Rhett Butler's people (37 page)

When their pickets spotted the

Widow,

the Federals gathered on the bank to see the legendary runner. The river was too wide here for their field artillery, and as the graceful boat slipped downstream, these Yankee soldiers threw their hats in the air and cheered her.

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Tunis anchored below Fort Fisher, just above the bar where the river emerged into open ocean.

The Federal fleet was pounding the great sand fort, and from the

Widows

deck, Fort Fisher was a colossal sandstorm: sand plumes and dirty sand clouds tossed aloft by artillery concussions. Tunis shouted to Rhett over the pandemonium. "Ten o'clock, Rhett! You hear?" Tunis tapped his watch. "You ain't here by ten o'clock, with or without your boy, I'm pullin' out."

Rhett bowed. "I am obliged to you, Captain Bonneau."

"And don't you

ever

tell Ruthie I done it!"

Rowing himself to shore in the

Widow's

dinghy, Rhett tasted sand in his teeth.

Since he'd received no reinforcements from Braxton Bragg, General Whiting, Fort Fisher's commander, had stripped other river forts of men, and as Rhett tied up, a gunboat was disgorging soldiers onto the wharf. These artillerymen were like no Confederates Rhett had seen in years: well fed, their uniforms entire and recently laundered. Until today, these men had had a good war. Perched in gun batteries above the river, they'd lobbed an occasional shell at Federal blockaders venturing too close, but they'd never been under fire themselves. Grateful runner captains had kept them supplied with victuals and whiskey.

Formed into ragged ranks, these comfortable soldiers peered unhappily at the maelstrom ahead.

Rhett turned to a corpulent captain whose uniform had fit less snugly four years ago. "Nice day," Rhett observed.

The ocean was a mirror except where short rounds fell and spouted. White streamers marked projectiles' arcs into the battered fort. Each Federal vessel was visible, as if under slight magnification. The breeze their firing created was strong enough to whip the smoke from their gun muzzles. The ironclads

Pawtuxet, Brooklyn, Mahopac, Canonicus, Huron, Saugus, Kansas, Pontoosuc, Yantic, Mohican, Monadnock, New Ironsides, Pequot, Senaca, Tacony, Unadilla,

and

Maumee

stood a thousand yards offshore, fronting wooden warships

Minnesota, Colorado, Tuscarora, Mackinaw, Powhatan,

Wabash, Susquehanna, Ticonderoga, Juniata, Vanderbilt, and

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Shenendoah.

A dozen smaller warships were farther out, attended by eighteen gunboats and twenty-two troop transports.

Fort Fisher was contiguous sand dunes in an upside down L. The long leg of the L faced the Federal fleet, and the short leg crossed the peninsula, facing the Federal landing party. Fisher's sand dunes were fifty feet wide and thirty feet high, linked by gun platforms in the saddles between.

Before the Federal bombardment, Fort Fisher had had barracks, corrals, and a parade ground. These had been pounded so thoroughly, not a scrap remained.

The corpulent captain raised his hand and ordered his men to the double-quick. Rhett took a deep breath, lowered his head, and ran like a hare. He pounded along the road until it disappeared in shell holes. Rhett's legs ached from running through soft sand and he stumbled and fell. Exploding sand erupted around him and concussions slapped his eardrums. The sand deluge filled his shirt, pants, and boots and thickened every strand of his sweaty hair.

Fort Fisher's flag was a torn rag on a spliced flagpole. Some risers on the Headquarters Battery staircase were shattered; others, two and three in a row, were missing. Rhett clambered up rails, risers -- whatever he could grab hold of. The battery's guns had been dismounted and one gunbarrel flung partway down the sea face. Across the saddle between the dunes, sandbags were piled waist-high. Behind them, an officer had his glass trained on the Federal fleet. At his feet, his orderly kept his back against the sandbags.

"General Whiting?"

The General snapped his glass closed. "If you are a journalist, sir, inform your readers we will hold this fort."

"I have come from General Bragg."

The General's face flamed with eagerness. "Is Bragg sending reinforcements?"

"I am not privy to General Bragg's plans, sir." Rhett wiped his envelope clean of sand before giving it to the General.

Braxton Bragg's orders transferred Private Tazewell Watling from the

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18th North Carolina Junior Reserves to Colonel Rufus Bullock's Department of Railroads. Rhett Butler, of that department, would escort Private Watling.

General Whiting said, "I ask Bragg for reinforcements and he takes the men I have."

"Watling's just a boy, sir. He's fifteen."

"The Federals outnumber us four to one."

The winter night was closing down and each minute was darker than the last. When the Federal fleet abruptly stopped firing, silence rang like a carillon. Whiting's orderly stood up, stretched, and took out his pipe.

"Don't light that pipe, Sergeant," Whiting said. "They may not be finished with us."

One by one, the anchored fleet's portholes illuminated. Bugles, some discordant, some sweet, sounded the dinner call.

"I don't suppose you'd take Private Watling's place, sir? You're no boy of fifteen." The General waited, head cocked for Rhett's reply. "I thought not." General Whiting endorsed Bragg's orders with a pencil stub. "Are you sure Bragg said nothing of a counterattack? Did you see signs he might come to our relief?"

Rhett spoke carefully: "Yesterday, General, there were wagons at Bragg's headquarters. I believe General Bragg was evacuating."

