the
stove.
He signaled a sentry who was lighting the lamp that hung in a bracket
on the jailhouse wall. “Finished for today,” he said.
Addison’s room was on the first floor at the back of the jail, and
when the guard knocked the corporal’s keys began to rattle. He opened
the door. “’Bout time,” he said, holding his lantern so it would light
Tim’s face.
As they moved along the first-floor corridor Addison mumbled, “I’m
going up too.”
It was the custom of Senn or the guard on duty to check the prisoners’
beds after the men came up from their mess. Senn had decreed that they
stay on their beds until he’d finished counting them in.
Tim went straight to his cell and climbed to his bunk.
Red lay on the top bunk, across from Tim. He stirred against the dingy
wall. “Sure, that was a capital mush you cooked tonight.”
“Sit up,” Tim said. “I’ve got to talk to you.”
“What is it, boy?”
Tim slapped his thigh. “We have it,” he whispered. “We have a route at
last.”
“You’ve marked it on the map?” asked Red.
Addison’s keys jingled in the hall.
“No, I’ll tell you later. Bull Head’s coming down the hall.”
Addison’s boots scuffed out of the adjoining cell and he appeared in
the doorway with his lantern held high. He looked at Tim with something
like a smile. “We meet again,” he said.
Dawson’s arm was dangling from his bunk. The man was apparently asleep.
Addison squinted at the bunk under Tim’s. “Is Lieutenant Mills in that
pile of straw?”
Mill’s voice came from the corridor. “Sorry I’m not on my bunk,” he
said, “but I had duties at the end of the hall.”
“Now what duties ...” Addison began then stammered, “Try not to let it
happen again.” He moved past Mills and along the hall.
Red doubled up with glee. “Never again,” he said as he rolled over and
shook his bunk with silent laughter.
Tim smiled to himself. “They say if you stay in jail too long you go
back to your childhood ways. We’ll have to get you out of here.”
When Addison had left the floor Tim and Red went to the end of
the corridor away from the common room and stood by a window that
overlooked the yard. The light from a flickering lamp outside painted
swift black ghosts against the wall.
Tim told Red about the window in the Navy kitchen and the condition of
the fence at the back of the woodshed. “We can enter the kitchen when
we’re in the yard and crawl through the window while Devil and Bell
kick up a noise. Then we’ll wait in the woodshed till after dark.”
“They’ll discover our absence when they check the beds, and the hounds
will be after us in no time at all.”
“We might leave dummies in our beds.”
Red looked through the bars at the dark blue sky. “If Senn’s not on
duty, dummies might work.”
“Senn’s off duty all day Thursday. Let’s aim for Thursday afternoon.”
“That soon?”
“Why not? I’m sick of waiting. That gives us long enough to get ready.”
By Wednesday night it seemed to Tim that nothing could go wrong.
Yesterday afternoon Devil had loosened the boards in the fence.
Tim had watched and listened from the corridor window when the wagon
had come in. Aunty had cackled and slapped her thighs. She had prodded
Bell to laughter with a set of faces that would have made a dying man
laugh.
There had been a bad moment when one of the guards, not satisfied with
watching from his usual distance, had moved up to the woodshed door.
“Don’t fetch wood now,” he’d said. “Wait until the wagon leaves.”
“Need wood now,” Devil had said, staggering through the door with a
teetering load. Then he’d tripped on the sill and the wood had gone
flying, one piece hitting the guard on the shin, making him shout out
a stream of oaths. Devil had kicked the shed door shut before he got
off the ground. Tim hoped that no one passing through the alley would
notice the loosened board and report it to Senn.
Tim stood by the window in the common room. He watched Red bending over
his game of chess with Peter Mills and marveled at his outward calm. A
little fire sputtered on the hearth and Dawson and Frazer were reading
by candlelight. Brown stood in the door, staring into the fire and
dreaming his private dreams. The air outside was clear as crystal, and
the lights twinkled yellow in the neat white houses. A soldier and a
girl passed under a lamp at the corner of the park.
