“Come now, boys,” Addison said.
Tim heard one of the sailors raising the lantern glass and blowing out
the flame. Now the kitchen was dark. The sailors left.
The Army cook was ordered into the yard and Addison summoned another
guard to go with him when he took the cooks back to their quarters.
It was customary for at least two guards to pace the courtyard all
night long. The guard changed at nine in the evening and again at one
and five. They usually hung a lantern by the wagon gate and one from
the corner of the woodshed roof. There was also the lamp on the wall by
the jailhouse door.
Now in the silence Tim could hear the settling of the stove as it
cooled. Red shifted his weight and the floor creaked. There was no
sound from the courtyard.
Tim’s knees began to hurt where they pressed against the wooden floor.
He twisted his shoulders to relieve the numbness in his arms. He felt
for his haversack and ran his fingers over its bulging sides. He turned
to Red and whispered softly, “I hope the packs will go through the
window.”
Red whispered back, “I just hope we’ll fit through.”
Then, like a pistol cocking and firing, the jailhouse door opened and
slammed. Footsteps crossed the yard, and Senn spoke to one of the
guards. “Let me out the wagon gate and mind you fasten it well behind.”
“Yes, sir.”
When Senn had gone one of the guards said, “The old boy’s a worrier,
sure enough.”
During the past few days Tim and Red had observed from their cell
as the guards stood evening watch. When Addison and Senn had left,
the guards usually stood together and talked by the wagon gate, or
sometimes--if they thought they weren’t being watched--they played a
game of cards.
Now that Senn had gone the guards would probably be slack in performing
their duties. But if they stayed close by, it would be much worse than
if they paced the yard. Tim wondered if the chance to escape might not
be lost. If only they had been able to get through the window while
Devil was kicking up noise.
Now one of the guards was walking around the yard. He stopped not
far from the cookshack and talked to the other, who must be near the
woodshed door. “Does that fatheaded corporal watch the yard?”
“He sleeps between the change of guard.”
“Let’s play cards by the wagon gate.”
“It’s a sight warmer right here.”
“We’d better stay by the gate in case the captain comes back that way.
He wants a guard by the gate right through the night.”
Their footsteps sounded again as they walked to the gate.
Tim’s eyes were accustomed to the dark and he could see the shape of
Red waiting patiently beside him. A slight yellow light behind the
towels must be filtering in from the lamp by the jailhouse door.
Red whispered, “There may not be a better time than this. Let’s go.”
Tim stood up slowly, listening for a sound in the yard. He faced the
window and put both hands on the bricks at the bottom of the opening.
The frame had been so loose that Devil had taken it out and set it in
the corner beside the stove. Red straightened up and stood beside Tim,
ready to help him if he could.
Tim drew his elbows in to his sides so that he could wiggle through the
narrow space. He pulled himself off the floor, and as he did so a brick
came away and went tumbling and crashing to the floor.
Both men ducked. Tim could feel the thumping of his heart as he
listened for the guards.
One of them said, “What was that?”
“There’s nobody in the yard but us. Must be outside.”
“We better look around.”
Footsteps sounded close and the woodshed door creaked. “Nothing here.”
Lanternlight flashed in the door of the Navy kitchen. Tim could hear
the hissing of the dying embers in the stove. A voice sounded loud. “No
sign of anyone in here. Must have been outside.”
The guards looked into the Army kitchen and went back to the wagon gate.
Tim felt again and found that the wall was rotten all around the
window. The mortar had dried and crumbled. One by one he loosened the
bricks and handed them to Red, who set them in a pile on the floor. He
hoped Devil could put them back, or at least conceal the work so that
other prisoners could use this route at a later time.
By the time Tim reached firm brick there was a gaping, ragged hole
in the wall. Tim tried again, this time with a boost from Red. He
scrambled up and perched in the opening. All he could see was the light
of a lantern burning slits of yellow through the cracks in the boards
of the shed wall.
One of the guards said, “You wouldn’t try to cheat on me?”
The other guard laughed. “Cheat you? Hell, Randy, you know I’m not a
cheatin’ man.”
Tim scrambled across and stepped blindly onto the pile of wood. There
was a rumble as the pieces settled but his foot held firm. He waited
again, listening.
The guards kept chattering about their game, and Tim felt around with
his other foot. He looked back through the opening. Red’s face was
white and still, then it disappeared and appeared again. He handed the
blankets through, then the packs. Tim reached for them one at a time
and threw them gently so they came to rest by the missing board. Then
Red came through. He was bigger around than Tim, and somehow his blouse
got caught on the edge of the ragged opening. He tried to move forward
but the brass buttons on the front of his blouse were caught fast.
