The Railroad War (38 page)

However, the captain’s curiosity was not fated to be satisfied that night.

A sailor pounded on the wardroom door.

“Mr. Muller’s compliments, sir,” he said once he was inside. “He’d like you to know that we’ve spotted a ship’s light north
of us. His estimate, from the ship’s course and speed, is that it’s a Federal cruiser, probably the
Florida.”

“Does he think we’ve been spotted?” the captain asked.

“He didn’t say, sir.”

“Did he say where their course will intersect ours?”

“He didn’t say that either, sir.”

“Right,” the captain said. “Return my compliments to Mr. Muller, if you please, and tell him to turn us a hundred and ten
degrees to port for the time being. And tell him I’ll join him above directly.”

“Yes, sir,” the sailor said and left.

Captain Meyer didn’t waste any time. He left the wardroom hot on the sailor’s heels.

“I’ll come as well,” Ash said, following the captain through the door.

Fanny, seeing no reason to stay where she was, brought up the rear.

Soon they were all in the wheelhouse trying to accustom their eyes to the darkness. There was no moon, and not a light was
showing on the
Miranda,
not even a cigar. Smoking was forbidden on deck. The engine room hatchways were screened with tarpaulins, and the heat down
there, normally fearsome, was now murderous. But the men there kept their complaints to themselves. The ship was quiet as
a breeze, except for the steady beat of the engine and the splash of the paddle floats.

In the anxious silence, these sounded distressingly loud.

“Has she altered course at all?” the captain was saying to the mate when Fanny grew close enough to hear them. The pilot,
Mr. McGowan, stood on the mate’s right.

“No, not that we can tell. Not that it much matters. She appears to be headed for Saint Simon’s, and whether she sees us yet
or not, she’s going to pass within a couple of miles of us.”

“Damn,” Captain Meyer said. “When?”

“At the four knots we’re making now, probably by dawn.”

“Damn,” the captain repeated.

“Maybe we could get close to shore and lay low until they are past,” McGowan offered.

“That’s what I would do in an instant,” Meyer said, “if the holds weren’t already filling faster than our pumps can work.
We don’t have time for that luxury.”

“What’s happening?” Fanny whispered to Ash Kemble.

“It looks as if we’ve run into the
Florida,”
Ash said, “on its way back to Saint Simon’s, which is her home port. The captain has already changed our course to bring
us away from her and closer to shore. But that takes us away from where he wanted us to go.”

“It means we’re headed in the general direction of the Altamaha,” Fanny said, “doesn’t it?”

“Something like that,” Ash said evenly.

“Dear God!” she sighed. “So we’re going there after all?”

“It’s a strong possibility, Fanny.”

“I feel like King Macbeth when he sees the woods moving,” she said.

He smiled. “It must be upsetting for you, seeing all the anguish you’ve invested in that place. But,” he said, pausing to
find her hand, “it is better to be alive there than drowned in a sinking ship. And you must also realize that no one is a
slave there any longer. And, after all, Pierce is dead.”

“I know all that,” she said. “And thank you, sweet Ash, for trying to comfort me.”

“But it doesn’t do any good?” he said.

“No, it doesn’t, my dear. I’m afraid that where Kemble Island is concerned, I’m unconsolable.”

“Where is Mr. Sutherland?” the captain was asking. Sutherland was the chief engineer.

“In the engine room, sir,” Muller said.

“Ask him up, would you please?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr. McGowan,” the captain said, “how acquainted are you with the waters near these shores?”

“Passably,” McGowan said.

“Mr. Meyer,” Ash said with an affirmative nod.

The captain glanced at him, and then he caught on.

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I lost track of the obvious.”

Ash smiled. “I’ve sailed these waters from before the time I could tell a tiller from a spar.”

Sutherland appeared then. “How much more can you get out of the engine you have left, Mr. Sutherland,” the captain asked.

“We might push two or three more knots out of her.”

“Do it.”

“We’ll take on more water, sir,” Muller warned. “I don’t know how long she can take the stress.”

“I know. I know. But do it.” He glanced at Ash Kemble for support, and Ash gave him a slight nod. “Would you like to give
us a course, sir?” the captain asked Ash.