Kate’s map had shown him the rail line running north along the east
bank of the Broad, sticking pretty close to the river for a number of
miles. That was their route, straight up the Broad. God give them the
nighttime to move without pursuit.
Now the sound of music reached his ears. Tim had heard it before. It
was said that the people of Columbia held great balls from time to time
to raise money for the Armies of the Confederacy.
For a moment Tim forgot the meager rations in the jail, the smells,
the dirty clothes, the bedbugs that plagued them at night, the eternal
boredom that made the men short of temper. He thought of the people he
would miss. There were Devil and Bell and Peter Mills.
Tim’s thoughts went back to a late afternoon shortly after the arrival
of the officers captured in the second assault. Someone had started
to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” others had joined the singer, and
before a minute had passed the whole second floor had rocked with the
song. The prisoners had pressed against the bars and shouted across the
town.
Suddenly, caught by the sun, a white handkerchief had fluttered from
a window of the little white house across the street. Then the owner
of the handkerchief had appeared, a happy-faced young woman who waved
as if she could never grow tired. Senn and Bull Head and another guard
had come up the stairs to spoil the fun. Senn didn’t want singing or
shouting in his jail. But from that time on the young woman whose heart
beat for the Union had been the sweetheart of every Yankee in the jail.
Tim thought again of the coming day. Two haversacks and some other
supplies were hidden in the Navy kitchen.
Tim put his hand over his breast pocket to be sure that his pictures
were there. They had come in a shining black book with the word ALBUM
stamped in gold on its spine. The covers were sky blue inside, neatly
patterned with white stars. The pages were made of heavy pasteboard
covered with paper frames to hold the pictures. The frames were arched
at the top and lined around with gold.
Kate’s picture was there with the ones of Mother and Father and the
twins. It was the only one that wasn’t stiff. It was posed, of course,
but somehow Kate’s natural poise made it seem more alive. Her waist was
slim and her figure had filled out where it should be full. She was
more of a woman now. The photographer had put a touch too much pink on
the cheeks, but her face was the same. Before the picture had come, her
face had faded a little from Tim’s mind. Now he could see her clear as
yesterday.
She had cut out a little piece from the hem of the dress she wore
in the picture and had pasted it on the blank page opposite her
photograph. The material was golden brown--some kind of silk he
supposed it was.
The fire flickered low. Tim heard the men stirring behind him and felt
a hand on his shoulder. “No sleep tomorrow night,” Red said quietly.
“We better get sleep while we can.”
Tim turned from the window. “We’ve rested for five months now. We don’t
need sleep. We need a beefsteak dinner and a couple of greatcoats.”
Dawson looked up from his book, quiet and inscrutable. “Do you really
mean to try to escape?”
By now their secret was known to everyone on the second floor. There
had been the chance that someone would notice their absence from the
mess. Then, too, they would need a little help along the way.
Mill’s chess partner had left the room and Mills was studying the
board. He turned to Dawson. “Sure they’re going,” he said. “Say,
Dawson, do you play chess?”
Dawson didn’t answer, and Mills stood up and followed Red and Tim out
the door and along the corridor. When they were back in their room
Mills said, “That man’s behavior is downright unsettling.”
They lay down on their bunks, and after a while Dawson came in and
stretched out on his bunk, without taking off his blouse. Soon he
breathed steadily in a seesaw chorus with Mills.
Tim thought again about Kate’s map. She must have searched her soul
before she mailed it. That map, drawn with such painstaking care, might
show him the way to his death. But she must have known he would never
rest until he’d tried to get away.
Until now Kate had been waiting at the end of the trail--warm and
lovely but far away. All at once it seemed she was very close, her
faith and understanding sending him on his way, making him impatient to
be free, no matter what hardships freedom might bring.
Red stirred, and Tim whispered, “Red, you awake?”
“Yes.”
“Wish Peter could go along.”
“So do I.”
“You got any worries?”
“Not really. Good night, lad.”