Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1954 (13 page)

 
          
Sitting
down at the table, he began to write experimentally. He made several attempts,
showing them in turn to Mrs. Wilson,
then
taking them
back to correct and recopy. Finally he achieved what he felt he wanted:

Dept. of Missouri

 
          
Spl.
Order                                             
Office of A. A. G.

 
          
No.
306                                                
Nov. 12
,1864

 
          
Absalom Grimes, a prisoner at Gratiot Street
Prison, St. Louis, Mo., will be brought under armed guard to this office on
issuance of this order, for questioning concerning his alleged activities in
the so-called Underground Mail Service of the Rebellion.

 
          
by
Order of the Department Commander

 
          
(
unidentifiable
scrawl for signature)

 
          
Assistant Adjutant General

           
“Do you think that will fool the
Officer of the Day?” asked Mrs. Wilson dubiously.

 
          
“Probably
not, but it ought to fool whoever’s on duty at the hospital ward,” said Barry.
“Once let me get Captain Grimes out of there, and I’ll work us both out to the
alley door somehow.”

 
          
“Barry,”
said Mrs. Wilson, “what if you’re caught, too?”

 
          
“I’ll
have to take my chance.”

 
          
“But
the mail service—”

 
          
“It’s
almost at an end,” he said. “Some of our
Missouri
men are down in
Texas
with Price, some are deep in
Alabama
. While I’m here, I might as well try to
save Captain Grimes. Once he’s out, the mail service can start to work again.”

 
          
He
went to bed, but not to sleep. He dozed fitfully,
then
wakened to think furiously about his coming adventure. Dawn came, of a cold and
rainy November 12. Wet gusts spattered the window panes as Barry ate his
breakfast.

 
          
“Perfect
weather for our purpose,” he told Mrs. Wilson, “but plumb wretched for Captain
Grimes to be out in.”

 
          
“Joe
will drive the carriage to Chouteau Street, within a block of the prison,” she
promised. “Get Ab Grimes into the carriage and hurry him back here immediately.
I’ll have a bed waiting, and a doctor who’ll keep his mouth shut.”

 
          
The
day passed slowly, but somehow it passed. Late that night, Barry donned the
blue overcoat and cap, belted on the bayonet, and took the musket. He rode out
in the covered carriage, and got out near the prison. A glance at his watch
showed that it was ten minutes to midnight. Through a drenching rain he trudged
along Ninth Street until he came to the alley door.

           
“Halt,” a voice came through the
storm. “Who goes
there.
”

 
          
“Relief,”
called back Barry.

 
          
“Advance,
relief; I’m glad to see you.”

 
          
Barry
walked close to the man, who stood with his musket at port in the splashing
darkness. “Where’s the rest of the relief detail?” asked the man on duty.

 
          
“We’re
taking post one at a time in this weather,” said Barry readily, offering the
explanation he had been rehearsing all evening. “And you can go straight off
duty—you needn’t go back to the guard room.”

 
          
“That’s
the best news I’ve had today,” said the other. “Here’s the key.”

 
          
He
handed a massive iron key to Barry, and trudged away.

 
          
Barry
watched him go, then hurriedly inserted the key in the big lock and turned it.
The lock opened with a grating groan, and Barry shoved the gate open and
entered the alley.

 
          
Along
the way he walked, almost ankle-deep in the puddles that lay on the path
between high stone walls. He came to a big double door at the end of it.

           
Another sentry stood guard there,
but this man only grumbled something about the rain as Barry walked casually
past him and safely entered a lamp-lighted interior.

 
          
He
saw that he had come into a hall, with stairs a little distance away. Trying to
seem casually purposeful, he walked past one open door inside which sat two
officers at a desk, and another that led to a room full of sleeping men. Up the
stairs he mounted, the stone resounding dully beneath his feet. He was easily
accomplishing the first phase of his desperate attempt. If bringing Absalom
Grimes back down was no more than twice as difficult. . . “Why, Barry! Barry
Mills!”

 
          
At the head of the first flight of stairs stood a sturdy figure in
uniform, its face beaming.
It was Karl Batz from
Bowling
Green
!

 
          
“You’re
one of the guards here?” cried Karl in noisy welcome. “So am I. I’m a sergeant
now. When did you join up? Last time I saw you, I figured you were off to join
the rebels.”

 
          
“I’ll
tell you later, Karl,” said Barry, trying to keep his voice steady. “I’ve got
to go to the hospital floor now.”

