Hearts Under Siege (Civil War Collection) (11 page)

Her cheeks flushed with anger as she remembered the scene created by facing the ladies and suggesting that they sleep with the door open. All five ladies narrowed their brows and frowned at her, responding only with silence.

The odor of the earthen walls permeated her senses until she could hardly breathe. A lump of nausea lodged in the back of her throat. She stopped at the narrow opening and closed her eyes, imagining a cool breeze on her face. Even the illusion of fresh air was better than this oppressive earthen prison.

Her first night there, Alexandra learned the details of the constant shelling. They sat eating an unidentified soup from chipped bowls.

One of the boys glanced at her from a few feet away. Dirt smudged his cheeks. “Miss?”

“The constant shelling…”

“The shells come from as far as four miles away. They sound like they’re coming right over us, but most likely they aren’t—”

An incoming shell drowned out his voice now. Everyone stopped eating and gasped. They sighed with relief as it landed and exploded in the distance.

“There, see,” the boy continued, though Alexandra heard the tremor in his voice.

“What if it lands on the cave?” she asked.

The boy fidgeted and glanced at his mother sitting next him. Engaged in another conversation, she provided no assistance. He shook his head. “Sometimes they get buried in the dirt and never explode.”

“Sometimes…” she repeated.

“Really, dear,” Aunt Maggie said from her imported rocker, interrupting Alexandra’s reverie. “Wouldn’t you like to sit down and rest yourself?”

Rest? Her muscles ached from too much rest. Her mind was sluggish. How could Aunt Maggie just sit there and do nothing for hours on end? If only she had so much as a book or a piece of paper and pencil. Anything to distract her weary thoughts.

She drank from a chipped earthen glass one of the boys had given her. Life here in the caves differed from anything she could ever have imagined. What she now thought of as her previous life was a distant memory, overshadowed and hazy. The importance of crystal, china, silk, and lace became frivolous and shallow here where the essentials included a chipped earthen cup.

Alexandra’s mind whirled with questions. She paced and wrung her hands tighter. How could Thomas go away and leave her here? She sat on the floor and picked up the needlepoint canvas she had left resting on the ground. When the needle struck her finger, she yelped. She jerked her finger away and put it into her mouth, setting aside the canvas.

Thomas haunted her every move and distracted her from the simplest task. The sensation of his kisses flooded her senses with images of his hands stroking her cheek. Would she ever see him again?

“Alexandra?”

Alexandra sighed and looked up. Aunt Maggie scowled at her.

“Have you gone deaf?”

“No, I’m sorry. I was just…thinking,” Alexandra said.

“No doubt about that young man.”

“What young man?”

Aunt Maggie rolled her eyes. “What young man, indeed. The one who brought you here.”

“Indeed, I would think not. I hardly know Lieutenant Malone.”

“The one who brought you to Vicksburg,” Aunt Maggie responded, a note of impatience edging her voice.

“I think not,” Alexandra repeated, halfheartedly.

Aunt Maggie said something indiscernible.

“Aunt Maggie,” Alexandra asked. “Why didn’t you ever get married?”

“Not all of us are lucky enough to find someone who will love us back,” Aunt Maggie rushed out. “There was a young farmer once who took a shine to me, but I would have none of it. I guess I thought there would be others to choose from. Had I known he would be the only one to express interest, I might have…” Silent, she stared into space then shook her head and continued. “Anyway, I’m content in my life. I have the church, after all.”

“But is it enough?” Alexandra blurted, then put her fingertips to her lips briefly. She glanced at her aunt, looking for signs of pain in her eyes.

Instead, Aunt Maggie took on a dreamy look Alexandra hadn’t seen before. Alexandra lowered her hand and sighed.

“Sometimes, it’s more than enough,” Aunt Maggie said. “But sometimes I’d trade a score of years to wake up next to a man who loves me.” Aunt Maggie glanced around and lowered her voice. “But then it isn’t proper to speak of such things.”

