TOM HIDES IN A RIVER BANK--EATS RAW FISH--JIM GRAYSON AIDS
HIM--DOWN THE JAMES RIVER ON A TREE--PASSING THE PATROL
BOATS--CANNONADED--THE END OF THE VOYAGE.
Tom had made up his mind how he would try to reach the Union lines. As
he had escaped before from the locomotive-foray by pushing boldly into
the enemy's country, so he would do now. He would try his luck in
following the James River to the sea, for off the river's mouth he knew
there lay a squadron of Northern ships, blockading Hampton Roads. The
"Merrimac's" attempt of March, 1862, had never been repeated. Our flag
was still there, in these February days of 1864, and Tom knew it. He had
resolved to seek it there.
He explained his plan to his three comrades. They would steal a boat,
row or drift down the James by night, hide and sleep by day, forage for
food upon the rich plantations, many of them the historic homes of
Virginia, that bordered the broad river, and finally float to freedom
where our war-ships lay. But the three men would have nothing to do with
it. By land the Union lines were much nearer. They meant to stick to the
land. They asked the boy to go with them, but he stuck to his plan. So,
with hearty handshakes and a whispered "good luck!" he left them, went
over a canal-bridge, and found himself upon the bank of the river. He
was again alone.
Of his three temporary companions, one finally reached our lines, one
was shot within a few hundred yards of his goal, and one was recaptured.
Of the 109 who escaped from Libby, 48 were caught and thrust back into
prison.
Tom walked along the river bank, prying in the welcome darkness for a
boat. It would not have been difficult to steal it, if he could have
found it. But at this point the James is wide and shallow and full of
miniature rapids. It was utterly bare of boats. The boy's search could
not be carried on after dawn. He spent that day hidden in a clump of
willows by the waterside. The excitement of the night had kept him up.
Now the reaction from it left him limp and miserable and hungry as he
never remembered being hungry before. It was hard work to "grin and bear
it," but at least he tried to grin and he reminded himself a thousand
times through that long, long day that he was much better off than if he
were still a prisoner in Libby.
That night he followed the bank until he was below the city, still
without finding a boat. There had been plenty of boats along this part
of the river the morning before, but as soon as the escape from Libby
had been discovered, all boats had been seized by the military
authorities, to prevent their being used by the fugitives. They had been
taken to a point below the town. As Tom wormed himself cautiously near
this point, very cautiously, for he heard voices upon the bank above his
head, and also the crackle of a camp-fire, he saw in the gray dawn a
flotilla of boats just below him. At first sight, his heart leaped into
his mouth with joy. At the second sight, it sank down into his boots.
For above the boats he saw a big Confederate camp and beyond them he saw
a half-dozen small craft, negroes at the oars and armed men at bow and
stern, patrolling the river. Hope left him. He crawled into a
hiding-place in the bank. He was so hungry that he cried. But not for
long. Stout hearts do not yield to such weakness long. If he could not
escape in a boat fashioned by man's hands, why not in one fashioned by
God? The early spring freshets of the James were making the river higher
every hour. He saw in cautious peeps from the hole where he had hidden
great trees from far-off forests, uprooted there by the high water, come
plunging down mid-channel like battering rams. He noted that the
patrol-boats gave these dangerous monsters a wide berth. If a trunk of a
tree were to ram them or if the far-flung branches were to strike them,
their next patrol would be at the bottom of the river. On a sandbank not
a hundred yards from the boy's lair a big oak had stranded. It lay
quite still now, but it evidently would not do so for many hours, for
the rising water lapped higher and higher against it. Tom made up his
mind that that tree should be his boat--if only it were still there when
it was dark enough for him to swim out to it. Through the daylight hours
he watched it with lynx eyes, fearing lest it were swept along towards
the sea before he could shelter himself in it. And through these
daylight hours he grew ever more faint with hunger, until he told
himself that he must have food, at any risk, at any cost. Without the
strength it would give, he felt he could not possibly swim even the
hundred yards that lay between him and the now tossing tree. There is
truth in the line:
"Fate cannot harm me; I have dined today."
It is too much to do to face Fate on an empty stomach. Napoleon said
that an army traveled on its belly. Men must have food if they are to
march and fight.
A Confederate soldier sauntered along the shore and stopped just in
front of the boy's hiding-place. He had a rude fish-pole. Either he knew
how to fish, or the James River fish were very hungry. A string of a
dozen hung from his shoulder. The sight of them was too much for Tom to
stand. A raw fish seemed to him the most toothsome morsel in the world.