Tim grasped Red’s shoulders and felt a kind of rhythmic pulsing motion.
Red was shaking with uncontrollable mirth. “You madman,” Tim whispered
in Red’s ear. “You’ll give the show away.”
Tim kept his hands on Red’s shoulders until the shaking stopped. Red
wriggled free and eased himself to the pile of wood.
Tim felt for the fence. His hand ran swiftly across the boards, but
they all seemed firm. He gave the middle one a smack with the flat of
his hand, and it hinged outward with a sudden creak.
A guard said, “Someone’s stirring in the alley yonder. Maybe we should
take a look.”
“You’re as bad as Captain Senn. What happens outside is none of our
worry. What’s got into you tonight?” There was a mumbled answer.
Tim worked himself around and stuck his head out into the alley. He
looked along the jailhouse wall toward the front of the jail. A feeble
light from one of the windows struck the worn cobbles and dry grass.
There was no one in sight.
Slowly he worked his way around and looked the other way, not daring to
pry the board up farther. A row of houses faced the back of the jail,
lamplight showing in some of their windows. No one was in the street at
the back, as far as Tim could tell. He pried the board upward, crawled
into the alley, and reached back for the blankets and haversacks. Then
he held the board up so that Red could come through.
For a moment both men crouched in the alley beside the fence. Then they
slipped their haversacks over their shoulders and folded their blankets
over their arms. Tim grabbed the end of the board, and ever so slowly
put it back, setting the points of the nails in the holes and shoving
them in as best he could.
The two men straightened up at last. Tim could feel the blood working
into the numbness of his legs and arms.
The night was chilly but the air was clear.
They headed toward the back of the jailyard, going quietly so that they
could pass the card players without being heard.
When they reached the corner of the fence Tim looked cautiously south,
then north. He gave a sign that the street was clear and crossed with
Red at his side. The railroad ran a block or so east, just beyond the
gardens at the back of the houses that faced the jail.
The men dodged into an alley between two of the houses and found their
path blocked by a shaft of lamplight coming from the first-floor window
of the house on their right. The light marked a yellow rectangle on the
clapboard wall of the other house. Tim was about to duck the window and
move into the garden at the back when a dog started barking behind the
house.
They waited quietly against the wall until the barking stopped, then
retraced their steps. The street was still deserted, so they walked
north at a moderate pace, turning to the left at the end of the block,
rounding the corner of a darkened house and heading for the railroad
track. The dog started barking again, and their impatience got the
better of them. They ran along the side street, scrambled across the
track and down the embankment and headed north.
The track passed through a thinly settled part of town, and as they
moved Tim felt a sudden exhilaration. Now it seemed unlikely that they
would be seen before they had gained the shelter of the woods.
The stars gleamed bright between moving clouds.
Now the embankment had disappeared and the ties lay on the ground,
not sunken as they sometimes were. The men walked beside the rails,
through a grove of trees, and--without the slightest warning--came on a
tumble-down shack.
A good-sized dog was chained to a tree close by the shack and he barked
and growled as if the devil was clawing at his throat.
[Illustration: South Carolina Railroads, 1863]
Tim and Red moved right along, but the door of the shack swung wide
and a man stood, big and silent, silhouetted in the light. Tim stopped
and raised his hand. “Good evening,” he said. “Sorry to pass so close.”
The man didn’t answer and Tim turned to go. A voice boomed out above
the snarling of the dog. “Come here, Yankees.”
They turned and faced the door. Tim hesitated, then moved toward the
light. The fellow was a Negro. His skin was dark as ebony. He looked
as if he could break a man in two with a flick of his wrist. He half
turned toward the menacing dog. “Hush,” he rasped. Then he cocked his
head. “I see I was right.”
Tim looked straight at the man but didn’t speak.
Now the colored man rumbled, “I should turn you back. But I don’t care
a damn for this War.” He lowered his head like an angry bull. “I don’t
trust any man, white or black. Get out.”
Tim started to speak, but the big man moved his hand through the air
in front of his eyes as if he were pushing aside a rock. He raised his
voice. “Get out!”
As they moved away Tim shivered. His spirits sank. The encounter had
seemed an ill omen.
Off to the left the river glistened in the starlight. As they walked
beside the track they crossed a highway at the edge of town and finally
gained the shelter of the woods.
Now the river ran close to the track and they could hear the sound of
water against the rocks. As their eyes grew accustomed to the starlight
they saw dashes of white where the river flowed by little islands and
around the rocks.