Proper? What difference did that make anymore, under these circumstances? They were in the midst of a war with shells exploding over their heads, their lives in constant danger.

Her stomach knotted, and she glanced around, twisting her hands in her shirt
.
I must get out of here
.
Men gave their lives out there, protecting their country while she crouched in a cave, powerless and helping no one. She touched the spot inches below her neck, her hand pressing over the vial with the hidden message sent by her grandfather to General Pemberton. It pressed against her damp skin.

The general currently resided in the city. Some of the families in the cave spoke of having dinner with him before the bombing began. Aunt Maggie told a story of having tea with him. Alexandra didn’t kno
w
exactl
y
where to find him but believed she could locate him.

Thomas had promised to discover the general’s location then come for her to deliver the message, but she’d seen neither hide nor hair of him.

She sat on the floor, against the wall in the few feet she claimed as her own. With the constant shelling, like the distant rumble of thunder shaking the earth around them with its deafening nearness, everyone’s nerves seemed to teeter on the edge. A child wailed as his fidgeting mother stroked his hair. The Reverend read gloom and doom passages of the Bible to a handful of youngsters huddled around the central fire, and others, like Aunt Maggie, pursued genteel activities like needlepoint and knitting. In this cacophony of activity, Alexandra, at last, drew no one’s attention.

Alexandra removed the tube from her neck. Perhaps she could put her time to good use after all. Unrolling the paper, she studied it. The words appeared in random order, not making sense, but at the top of the page where one normally put the date appeared five letters, XMOFI. For a date, it had to be either March or April. Since they were in mid-June, she went with April. Turning to the soft cave wall beside her, Alexandra wrote out the letters of the alphabet. She stopped several times to glance around, but no one looked at her. Even Aunt Maggie had gone off to peel potatoes for dinner.

She filled in the letters for April then the rest of the alphabet. So far, everything fit together. In her mind, she unscrambled the words.

This is too easy.

She had deciphered far more complicated puzzles as a child. Within minutes, she finished.

Sitting back, she watched the continuing activity around her. Her world had shifted, but everything remained the same. Though it was probably too late, she had to try to get the message to the Confederate army anyway. If she had taken the time to decode it before, she could have sent it with Thomas. Assuming, of course, she trusted him. Did she? Her heart warmed with trust for him, but her mind demanded caution.

Using the palm of her hand, she smeared the writing on the wall and joined the others for lunch. As she ate the meager fare in silence, thoughts of how to leave the cave unnoticed washed over her mind. Travel would be easier in her boy’s clothes.

After lunch, she went into the “bedroom” area and pulled on a pair of pants underneath the dress Sarah gave her. She could not discreetly wear the shirt beneath the dress, and it would be far too hot anyway; however, it fit into a knapsack along with a biscuit she saved from lunch. She took the knapsack out and stowed it beneath her chair. Silence at last settled over the cave now that the Reverend lay sleeping along with the children. The wailing child slept also, probably from exhaustion. Even the shelling paused.

After sweeping her rug and putting her broom aside, Mrs. McRae came and sat next to Alexandra.

“Are you feeling well, honey?” she asked. “I noticed you didn’t eat much at lunch.”

“Thank you for being concerned,” Alexandra said. “I’m fine, truly.”

“I know you went through quite an ordeal getting here,” Mrs. McRae insisted. “What with your brother being in the ship explosion and your grandfather being captured by the Yankees and you being attacked by them and then being forced to travel without a chaperone. Oh, my.” She paused long enough to take a breath, fanning herself with her hand.

“Word certainly gets around,” Alexandra said.

“I certainly hope no one gets the idea that you were compromised.”

Alexandra jerked her gaze to the older woman’s, cursing inwardly. She should have been prepared for this. She had naively expected more understanding. She wasn’t naive enough, though, to believe that kissing a man constituted being compromised.

“Who would think such a thing?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at Mrs. McRae.

“Oh, you know how rumors get started.”

They get started by people doing exactly what you’re doin
g
.