“No, Mr. Meyer, not yet. Make for the Altamaha and let me kip out for a couple of hours. Wake me if anything dire is about
to befall us.” He looked at Fanny. “I’d advise you to sleep for a while, too. You’ll need to be rested up. You’re going to
get wet soon, and you’ll want all your energy.”

“How can you sleep at a time like this?” she asked.

“How can you stand in front of a thousand people and show yourself off?”

“Those things aren’t comparable.”

“Yes, they are,” he said. “Some things I’m good at. Some things you’re good at. Now go below and lie down. That’s an order.”

Fanny decided not to protest.

She awoke to the sound of booming kettledrums.

What play is this? she thought, panicked. What are my lines? There’s a cue and I’ve missed it! Kettledrums? It has to be
Hamlet.
Am I the queen or Ophelia? But I can’t be. At the drums they are both dead. At the drums the play is nearly ending….

Her eyes were shut tight, and then the room shook. And then someone was shaking her.

“Fanny!” a voice said. “Wake up!”

She opened her eyes. The face that was bending over her belonged to Ash Kemble.

“Ash!” she said.

“I must run, Fanny,” he said. “Dress quickly. We’re being shelled.”

She shivered and sat up abruptly.

“Shelled?” she asked.

“We’re running for the beach,” he said, striding quickly for the door. “Hurry.”

Fanny was dressed and on the deck five minutes later. A few cable lengths off
Miranda’s
port side was the Federal cruiser they’d been worried about last night. As they’d guessed, she was the
Florida,
and she was shooting solid shot and shells at
Miranda.
Many of them were finding their target.

Off
Miranda’
starboard prow, about a mile and a half ahead, was a line of low dark green, and below that the white cotton of surf.

Miranda,
Fanny noticed, was two feet or so lower in the water than normal.

“Get below, Fanny,” Ash said when he saw her. “I didn’t tell you to come up here. You’ll be safer in your cabin, or else in
the wardroom.”

“Why?” Fanny answered firmly but, she hoped, reasonably. “If we’re to sink, aren’t my chances better up here?”

“But you’re more protected below from shot and shells.”

“I’ll take my chances,” she said.

He looked at her, shaking his head with exasperation, but he didn’t press her further.

“How long until we make the beach?” she asked.

“The question,” he said, “is how long until it’s too shallow for the
Florida!”

“Consider it asked,” she said.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Miranda
drove on, shuddering heavily as she went, settling ever deeper. It was only a matter of a short while until the water in
her holds would douse the fire in her one remaining engine. But Mr. Sutherland was nevertheless wrenching every last bit of
steam pressure out of the boilers. He knew his machines; he knew his boiler wouldn’t burst, even though he had the needles
far past the rated red line.

Still, even with the absolute best that he forced from his machinery,
Miranda
could only creep along at six and a half knots.
Florida
was inching ever closer, flinging broadside after broadside as she came.

“Will we do it?” Fanny asked Ash during a moment when he paused to catch his breath. He had been roving everywhere up and
down the deck, lending a hand where a hand was needed, shouting, exhorting the men to put out their best. And she had not
left his side.

“Aye,” he said. “I think so. Maybe.”

At that moment,
Florida
switched to grape and canister and raked
Miranda’s
deck.

“Down!” Ash screamed, and threw Fanny to the deck by main force, then flung himself down on top of her.

Other men were screaming from pain and fright. Many of the sailors on deck were severely wounded. Some were dead or dying.

Broadsides of grape and canister continued for ten minutes, then ceased.

“Are you all right?” Ash asked Fanny when he was sure the lull was not imaginary.

“Yes, Ash,” she said. “Please get off me.”

“Of course,” he said, complying. He stood up and looked around.
Florida
had fallen back. They were in water too shallow for her.

Fanny worked herself to her feet and cast a glance first at the approaching shore, then at
Florida,
which was in the process of pulling off and heaving to, and finally at Ash himself. She recalled as she glanced about that
Ash had committed himself to acting as pilot. “Shouldn’t you be in the wheelhouse?” she asked.

