Unholy Fire (23 page)

“You travel light,” I said.

The obsidian eyes stared up at me intently, and he nodded once. In the gloom of the day, his roughcast, coppery face was lost in shadow. A few minutes after we boarded the packet boat, it began slowly chugging out past the ship traffic that clogged the shallows near the wharf.

At least a hundred passengers were crowded into the salon, which smelled of burnt grease and unwashed bodies. A red-hot coal stove sat in the center of the cabin, surrounded by a brass railing. Much of the cabin space was taken up by soldiers who were ill with camp fever and dysentery, most of them lying on stretchers. They gave off the familiar putrid odor of the sick ward.

There were many civilians aboard, from well-heeled contractors with gold fobs hanging from their waistcoats to teamsters, blacksmiths, and carpenters on their way back to Washington after finishing their jobs for the army. Although it was only four o'clock in the afternoon, many of them were already asleep.

I went outside and took a turn around the narrow promenade of the lower deck. On the leeward side of the packet boat, a cold gloom of icy fog covered the surface of the water, making it seem as if we were crossing the Styx.

As soon as the boat cleared the barge and transport traffic heading into Aquia Creek, two stewards set up a serving table in the forward corner of the salon and put out a big crock of steaming soup, surrounded by platters of soft bread, sliced meat, pickles, and hard-boiled eggs.

I made myself a sandwich, joining Billy on a long bench that was anchored to the deck facing the stern. Before I had taken the second bite of my sandwich, Billy had finished everything on his plate. He looked up and caught my eyes on him.

“You never know how much time you'll have for a meal in the army,” he said, with a shy smile.

“You're right,” I agreed.

An hour later we were far out on the Potomac. I watched the oil lamps in their tin holders begin swinging from the ceiling hooks as the boat slowly rolled from port to starboard and then back again in the rough swells. As the wind came up, a squall began spitting rain against the windows.

The boat continued to pitch and roll as the stewards cleared the serving table, and people settled in around the stove rails to stay warm. Without warning, a fat man in a yellow gabardine suit leaned forward and threw up in the direction of the stove, his vomit hissing and popping as it came into contact with the red-hot metal. Like a contagion, the sickness spread to every part of the cabin, and within minutes most of the others were throwing up, too. The awful reek drove me outside.

Billy was standing next to the brass deck railing, oblivious to the wind and rain. I watched as he pulled a clay pipe out of his blouse and with practiced ease filled it with tobacco from a beaded leather sack. Scratching the head of a sulphur match with the nail of his index finger, he waited for it to burst into flame before smoothly cupping the match in his good hand and lighting his tobacco. Like many other soldiers I knew, he had developed the trick of smoking his pipe with the bowl upside down. Even with his mutilated hand, he managed it all with a smooth economy of motion.

When the squall passed over, I joined him at the rail. Together, we watched the dark Virginia shoreline slide by. At one point I saw the flickering lights of an isolated cottage and imagined a mother sitting inside by the fire wondering where her son was at that very moment.

“How many battles have you been in?” Billy asked, after several minutes of silence.

“Just one,” I said.

“You wounded?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You in a hospital?”

“Nine months.”

“I hate hospitals,” he said.

“Me, too, Billy.”

“Where were you wounded?” I asked him.

“Gaines Mill and then Second Bull Run.”

I remembered General Hooker telling us about him saving General Hathaway's life and asked if it was true.

He nodded.

“General Hathaway saved my life at Gaines Mill. I had a chance to do the same for him,” he said.

After a pause, he added, “I'm not sure he was glad I did.”

“You're a Seminole?”

He nodded again. I wondered then whether there was mixed blood in his ancestry. Apart from the bronze skin and coal black eyes, his features were more Saxon than Native American.

“Does your family still live down in Florida?”

He shook his head.

“My father and mother died fighting the army in the Third Seminole War,” he said. “The rest of my family was forced to go West.”