           
“What for?
I’m sergeant of the guard tonight; the regular sergeant’s off duty. Who told
you to go up there?”

 
          
Barry
had come to the top of the flight of stairs. Beyond this slanted another
flight, with the hospital floor at its top. He could not fail now.

 
          
“Special duty.
I’ve got to escort some—”

 
          
“Hey, you up there!
You in the wet coat!”

 
          
Two
men were hurrying along the hall below.

 
          
“Were
you on duty at the alley gate?” bawled one of them. “What was the idea of
leaving your post before you were relieved?”

 
          
Barry
started up the second flight, but Karl reached out and caught his shoulder,
pulling him down.

 
          
“What
are you up to, Barry?” he was asking. “I hope you didn’t desert your post.”

 
          
The
two men were swiftly stamping their way up from the first floor.

 
          
“I
had charge of the relief just now, sergeant,” said one of them. “And this man
wasn’t on duty. The alley gate was left unguarded and unlocked. He’s under
arrest.”

 
          
Karl’s
friendly face was abashed. “If that’s true, Barry—” he began, but one of the
newcomers fiercely cut him off.

 
          
“Who’s
this soldier?” he demanded, his finger pointing almost into Barry’s eye. “He
wasn’t on guard duty! I never saw him before!”

 
          
Barry
desperately tried to bring up his musket, but a pair of brawny hands snatched
it from him.

 
          
“I’ll
bet he’s a spy!” shouted the one who had disarmed him.

 
          
“All
right, all right,” another voice rose from below, deep and commanding. “What’s
all that bellowing about up there? Men are trying to sleep; they have to go on
guard in a couple of hours.”

 
          
“I
don’t know just what is happening, Captain Byrne,” called back Karl Batz. “I
know this man, but the others don’t—”

 
          
And
he fell silent, gazing in mystification at Barry.

 
          
“Bring
him down, whoever he is,” ordered the voice at the foot of the stairs.

 
          
“March,
you,” bade one of the men, and Barry felt the muzzle of his own musket poking
him between the shoulders.

 
          
Barry
marched, with Karl Batz and the other two men at his heels. As he quitted the
bottom step he came face to face with a slim officer who had a shrewd Irish
look. “Into the office here,” said he. “Now, who are you? What kind
of a fuss are
you kicking up?”

 
          
Barry
looked at him and said nothing.

 
          
“He
tried to aim this musket at me,” volunteered the man who had disarmed Barry.

 
          
“Did
he
so?” barked the captain. “Search him. Hello!”

 
          
Karl
had pulled Barry’s overcoat off.

 
          
“He’s
not in uniform,” said the captain. “He’s a spy.”

 
          
He
ran his hands into the overcoat’s pockets and drew forth the forged order that
Barry had brought. He read it, smiling bitterly.

 
          
“I
take it you forced your way in here to steal Ab Grimes from us,” he said. “Is
that it?”

 
          
Still
Barry kept his silence.

 
          
“You’ve
put your own neck into a noose, my friend,” the captain told him.
“And all for nothing, too.
Grimes
was
certified as hopelessly crippled a month or so back, unable to cause more
trouble. And some soft-hearted official in Washington said he could go free. He
was sent to
Jefferson
City
just this afternoon, for special hospital treatment before being released.”

 
          
“Is
that the truth?” Barry managed to ask.

 
          
“It’s
as true as the fact that you’re in a bad fix. You came in here disguised as a
soldier, tried to shoot someone, and were going to help a prisoner escape. Lock
him up, men. I’ll talk to him later.”

 
          
TWO
ARMED men led Barry back up to the second floor. One of them unlocked an
iron-barred door and motioned him inside. The door clanged shut behind him, and
the big lock engaged with a resounding snap.

 
          
He
found himself in a cell some six feet by ten, with rough stone walls. The only
furniture was a stool, a table, and a bed made of planks, with a straw tick and
an old blanket. There was no window, and the only light came through the
ironwork of the door.

 
          
Barry
sat down on the mattress, and heard its dry straw rustle. He felt suddenly and
unutterably weary, as never before in any of his labor and adventures in the
mail service.

 
          
Trying
to think of his plight and what to do about it, he found that he could not. All
that his mind could do was realize that Absalom Grimes had been set free, and
that his own rescue attempt had been unnecessary. His confused reverie was
interrupted by a voice outside the door.

 
          
“Barry
Mills—is that your name? Come here, Mills, I want to talk to you.”

