Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1954 (6 page)

 
          
As
they angled across the river, Barry heard his heart thumping, like a drum
beating the long roll. When they approached the right bank, Grimes whispered
for a halt. Behind Barry he rose to his knees, then very gingerly to his full
height, balancing with widespread feet in the dugout. Looking over his shoulder,
Barry saw Grimes staring through the darkness toward the lights.

 
          
“They’re
thick,”
came
Grimes’ undertone at last. “Twenty, maybe
thirty of them—line after line. All right, Barry,
here’s
where we start our upside-down voyage.”

 
          
They
slid their paddles into the wire loops, and Barry slipped into the water,
pushing down on the gunwales. Grimes, out on the other side, heaved strongly,
and between them they overturned the dug- out, which floated like a log in the
dark water.

 
          
“Out
saucepans and head downstream,” said Grimes. “Don’t splash.”

           
Barry floated forward, his feet
trailing behind him. Holding with one hand to the reversed, submerged thwart,
he plied the saucepan with the other. He drew it rearward below the surface,
brought it up silently, reached forward as though scooping, and drew it back
again. They made slow progress. At first they seemed only to creep along with
the current. Then, when Barry glanced up, he realized that they were passing
some scores of yards clear of a gunboat that loomed in the night like a castle
rising from the water. A ship’s lantern blazed on the foredeck, and he could
see two men, pacing back and forth with shouldered muskets like sentinels on
guard.

 
          
Still
he and Grimes wore their way downstream, past this craft and clear of it.
Beyond and below rode another at
anchor,
and on this
one gleamed a great searchlight. As they approached the waters alongside, the
fierce white glow shifted back and forth, as though seeking them.

 
          
“Low,
lie low,” cautioned Grimes. “Sink to your nose.”

 
          
Barry
submerged until the ripples played against his lips. The light came closer,
crawled over the dug- out’s bottom, seemed to linger there like a great accusing
finger. Barry closed his eyes against its white intensity, and braced himself
to hear an angry challenge, the spatter of musket fire.

 
          
Then
it was gone. He and Grimes dug and paddled with the saucepans, while the light
quested elsewhere over the water.

 
          
An
eternity seemed to pass before they had progressed beyond that stretch where
the searchlight played. They dropped below another line of gunboats and
another, but none of these was so close or so inquisitive.

 
          
“Look
to the left,” bade Grimes at last.

 
          
Barry
looked. “More lights,” he groaned.

 
          
“The lights of
Vicksburg
.
Now let’s see if we can get the canoe
upright again.”

 
          
They
managed to turn the dugout over, but it shipped a great quantity of water and
lay almost swamped. Barry hung to the side and began to bail.

 
          
“Wait,
let me show you a trick,” Grimes said.
“Swim clear.”

 
          
As
Barry pulled away from the boat, Grimes caught the stern and pushed it strongly
down so that the bow end
rose
clear of the water. He
shoved the stern powerfully, away from him, and water sloshed from it. Again he
caught the stern and repeated the performance. Now the dugout was partially
empty, and Grimes held to one side while Barry climbed in at the other, then
scrambled in
himself
. Swiftly they scooped out most of
the water. Panting, they resumed their paddles and set a course for the glow of
the town.

 
          
More
than a mile they paddled, dripping, weary, but eager. Barry’s arms and back
muscles strained and ached. At last he could see the dark outline of a row of
wharfs. They looked smashed and half-ruined, against fires and lanterns behind.

 
          
“Who’s
that out there?” a stern, clear voice rang out. “Name yourself before we send
some lead after you.”

 
          
“Friends,”
yelled back Grimes. “We’ve run the blockade with a shipment of mail.”

 
          
“Come
on in, but no false moves,” came the warning.

 
          
Within
a minute the dugout’s nose grated against a wharf piling, and a soldier knelt
to offer Barry a hand.

 
          
MEN
helped hoist the dugout to the wharf and then, in the light of a bonfire,
surrounded the dripping mail runners, muskets ready. A slim figure with wide
hat and belted saber strode out of the dark. Grimes spoke to the newcomer, who
shook hands.

 
          
“It’s
no surprise to fish you out of the river, Captain Grimes,” he said. “I’ve heard
that you deliver your mail if you have to climb inside a Yankee siege gun to do
it. Welcome to
Vicksburg
. Did you bring any
Kentucky
mail with you? I’m from
Louisville
.” “Only
Missouri
mail this trip, I’m sorry to say,” replied
Grimes. “But my partner, Bob Louden, was getting mail in
Kentucky
, and since I got here with what I had, so
will he.”