“It was the plan, wasn’t it, for me to pilot us home?” he answered. “But that plan became moot when
Florida
came up on top of us. We’re simply driving in at our best speed for the beach.”

She nodded.

He pointed to the particular piece of shore they were headed for. “However,” he said, “it just so happens that I know that
place. It’s Little Saint Simon’s Island. We own it.”

“You mean to tell me that in all the vast coastline of North America, I’m to be shipwrecked and stranded on Pierce Kemble’s
plantation?”

He flashed a smile. “And I think we should consider ourselves surpassingly lucky to be landing here.”

“I still…” she said. But he broke in, his face swept with fierce intention.

“Come, Fanny. We haven’t much time. We have to save the eight chests in my cabin. They are the one portion of my cargo that
I
must
save. You’ll help me carry them up on deck.”

She nodded. “All right,” she said.

Twenty-five minutes later,
Miranda
lunged headlong into the beach of Little Saint Simon’s.

The crash, when it happened, proved to be considerably less catastrophic than Fanny had expected. But
Miranda,
after all, was moving at a rate only slightly greater than walking pace. And as an additional precaution, Ash Kemble had
lashed Fanny loosely to the foremast—after he and she had lashed his eight chests to deck rings.

As
Miranda
plowed into the beach,
Florida
was lowering a pair of longboats. Her captain was not prepared to allow the Rebels time to salvage any of
Miranda’s
rich cargo—a cargo that belonged by rights to himself and his crew and the Federal republic. Or at least, so the captain
believed.

As
Miranda
was suffering her final moments on the shore of Little Saint Simon’s, Fanny Shaw’s son, Lam Kemble, was receiving the report
of a mounted scout. Lam was then seated on his horse, Horatio, a few miles north and east of Tupelo, Mississippi, not far
from the town of Baldwyn. Noah Ballard, also on horseback, received the report along with him. A hundred yards behind them
was Lam’s 120-man squadron of cavalry. These were dismounted and resting. But they remained near their horses, expecting action
shortly.

“Colonel, they’ve got down there pretty much what you told me to expect,” the scout was saying. He had just returned from
a quick study of the fourteen locomotives that were Lam and Noah’s objective. “There’s evidence of a fair herd of troops there
recently. But they’ve gone south, by the looks of things, to lend help to the First Tennessee Cavalry. What they’ve got guarding
the engines, sir, is a couple of companies—green by the looks of their shiny new uniforms. They’ve set up some pickets around
the engines, but they ain’t dug in. There ain’t much in the way of defenses. When I was watching them, you understand, most
of the men down there was asleep. But the ones that weren’t was just mostly lolling about.”

“And the officers?” Lam asked.

“Still in the tents.”

“It sounds like they don’t expect to be bothered,” Lam said. He looked at Noah. “What do you say?”

“What about the locomotives?” Noah asked the scout. “How are they set up?”

“There’s a spur, like this,” he motioned with his hands, “that angles off the main line. All fourteen are in a line on the
spur.”

“How are they facing?” Noah asked.

The scout thought a second, then said, “They’re facing the main line. They must of backed ‘em in.”

“Right!” Noah said. “Let’s go while the sun’s still at our backs.”

Lam gave a sharp nod. “Mount!” he called out softly. The word was passed quickly down the line of troops, and moments later
the squadron was on the move.

Lam’s squadron made a massed cavalry charge.

And they were splendid—men side by side cantering and then galloping out of the sun like a great, living scythe.

First the pickets, and then two entire Federal companies broke and ran.

Their retreat was unfortunate, for the plan was to capture and hold these men until the operation was finished. They were
not in themselves dangerous, but they could send word of the presence of the Rebels to people who were dangerous. Grenville
Dodge’s forces in northeast Mississippi numbered in the thousands, and the cavalry under his command could move out on short
notice.

Lam took the normal precautions to insure against surprise. The telegraph wires had been cut, and teams of scouts patrolled
in a great arc around the northern perimeters.

But the escape of the Yankees was still a misfortune. It diminished their margin of time, and Noah’s schedule was already
tight.