“And you joined the army after that?”

“I was put in the Jesuit School of Tallahassee when I was fourteen years old. It was run by Spanish priests,” he said, as if that somehow explained it.

He tapped out his pipe on the deck railing and walked back into the salon.

A set of iron steps led to the upper deck. I went up and found a dry place between the wheelhouse and the smokestack funnel. Alone there in the lee of the wind, I began to think through everything we needed to do after reaching the capital. As I pictured the two of us attempting to gain admittance to the War Department in the middle of the night, a wave of doubt swept over me. Knowing the vast power of the conspirators arrayed against us in Washington, it suddenly seemed ridiculous that Billy and I could possibly be successful in securing the critical documents.

Truly, I didn't fear for myself; I only feared failure. And I felt increasingly sure we were doomed to fail, that the whole effort was a futile and hopeless quest. As the certainty of it crowded my brain, my spirit dipped toward complete despair. If I had been carrying a bottle of laudanum, I would have drunk it without a moment's hesitation.

Sunk in gloom, I found myself contemplating why God had allowed me to survive the kind of disemboweling wound that had killed virtually every man, Union or Confederate, who had sustained one in the war. And what had I done after receiving that miraculous gift aside from wallowing in self-pity while awash in laudanum? Gazing at the dark Virginia shoreline, my thoughts drifted to Harlan Colfax, whose body now rested forever beneath the nearby swamps at Fair Oaks.

I stared up into the night. He was there, somewhere … he and Johnny Harpswell, the two men who had saved my life … both now gone forever. Perhaps this was my chance to do something that would serve as repayment for their sacrifice—to save innocent men's lives in the same cause they had died for. It would be a point of honor now, I finally decided, pledging to do my best to make their sacrifice count.

Sitting on the deck, I tried to think through every variable we might possibly encounter while trying to gain entry to the Quartermaster General's Office, and what I could do in each case to make sure we were able to penetrate the security and retrieve the files. From all my visits to the building, I also tried to remember which offices were located on each floor. Several ideas eventually came to mind. I pulled out an order pad and began writing. When I was finished, I put the pages inside my blouse and leaned back against the warm stack.

Hoping to get some rest before we arrived at the capital, I tried to will myself to sleep. Release would not come, however. In my mind's eye, I saw the clock ticking relentlessly closer to the moment when our army would launch its attack at Fredericksburg.

I offered a silent prayer up to the black sky that we would somehow succeed. At that moment a slew of bright orange cinders belched out of the smokestack and swirled around for several seconds before blowing away on the wind. I took it as a good omen and again lay back against the warm metal of the funnel. This time, sleep finally took me.

I awoke to the shriek of a steam whistle. It took me a few moments to realize that the boat was no longer in motion. Standing up, I saw that we were anchored in the lee of a small island. I rushed to the captain's cabin only to learn that the stern wheel had become fouled in floating debris, and that two of his crew were over the side attempting to clear it.

I went looking for Billy and found him in the salon. While we waited, I took the time to again go over every detail that we had learned from Major Duval, including the exact location of the shipping manifests within the document repository in the Quartermaster General's Office.

An hour later we were moving again. For the remainder of the trip, I stood at the rail, attempting to will the boat to move faster. When we finally began edging in toward the wharf at the Washington Navy Yard, I looked at my watch. It was almost eleven-thirty, and we were already behind schedule. Sam would be releasing Major Duval in just over thirty minutes.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

The magnitude of our task became evident as soon as the boat had nestled up to the wharf. A company of armed infantrymen was deployed at the foot of the arrival ramp, and an officer was checking the orders of each passenger before he was allowed to disembark. In case they were looking specifically for me, I sent Billy along the passageway to try to find out what was happening. We met back in the main passenger salon.

“They are detaining anyone with a pass signed by General Hathaway or the provost marshal general,” he said.

“Good. Well we know they are expecting us,” I said.