Suddenly, a volley of dull, heavy shelling sounded in the direction of the river. The room grew quiet enough to hear a pin drop as heads came up and mouths opened. A storm of deafening explosions followed as the mortar shells started their downward fall towards them. From the sound of it, there must have been half a dozen of them. Mothers ran and threw themselves on top of their children. Others knelt and covered their heads.

Then the earth shook and trembled all around them. Dust fell from the earthen rooftop. Alexandra lunged for the opening of the cave, her heart thudding with fear they’d be buried alive. The shells fell all around them, landing with thumps and sending clods of earth spraying in every direction. One did hit over the cave, directly overhead.

In the deafening seconds of quiet that followed, people stumbled to the door to assess the damage. Mrs. McRae screamed something. At first her yells didn’t register with Alexandra or seemingly with anyone else.

“Oh my God!” Mrs. McRae turned in circles, her hands twisting in her hair. “Lucy. Where is Lucy?”

Alexandra didn’t remember seeing the tenyearold since lunch. The girl hounded her mother all morning to go to a nearby cave to play with a friend. Alexandra didn’t remember her mother relenting, but she had tuned out the bulk of Mrs. McRae’s lengthy lectures on the dangers of going outside their cave.

Mrs. McRae bolted for the door, calling, “Lucy!”

Alexandra and a stream of people followed. A few refugees from the cave next to theirs stood about.

“Have you seen Lucy?” Mrs. McRae cried.

A little girl, Lucy’s age, her eyes wide in her dirt-smudged face, peered out from behind her mother’s skirt.

Mrs. McRae ran up to her and knelt in front of her. “Rachel, where is Lucy?”

Rachel raised her arm and pointed to the damaged cave five yards to the east, now crumbled into a pile of rocks and dirt on its left side.

“Oh dear, we thought everyone was accounted for,” Rachel’s mother said. “When the cave started to crumble, we got out.”

Mrs. McRae and several of the others ran into the collapsing cave and dug with their hands, spewing earth everywhere. Shells burst overhead, and Alexandra pressed her hands to her ears. She darted into her cave to retrieve a spade resting against the wall by the dining area. She swiped up the tool and rushed to the scene of the rescue. Lucy’s cries came through layers of earth, muddled near the door of the cave. Seconds later, her deliverers broke through the dirt wall, and out popped Lucy, sobbing and wailing and soiled from head to toe, her clothes torn in several places. She ran into her mother’s arms. Mrs. McRae squeezed her then pulled away, holding onto the girl’s arms.

Sniffling, she offered a smile. “Are you hurt, my dear?”

Lucy shook her head. “No, Mama.”

Mrs. McRae wiped a smudge of dirt from her girl’s face.

“Your lip.”

Alexandra glanced at Lucy’s mouth. A streak of blood colored the bottom lip, dripping from a crack. Lucy broke out into another spasm of wails.

Concerned mothers rushed to Lucy’s side, hovering and offering words of comfort and concern. Did Mrs. McRae compensate for guilty feelings of tormenting Alexandra instead of keeping an eye on her own daughter? The thought intrigued Alexandra.

Alexandra gazed to the north. The river glittered under a setting sun. She went back in the direction of her cave and up the few yards to the summit of the hill and lifted her face to the breeze. As she watched, the enemy fired a mortar shell, and it arced in the sky, leaving a trail of smoke. It wavered to and fro then chose a spot to swoop down upon like a deadly bird searching out its prey.

Alexandra’s breath caught in her throat; the shell shot straight for her head. In a shriek of terror, she turned and darted the way she had come. Then she saw the shell explode into a shower of dirt and rock somewhere in the city of Vicksburg. She stopped and leaned against the hillside, pressing her hand over her chest over the rapid beating of her heart.

A chill ran the length of her spine. She was alone. In all the commotion, no one had noticed her walking away. She could disappear into the city right now, and no one would realize she was gone until Aunt Maggie looked for her. Her heart picked up speed again. She could leave!