He knew he was courting certain capture, but he was starving. He would
pretend to be a Confederate himself. He spoke to the soldier, not out of
the fullness of his heart, but out of the emptiness of his stomach.
"I'm hungry," he said, "give a fellow a fish, will you?"
The soldier turned with a start. He was a tall, gaunt man, an East
Tennessee mountaineer, who had started to join the Union army when a
Confederate conscript-officer seized him and sent him South, under
guard, to serve the cause he had meant to fight against. East Tennessee
was, as a rule, loyal to the Union. The men from there who were found in
the Confederate army were like the poor peons who are supposed to
"volunteer" in the Mexican army. "I send you fifty volunteers," wrote a
Mexican mayor to a Mexican general, "please return me the ropes." Jim
Grayson had not been tied up with a rope, but he had had a bayonet
behind him, when he was put into the Confederate ranks. He was a man of
intelligence and of rather more education than most of his fellow
mountaineers. Many of them could not even read and write. Grayson had
learned both at a "deestrik skule" and had actually had a year, a
precious year, at a "high skule." The last thing he had read before
starting to fish that morning had been the printed handbills that had
been flung broadcast by the Confederate authorities, announcing the
escape of 108 men and one boy from Libby Prison and offering rewards for
their recapture. And the first thing he thought as he saw Tom in his
hole in the bank was that he was probably the boy of the handbills. He
meant to give the fellow a fish, of course, but if he found the fellow
was that boy he also meant to do what he could to help him go where he
himself wanted to go, to the Union lines.
"Sholy, I'll give you a fish," he said. "You can have all you want. I'll
light a fire and cook some for you."
"I can't wait," gasped Tom, wolf-hunger in his gleaming eyes. "I'm
starving."
He tried to reach out for the fish and collapsed in utter weakness. With
food at last within his grasp, he was too far gone to take it. Jim
Grayson had been very hungry more than once in his thirty years of hard
life. He saw that Tom was telling the truth.
"Hush," he whispered, for he had caught sight of some fellow soldiers on
the bank, not a hundred feet away. "Hush, sumbuddy's comin'. You mus'
take little pieces first. I'll cut one up for you."
He was drawing out his knife from a deep pocket when the soldiers
stopped on the bank above their heads and shouted down, asking him to
give them some fish too.
"Sholy," laughed Jim. "Here's some for you-uns."
He tossed half a dozen up to them and then sat down at the mouth of the
hole that sheltered Tom, thinking to hide him in case the others came
down the bank. His back was towards the boy. What was left of his catch
hung within two inches of Tom's nose. That was Tom's chance. He tore off
a couple of little fish and tore them to bits with his teeth. His first
sensation was one of deathly sickness; his next one of returning
strength. Grayson twitched the remaining fish into his lap. He knew the
boy had already had too much food, for a first meal. Meanwhile he was
chatting cheerily with his fellow soldiers, who fortunately did not come
down the bank and soon moved off, leaving Jim and Tom alone. Now was the
time for explanations.
"Don't be afeard," said Jim, with a kindly smile. "I 'low you be Tom
Strong, bean't you? I guess you was in Libby day afore yisterday. I
ain't goin' to give you up. I'm Union, I be, ef I do wear Secesh gray.
How kin I help you?"
The sense of safety, safety at least for the moment, was too much for
Tom. He could not speak.
"Thar, thar," Jim went on, "it's all right. Jes' tell me what I can do.
I'll bring you eatins soon ez night comes, but what'll you do then?"
Tom told him what he hoped to do then. It was a wild scheme to float
down nearly two hundred miles of river through a hostile country, but
yet it offered a chance of success. And if there was a chance of success
for the boy, why not for the man?
"Ef so be's ez you'se sot on it," Jim said, at the end of the talk, "I
vum I'll run the resk with you. You ain't no ways fit to start off
alone. Ef you have to hist that thar tree into the James River, you
cudn't a-do it. I kin. 'N ef you wuz all alonst, you mout fall off'n be
drownded. We-uns'll go together. 'N then I'll hev a chanst to fight fer
the old Union."