General Whiting smacked his fist into his palm. "He cannot abandon us. Not even that goddamned Bragg.... I will write him myself. Bragg must understand!" The General scrambled down the broken staircase.

When the orderly lit his pipe, the match flare was blinding. "Might as well get kilt tonight as tomorrow," he opined.

Like ants from an anthill, Fort Fisher's defenders emerged from bombproofs deep under the dunes. The full moon brightened the fort. While quartermasters rolled barrels and relayed boxes of hardtack, hungry soldiers formed ragged lines.

The wiry corporal finished his side meat and licked his fingers clean before he'd touch Rhett's document. The corporal ran his forefinger over each word and refolded the paper into the envelope. "Watling know 'bout this?"

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"No."

"Watling's a good boy. Most of these Junior Reserves are plumb petrified. Some of 'em won't come out of the bombproofs even when the Federals ain't shootin'." The corporal was missing a front tooth. "Watling was our powder boy long as we still had us a gun to shoot. Us gunners think high of that boy, mister."

"You don't mind my taking him out?"

The corporal grinned a gap-toothed grin. "Take me, too?"

Chewing on a biscuit, Taz Watling sat on the trunnion of a dismounted Columbiad. His uniform hung loose on his skinny frame. "Be damned," Taz said. "I thought you were in the army."

"Rode with Forrest for a spell."

"They say Forrest's had twenty horses killed under him."

"That's what they say."

Out on the ocean, an ironclad fired. The streak of the burning fuse arced across dark water, dropped into the fort, and exploded.

"They'll hit us tomorrow," Taz said matter-of-factly.

"They only outnumber you four to one."

"Don't joke. You're always joking."

"You mean this isn't funny? Eighteen hundred brave men waiting to die while Braxton Bragg is skedaddling? Got to hand it to ol' Brax."

"I was proud when you joined the army," Taz said. "What are you doing here? Why are you in civilian clothes?"

"My uniform hatched lice." Rhett perched on an empty powder keg and lit a cigar. "The Army of Tennessee's finished, so I got reassigned. I thought I'd look you up."

The interior of the fort was moonlit sand except for sparks from cigars and pipes. Out on the ocean, the Federal fleet was a floating metropolis ablaze with light. On the peninsula, Federal campfires flamed from shore to shore.

"I understand you're a hero. I had hoped your expensive education would prevent that."

Taz shrugged. "The Creoles say,

'Capon vive longtemps.'

Probably my Butler blood. Wasn't Great-Grandfather a pirate?"

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" 'The coward lives a long time,'" Rhett translated. "Creoles are feisty bastards. I don't know if Louis Valentine Butler would have called himself a 'pirate.' Louis would have preferred 'Gentleman of Fortune.' "

The boy sighed. "Anyway, I'm glad to see you."

Rhett wiped sand from his silver flask and unscrewed two nesting cups. Rhett filled his before filling one for the boy.

A fiery streak passed overhead and its concussion pressed Rhett's jacket against his back.

The boy took a mouthful, gagged and coughed.

"Don't waste it, son. That brandy's older than you are."

Taz took another swallow. "I haven't heard anything from my mother. We get no mail."

"Belle was fine when I passed through Atlanta. She's safe there. The Federals won't come back."

Taz drank his brandy in brave gulps and passed his cup for a refill. "Might as well get drunk once in my life."

"Might as well." Rhett brimmed the cup.

They drank for a time.

Taz said, "Being a powder boy isn't easy as you'd think. I run to the bombproof magazine -- that tunnel is six hundred steps, by my count -- for a twenty-five-pound powder bag, which I tote back to the gun. Federal shells flyin' around like ... like" -- he gestured -- "like damn sand fleas. If you get buried in sand, you better claw out, or you'll suffocate. I'll take another drink, thank you. I'm thirstier'n I thought.

"I'd rather be a powder boy, anyway, than hid in the bombproofs, breathing twice-breathed air and stinkin' buckets to do your business in. Damn! If this is how brandy tastes, it's a wonder anyone drinks it!"

The unfamiliar taste didn't deter him from drinking too much too fast. Taz rambled on about Fort Fisher, how proud he was to have the gunners' respect, until his speech began to slur. When the cup dropped from his nerveless hand, the boy murmured, "Why won't you be my father?" and slid down onto the sand.

With the wiry corporal on one end of the litter and Rhett on the other, they carried the boy to the dock.

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"What's your name, Corporal?"

"Why'd you be wanting to know?"

"Might meet up after the war."

"Small chance of that." The corporal added, "If you keep this young'un alive, he'll make a man one day."

Fifteen minutes before Tunis's deadline, Rhett's dinghy bumped against the

Merry Widow

and her crewmen plucked the unconscious boy aboard.

When Rhett returned to the fort, the corporal said, "Didn't expect to see you again. Federals'll be hittin' us tomorrow."

"Did you ever love a woman?"

Startled: "My wife, Ella, died three years past."

"You lost everything."

"I reckon."

After a time, Rhett said, "Anyway, it's a fine moon."

The corporal nodded. "You got the boy away?"

"Tazewell Watling's going to England."

"I'll be! I've heard tell England is a green sort of place. I heard folks is happy there."

"In any event, they're not shooting each other."

"My," the corporal said, "wouldn't that be pleasant?"