 
          
Barry
rose and took hold of the bars in his hands.
Outside in the
corridor stood Captain Byrne.
He carried an oil lamp, to shed its full
light in Barry’s eyes, while he kept his own face in the shadow.

 
          
“You’d
better tell me all about yourself,” he began.

 
          
“I’ll
tell you nothing,” replied Barry promptly.

 
          
“Sergeant
Batz told me your name. He saw you with Absalom Grimes once before. You’ve been
helping Grimes carry the rebel mail.”

 
          
A
pause, as though Byrne wanted to let the accusation sink deep.

 
          
“Do
you deny it?” Byrne prompted him sternly.

 
          
Barry
shook his head. “If I’m to be accused, let it be in court. And give me a lawyer
to do my talking for me.”

 
          
Byrne’s
face was shadowed, but Barry saw a smile grow upon it. “You don’t understand
military courts, do you? Prisoners don’t have lawyers talk for them. They do
their own talking. You’d better explain everything now.”

 
          
“You’ve
already made up your mind that I’m guilty,” said Barry.

 
          
“Guilty
of spying, that’s what,” snapped Byrne. “You can hang for that, unless you help
us.”

 
          
“What
do you mean, help you?”

 
          
Byrne
held the light closer and studied Barry’s face.

 
          
“Grimes
is
an invalid,” he said, “and you’re in prison. You’re
both out of the mail grapevine. But you have friends to carry it on. I want to
know who they are.”

 
          
Barry
only blinked in the bright rays of the lamp.

 
          
“You’re
not fooling me, Mills,”
persisted
Captain Byrne. “You
have people collecting the mail and moving it south. You’ve got a headquarters
here in Saint Louis, and other headquarters in other towns. And if you got in
here tonight, you had
help
to show you the way in. So
tell me who helped you, and don’t lie any more than you have to.”

 
          
Barry
found himself smiling.

 
          
“I’m
not going to
lie
to you, Captain. I’m not going to
talk to you at all.”

 
          
He
turned, went back to the bed, and lay down on it.

 
          
“You
come back here!” Byrne shouted at him. Barry pillowed his head on his arm, as
though going to sleep. He heard the captain striding away. A few minutes later,
another pair of feet approached the door.

 
          
“Barry,”
said the voice of Karl Batz.

 
          
Barry
sat up. “Yes, Karl?”

 
          
“This
is a bad business, Barry,” ventured Karl gloomily. “I’m sorry to see you mixed
up in it, and I’m double sorry that I was the one who caught you.” “That’s all
right, Karl. You were doing your duty, and I was trying to do mine.”

 
          
“I’ll
ask for a transfer back to a regiment in the field,” announced Karl. “I don’t
like to see you in trouble. I’d rather be shot at by the rebels.”

 
          
“Don’t
blame
yourself
,” Barry urged him, and lay back down.
“But thanks, anyway.”

           
He went to sleep, and wakened in the
morning to a jangling noise. A soldier stood outside the bars, holding a tin
plate in one hand and rapping the bars with a tin cup in the other.

 
          
“Breakfast,”
he announced. “My name’s
Schultz,
and I’m the orderly
on duty in this corridor. Come here and grab hold.”

 
          
There
was a horizontal slit among the bars, and through this he pushed plate and cup
into Barry’s hands. There was bread, pork and coffee, and Barry ate thankfully.
Schultz watched as he finished.

 
          
“Anything
else you’d like?” he inquired.

 
          
Barry
shoved the plate back through the slit, and looked into Schultz’s round,
pleasant face. “Only an open
door,
and a head start of
about sixty seconds out of here.”

 
          
“Can’t
give you that, but I’ve been told to make you comfortable.” Schultz peered into
the cell. “Last night was kind of cold; I’ll fetch you up another blanket.”

 
          
He
took away the dishes. When he came back, he carried a gray blanket, folded
small. This he squeezed through the slit.

 
          
“You
get an hour’s exercise, morning and afternoon,” he told Barry.
“Either inside or out in the prison yard if you like.
You
mustn’t speak to any other prisoner, but I’ll be with you and you can talk to
me.”

 
          
“I
must be the star boarder,” said Barry, studying Schultz’s face thoughtfully.
Then he added, “Tell them it won’t work.”

 
          
“What
won’t work?” demanded Schultz blankly.

 
          
Barry
laughed. “I can read you like a book, Schultz. You’re supposed to make friends
with me and see if you can’t tease a few names out of me, names they’re anxious
to know downstairs.”