They passed through thickets of dark undergrowth and crossed little
streams that trickled and bubbled on the way to the river’s edge. The
air seemed incredibly clear and the landscape fresh and sweet. They
mounted a hill and stood for a moment at the top, looking back. The
lights of the city winked in the distance, but there was no sign of
pursuit.
They rolled their blankets and tied them around the tops of their
haversacks. As they turned to go forward again the sound of a church
bell came to their ears--a sound they had heard through the silent,
sultry nights of summer, the cool nights of fall. It carried with it
the memory of months of imprisonment.
Tim drew in his breath, and Red spun around and led the way down the
hill as if his house was in view, his wife and son waiting in the
doorway.
They walked on level ground beside the track for an hour or so, then
down a gentle slope. At a point where the river cut close to the track
the ground grew soft, and they stepped across the rails and walked
from tie to tie. The ties were spaced so that walking was difficult,
and they were thinking of trying the ground again when they found
themselves on a rickety trestle that shook as they walked.
Red went more slowly now. He stumbled and caught himself. “Watch that
one, it’s rotten,” he said in an unsteady voice.
“Take it slow. This trestle can’t be long. There’s no sound of water.
There’s nothing but swamp down there.”
“We can thank our stars the trains are few and far between.”
Ahead of them the track disappeared into the gloom. The trestle
stretched on and on, and they walked until they lost all sense of time.
Red stopped from time to time to test a tie that he imagined might be
weaker than the rest. It was clear he didn’t like the work.
Once he tried to look at his watch, but he couldn’t see the hands and
the matches were in one of the haversacks. They must have broken out
of jail at six thirty or seven. Tim couldn’t imagine what time it
might be now. It seemed they had walked this trestle since the dawn of
creation.
Tim noticed the signs of exhaustion in himself. He felt inclined to
stagger, and he knew he might fall headlong into the gulf below. “Stop
a moment,” he said. “Let’s rest.”
Red’s shoulders slumped. He turned slowly and sat on one of the rails,
with one boot on a tie and the other dangling. “How soft we are.”
“Walking these ties would tire a coolie.”
Tim ached in every joint and muscle. He wanted to stretch out on a tie
and go to sleep. “We’d better move on soon,” he said. “We have to find
cover by dawn.”
Red laughed dryly. “It all seemed such a lark when we sat in the jail
and made the plans.”
Tim stood up and edged around to take the lead. He tried the next tie
with his foot, and they moved on again, stepping as before, each time
with an awkward little hop.
They hadn’t gone five hundred feet when the trestle ended and the track
reached firm ground again. They moved into another wood, jogged down
a slope and jumped across a rushing stream. They traveled through the
night, moving from lowland to higher ground and back to lowland again,
crossing half-a-dozen trestles shorter than the first.
They stopped just short of another wood and faced each other and
realized that now there was light.
Red swayed, his back to the rosy glow in the eastern sky. His face was
haggard, his eyes were sunken. He blinked and shook his head and turned
to look back.
Tim grinned. “There’s one thing certain. No hound in heaven or hell
could follow that route.” They left the track and struggled up a
heavily wooded hill looking for a likely bivouac.
“We’re still too near the track,” Tim said.
Finally they saw an upturned oak. Its roots formed a sheltered niche
shielded on one side by a little pine. They took off their haversacks
and opened them. They saw at once that Devil had outdone himself. On
top of Red’s pack was a folded poncho, thin and patched but good to
sleep on, nevertheless. Red spread it out. “No wonder I’m tired,” he
said. “I was carrying a heavier load than you.”
Tim found a dozen hard-boiled eggs, a small flask of brandy and a
good-sized canteen. “It seems I was carrying an extra load too.”
Red flicked the canteen with his finger. It made a hollow sound. “This
thing is empty. The poncho weighs more than the canteen, the brandy and
the eggs combined,” he said. “Let’s eat an egg. I wonder if they’re
stuffed with caviar.”
Tim finished off his egg and together they studied the map. It showed
the rail lines leading away from Columbia. The trestles weren’t shown,
and the route of the previous night was marked as an innocent curve.
Considering the quality of Kate’s work, the map she had copied must
have been less than complete.
At a town named Alston the railroad would fork, the northern branch
ending at Spartanburg.
“I hope we’re close to Alston now,” said Red, “but I doubt that we’ve
covered twenty miles.”
“I doubt it too.”
They spread out their blankets.
Red settled down and Tim put away the remaining eggs. “We owe Devil a
vote of thanks.”
“Unless we’re lucky, we can thank him in person.”