Tom was only too glad of the promised company. It was arranged that Jim
was to come to him as soon as possible after nightfall, with whatever
provisions he could lay his hands upon, and that then they were to get
away on the queer craft Providence seemed to have prepared for them,
provided only that Providence did not send the big tree swirling
southward to the sea before they could reach it. The river was now
considerably higher. It was tugging hard at its prey. Sometimes the tree
shook with the impact of the rushing waves as if it had decided to let
go the sandbank forthwith. If it did go before nightfall, they must try
to find another. There were always others in sight, but they were far
away in mid-channel, floating swiftly seaward. How could one of these be
reached, if their fellow on the sandbank joined them? There was nothing
to be done, however, except to wait. Tom's waiting was solaced by the
eating of the rest of the fish. Man and boy agreed that the man must
loiter there no longer. Making a fire would delay him beyond roll-call.
So Jim went and Tom again ate raw fish, trying to do so slowly, but not
making a great success of that. He felt as if he could eat a whale.
Darkness came only a few minutes before Jim Grayson did. He brought with
him a bundle of food, upon part of which Tom forthwith supped. He also
brought his gun. "I'm a deserter now, you see," he explained to the boy,
"and I'll be shot ef so be I'm caught. But ef I be caught, I'll shoot
some o' they-uns fust."
They could dimly see the outlines of the big tree, now tossing in the
waves that broke above the submerged sandbank, as if it were struggling
to be free. They swam out to it, Jim strongly, Tom weakly. They reached
it none too soon. Ten minutes later it would have started of its own
accord. Jim's task in "histing" it was easy. They were afloat at once.
The top of the tree, a mass of bare branches, for the tiny tender leaves
of the early Southern spring had been swept away by the water, formed
the bow of their craft. They both perched far back, leaning against the
tangled roots. Jim gave a final push with one dangling foot and they
were off. That was all Tom knew for some time. He had fallen asleep as
soon as he had snuggled securely into his place. He did not know it when
they swept through the cordon of patrol-boats below, which hastened to
give room to the vast battering ram. He did not even know that Jim's arm
held him in place as the tree lurched and wobbled on its downward road.
A few hours afterwards, he awoke, refreshed and hopeful, a new man, or
rather a new boy. The night was clear. The outlines of both shores were
visible. A young moon added its feeble light to the brilliant radiance
of the stars.
"Where are we?" whispered Tom. He knew the human voice carries a great
distance over water and while there seemed to be no one who could
overhear, he would run no unnecessary risk.
"I never sailed no river before," Jim cheerily answered, "'n I dun know
nothin' 'bout the Jeems River, but I 'low we've come 'bout a thousand
mile. 'N it's nigh sun-up. How'll we-uns git to sho' 'n hide?"
"If we did that," said Tom, "we'd have to give up our ship. Don't let us
do that. Let's say what Captain Lawrence said: 'Don't give up the ship!'
We'll call her the 'Liberty' and sail her down to Hampton Roads. We can
hide in the branches or the roots if we meet anybody on the river.
Everybody will give us a wide berth. We have some food, thanks to you.
Forty-eight hours more will see us through."
"All right, Captain," Jim Grayson replied. "You're the commander."
Up to that time, the Confederate private had been in command of the
expedition, but now that the Union officer was himself again, he took
charge of everything, much to Jim's content and also, we must admit,
much to Tom's content.
The good ship "Liberty," Tom Strong, captain, Jim Grayson, mate, made a
prosperous voyage. Its crew was thoroughly scared three or four times by
the sight of Confederate craft, small and large. When a gunboat selected
it as a floating target and plumped half-a-dozen cannon balls around it,
the crew thought the end had come. But nobody on the gunboat saw the
two people cowering amid the branches of the tree. The gunners were
untrained. Their aim was poor. And powder and cannon-balls were not so
abundant in the Confederacy that the practice-firing could continue
long. Early on the third morning of the voyage, they were in Hampton
Roads, borne by the ebbing tide towards the Union squadron that lay
under the guns of Fortress Monroe. As the sun rose above the horizon,
our flag sprang to the mastheads of the ships. Tom felt like echoing
Uncle Mose's triumphant phrase: "De Stars 'n de Stripeses, dey jest
kivered de sky."
The "Liberty" would have gone straight out to sea, so far as any control
by its crew was concerned. It did go out to sea, indeed, but not until
after Tom and Jim had been taken from it by a boat from the Admiral's
ship. Jim had fired off his gun to attract attention, as the "Liberty"
neared the squadron, and then he and Tom had both stood up on the
teetering trunk of their tree and shouted and waved their shirts, which
they had taken off for that purpose, as they had nothing else to wave,
until help came. The "Liberty" had brought them to liberty. They said
good-by to her almost with regret. But their joy was deep when they
stood on the deck of the flagship, under the flag of the free.