 
          
“Well,
I tried.” Schultz looked abashed,
then
smiled. “Do you
play checkers? I’ve got a board, and I’ll pull a stool up against the bars. You
bring yours up on that side. Then I’ll hold the board on my lap, and we’ll have
a few games.”

 
          
That
morning Barry beat Schultz in two games of checkers out of three, and in the
afternoon they each won a game.

 
          
After
so much of travel, lurking and scheming, and matching of wits with pursuers,
Barry felt relaxed, almost sleepy, in his narrow prison. In the days that
followed, Captain Byrne came to question him a number of times. He was also
visited by Lieutenant Richardson of the provost marshal’s staff.

           
“Wouldn’t you like to sign a
statement?” Richardson wanted to know.

 
          
“I
won’t even make a statement, let alone sign one,” said Barry, and the
lieutenant departed, fuming.

 
          
On
December 20, Byrne appeared, sternly official in manner. He glanced at a paper
in his hand, then at Barry.

 
          
“I’m
directed to notify you that court-martial proceedings have been instituted
against you, on charges and specifications of spying and communication with the
enemy,” he growled out. “As the accused, you have the right to ask for time to
prepare your defense, and for advice.”

 
          
“I
request both the time and the advice,” said Barry.

 
          
“All right.”
Byrne scribbled a note. “Have you any
particular attorney or other person in mind?”

           
“Let me think about it,” Barry said,
and Byrne left him.

 
          
Next
morning, Schultz conducted a visitor to Barry’s door.
This
was a tall, imposing man in a greatcoat with a cape and elaborate
frogs.
In one big, white hand he carried a high silk hat. His face reminded Barry of
pictures he had seen of Roman emperors.

 
          
“Permit
me,” he said grandly. “I am an attorney, Mr. Solomon Morrison. Here is my
card.”

 
          
He
passed it through the bars.

 
          
“What
can I do for you, Mr. Morrison?”

 
          
“Will
you leave us alone?” Solomon asked Schultz, who walked up the corridor a dozen
paces or so. Then Morrison leaned close to the bars. “Turn the card over,” he
said under his breath.

 
          
Barry
did so. On the back were pencilled words, in a familiar handwriting:
Trust him. A. Grimes.

 
          
Joyously
Barry reached out to shake the handsome white hand.

 
          
“Ab
and I are old friends,” said Morrison in the same undertone. “But I’m
pretending to be just a volunteer.”

 
          
More
loudly he said, “The military tribunal allows counsel to
advise
prisoners, though counsel can’t represent them by pleading or by questioning
witnesses. I had the whim, since reading of your case in the Saint Louis
papers—”

 
 
         
“Am I in the papers?” Barry
interrupted him.

 
          
“My
dear young sir, they’re full of you. And I had the whim, I say, to come to your
relief, thereby gaining interesting and valuable experience in a military
court.”

 
          
At
Morrison’s prompting, Barry softly told the story of his capture and
imprisonment, omitting only the name of Sergeant Mike Welsh as his informant.
Morrison listened carefully, asking several questions.

 
          
“What
can be done for you shall be done, my boy. But you understand, you must conduct
your own defense—question and cross-question witnesses with your own voice. A
foolish rule, that, and a cruel one to boot.”

 
          
“How
can a man on trial for his life defend himself?” asked Barry.

 
          
“And
echo answers, how?” returned Morrison. “I marvel that anyone escapes conviction
by a military court.”

 
          
“You
make it sound hopeless,” suggested Barry.

 
          
“You
must hope, boy, or it’s all up with you. Now I’ll go confer with Captain Byrne
about visiting you regularly.”

 
          
He
returned the next day, to say that the court- martial would be held on December
28. Every day thereafter he found occasion to come and talk to Barry, coaching
him carefully in court procedure and the proper method of addressing both the
court and the witnesses.

 
          
For
Christmas dinner, Barry had roast chicken, which Schultz fetched to him with a
smile.

 
          
“Mr.
Morrison sent it,” he said. “I wish I was bringing you a pardon instead. Eat
hearty, and never say die.”

 
          
The
court-martial was held in a big house, not far from the prison, where various
offices and headquarters were located. On the morning of December 28, Barry
heard the lock on his cell door grate open, and looked up to see two stalwart
overcoated soldiers with muskets and fixed bayonets. He marched downstairs
between them. At the main entrance Solomon Morrison was waiting.