Motioning for him to follow me across the salon to the passageway on the outer side of the boat deck, I leaned over the railing. A small freight barge stacked with stove wood and coal was inching toward the loading bay of the packet boat to replenish its fuel stocks before the return run down to Aquia.

As the barge came alongside, Billy and I climbed over the railing and dropped down to the top of the woodpile. A greasy-haired man with a walrus mustache was standing in the wheelhouse, his boozy countenance reflected in the oil lamp that swung from the overhead. An open bottle of whiskey rested securely in his right hand.

Without preliminaries, I told him that I was absent without leave and hoped to avoid the soldiers on the wharf. He demanded ten dollars, which I immediately paid him. Five minutes later he deposited us on an unlit pier near the navy drydock.

Washington had received a major cloudburst shortly before our arrival. Runnels of water were still sluicing off buildings and wooden sidewalks into the streets, transforming them into muddy trenches. It made for slow going in the hansom cab we commandeered outside one of the waterfront saloons.

We emerged onto Pennsylvania Avenue just east of the Capitol Building and headed slowly down the hill toward the War Department. The avenue was filled with vehicles of every description, and most of them were having trouble navigating through the flooded roadways. Even with the hour approaching midnight, however, people were still crowded along the sidewalks in front of the brightly lit hotels and restaurants.

Hearing the thunderous sound of galloping horses and clattering sabers, I looked up to see two cavalry squadrons in bird's-egg blue uniforms charging up the avenue as if the fate of the Republic depended on their mission. The horses' hooves kicked up great clods of mud that flew in every direction, splattering the clothes and finery of the people crowded onto the sidewalk.

The president's mansion was almost completely dark as we rode by, and I wondered whether President Lincoln was still working up in his private office. The thought of him actually being there gave me another idea as we pulled up at the side entrance to the War Department building on Seventeenth Street.

As Billy and I got out of the carriage, I stared up at the hundreds of windows in the massive building and saw that only a handful were lit. If we were lucky, there might only be a few guards on duty inside.

Five sentries stood at attention in front of the massive oak entrance doors. A sixth soldier, the sergeant in command, stood behind them smoking a thin cigar.

“State your business,” he demanded.

“Captain McKittredge reporting to General Halleck with dispatches from Falmouth,” I said, handing him one of the orders that I had drafted myself on the packet boat and signed in the commanding general's name. He carried it to the gas lamp that was mounted on the brick sidewall of the portico. After reading the forged order, he handed it back to me.

“General Halleck left the building several hours ago,” he said. “There ain't no one up on that floor right now besides the night clerks in the Quartermaster General's Office.”

“I was ordered to wait outside General Halleck's suite until someone arrives to receive the dispatches,” I said. “Believe me, I would much rather be over at the National right now, enjoying a drink with my girl. If you would just initial the back of these orders to show that you denied me entry to the building, Sergeant, I would be very grateful.”

“I ain't gonna sign that,” he said, taking a step back.

I shook my head as if his decision was most unwelcome.

“Why all the security?” I asked.

“Earlier tonight we were put on alert to detain anyone bearing orders from the Provost Marshal General's Office,” he said. “I ain't got no idea why.”

I held out the forged papers again.

“Well, as I told you, Sergeant, it would make me very happy if you would just sign …”

“Wait upstairs like you was ordered,” he interrupted me, before standing aside to let us pass.

Major Duval had said that all the procurement files were stored in a well-guarded document repository on the fourth floor of the building. In order to gain access to it, he said, one had to go through several outer offices. Even the stairwell was guarded, he had told Sam.

Only the telegraph office remained open on the first floor. As we headed up the broad staircase, I saw two operators seated at paper-strewn desks taking down a stream of messages from the clacking telegraph receivers.

The next two floors were dark. When we reached the fourth floor, a pair of guards stood with their rifles at port arms, flanking the empty stairwell. Two more stood at attention at the doorway to the outer office of the Quartermaster General's headquarters.