 
          
The
dugout, with its freight of sealed tin boxes, was left with a corporal, and the
officer led Grimes and Barry to a house beyond the wharf. When the officer
knocked, the door was opened by a night- gowned man with a candle.

 
          
“This
boarding house is where we keep our reserve guard,” the officer said. “Stay
here,
and my men will dry your clothes at the fire. You lack
boots, eh? We’ve some captured gear inside, so help
yourselves
.”

 
          
The
man with the candle led them to a room with a big double bed. Stripping and
wrapping themselves in blankets, Grimes and Barry lay down and were asleep
almost at once.

 
          
When
Barry woke to dawn’s gray light, Grimes was buttoning his dried-out shirt.

 
          
“I’ve
found four or five pairs of boots for you to choose from,” Grimes said. “Get up
and dress; we have callers outside.”

 
          
Barry
heard a many-voiced murmur. He hurried into his clothes, and from among the
shoes set against the wall selected a pair that fitted. In the hall he and Grimes
met the old man of the night before, pouring from a pot into two cups.

 
          
“Sweet
‘tater coffee,” said the host, apologetically, “but it’s hot. Hear that noise?
Out in the street’s just about every Missoury man who ain’t in the
trenches, a-hollerin’ for you-all.”

 
          
Gulping
the hot brew, Grimes opened the door, and Barry peered past him into the gray
morning.

 
          
Soldiers
milled in the yard and on the wharf. Some wore ragged gray, some butternut
pants and
jackets,
some faded old blue garments
captured from the enemy. There was a roar from many throats.

 
          
“Cap’n
Ab Grimes! Where’s our mail?”

 
          
“Yieee-hee!
Mail ho!”

 
          
Stepping
out, Grimes waved his cup for silence. The cries died away, and expectant eyes
fixed on the mail runner.

 
          
“Don’t
make any pellmell charge,” he warned. “Let’s have a mail orderly from each
regiment, to take the letters for distribution. Pass the word, and give us
room.”

 
          
Another ear-splitting yell.
Grimes smiled at Barry and led
the way out on the wharf, where the dugout had been placed in a shed that
served for guard house. Two young sentinels kept close watch over it.

           
Now Barry had a daylight look at
Vicksburg
. The ground rose inland to a great swelling
height, as though the town had hunched its shoulder and lifted houses and
streets. A shell burst somewhere among the houses, with a roaring flash. He
started violently, but the soldiers around him barely flinched.

 
          
He
and Grimes loosened the boxes and carried them into view. Another yell rose
from the throng. A group of men came close, carrying sacks—the mail orderlies
from the
Missouri
regiments.

 
          
“Here’s
a hatchet to bust open the boxes,” volunteered one.

 
          
“Take
that thing away!” snapped Grimes. “I want tinners’ shears.”

 
          
Someone
else brought the shears. Grimes carefully reopened the boxes, one by one, and
Barry passed out the mail. Each orderly received bundle after bundle of
letters, stowing them in his sack. When all the mail was distributed, the
orderlies bore their burdens through the eager crowd. Grimes watched.

 
          
“See
why my job is worth-while, Barry?” he inquired.

 
          
“I
certainly do, Captain. I’m glad I could help.”

           
Then there was a sudden yelling
surge of soldiers toward them. Grimes and Barry found themselves seized and
hoisted by a dozen hands, and despite their protests they were carried shoulder
high back to the house. They struggled to the ground at last and retreated
inside, fairly wafted through the door by cheers and rebel yells that almost
drowned the explosions of the beginning cannonade.

 
          
In
the front room waited a square-faced man with the shoulder straps of a colonel
on his gray
tunic.
Grimes saluted quickly.

 
          
“Colonel
Cockrell,” he cried joyously. “You still command the First Missouri?”

 
          
“I
command the whole Missouri Brigade, Captain Grimes,” replied the colonel. “And
I want to talk to you about your crazy blockade-running.”

 
          
“What
was wrong with it?” protested Grimes.

 
          
The
square face grinned.
“Nothing at all.
I’m only hoping
you can carry answering letters out again.” “I mean to try, sir. Let me present
my helper, Barry Mills.”

 
          
Just
then the old man of the house announced breakfast. Colonel Cockrell sat down
with them at a kitchen table and ate corn bread and molasses. They had just
started when a tremendous blast rang out, apparently just outside. Barry almost
spilled his cup of sweet-potato coffee.

 
          
“That
was a hooter,” remarked Colonel Cockrell. “The civilians have dug caves along
the streets and in the yards, and they shelter there when the bombardment’s lively.
Now, about this young man—Mr. Barry Mills—”

 
          
“Colonel,
sir,” said Barry, “I came to enlist with your
Missouri
troops.”

 
          
Colonel
Cockrell looked at him levelly. “You want to stay in here and starve and fight
with us?”

 
          
“I
came to enlist,” Barry repeated stubbornly.

 
          
“I’ve
been thinking more and more about what Barry Mills might best do for the South,
sir,” put in Grimes, and the colonel looked at him.

 
          
“Yes,
Captain. I think I know what you mean.”

 
          
“I
have no doubt that he would make a brave, loyal infantry soldier,” went on
Grimes, “but all the way from Pike County in Missouri he’s been a smart, cool,
resourceful helper to the grapevine mail. And especially in this last
blockade-running try.”

 
          
“What
you mean,” summed up Colonel Cockrell, “is that he’d be more valuable in your
mail service. And I think the same.”

 
          
Barry
looked from one to the other of his companions. “You mean that, gentlemen? I
never thought of it. I was just helping the best I could, because I had the
chance to come down—”

 
          
“Don’t
you want to do what will be best for the Confederacy?” asked Colonel Cockrell.

 
          
“Of course, sir.”

 
          
“Then
I assign you to the staff of Captain Absalom Grimes. I’ll tell my adjutant to
make a note of it.” Grimes held his hand out to Barry across the table.
“Welcome, partner,” he said, smiling. “Now you can help me carry the mail
out
of
Vicksburg
.”

 
          
“Good,”
said Colonel Cockrell. “You must realize, Barry, that there’s a dead sameness
to this siege—no visitors, no steamers, no trains, no news. Just shells and
rifle pits. We hold the town, and the Yankees throw shells at us from land and
water. It gets to be—” The colonel hesitated. “Well, it gets to be a bore.”

 
          
There
was another deafening explosion.

 
          
“A
bore, sir?” repeated Barry, when his voice was able to emerge from his dry
throat.

 
          
“You
get used to anything,” amplified the colonel. “I started to keep a diary when
the siege started.
Eight pages the first day, four the next.
Then two, then one.
Now I don’t write at all—every
day’s the same.
Bombardment and trench duty.
You see
why we need mail.”

 
          
“Yes,
I do,” said Barry. “And I guess I could be of most service by helping to carry
it.”

 
          
When
announcement was made to the
Missouri
troops that Grimes and his new assistant
would smuggle out a cargo of letters, there was a mighty stir through every
regimental camp. Billets, knapsacks, shops, were searched for paper, pencils,
pens, ink. Colonel Cockrell and other officers divided their own stocks of
writing materials. Sheets of paper were divided in halves, even in quarters.

 
          
That
afternoon, Grimes and Barry visited the reserve position where the main forces
of Missourians waited, ready for any emergency. On stumps and logs and rocks
sat soldiers, writing on bits of paper. Others hung over them, waiting for a
turn with pen or pencil. Barry and Grimes both wrote letters at the dictation
of men who confessed themselves unable to spell out even their own names.

 
          
Next
morning,
the sheafs
of envelopes were gathered by the
mail orderlies, and under Grimes’ supervision a
Vicksburg
tinsmith sealed them into the boxes. Then
Grimes drew Barry aside for a conference.

 
          
“This
time we’ll be heading up river, against the current,” he said. “We can’t do
that with an overturned boat. We’ll have to travel right side up.”

 
          
“In sight of the Union gunboats?”

 
          
“We’ll
wear blue uniforms. I’ve seen a lot of Yankees in open boats, and we’ll be just
two more. We’ll wire the boxes of mail under the bottom, and seem to be
paddling in an empty boat.”

 
          
“Captain,
it sounds crazy,” Barry protested.

 
          
“Of
course it does. That’s why we won’t be suspected. Who’d look for Confederate
agents to shove into danger like that?”

 
          
“You’re
right,” Barry agreed, trying to be as casual as Grimes.

 
          
Colonel
Cockrell’s headquarters supplied them with blue blouses and army forage caps,
and paddles to replace their saucepans. They turned the dugout upside down and
fastened the boxes to it with a strong network of wire. After
midnight
, they put out for the west shore.

 
          
It
was toilsome, with the current against them and the submerged boxes forming a
drag. Upward they forced their way, and upward, until the sun rose at last,
showing them the gunboats opposite.