Read Ebook: North by night by Burchard Peter

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Ebook has 1610 lines and 77627 words, and 33 pages

"That's the way with doctors."

The two men finished dressing and turned away from the stretch of peaceful beach and the limitless ocean.

They walked to the boat and dragged it through the slime. Red stepped in and sat in the stern. Tim took the oars.

Not a breath of air was stirring the trees. One of Tim's oars smacked the water, and a white egret flapped suddenly into the air from a saffron-colored tidal pool, flickering white against the bluish Spanish moss that clung to the trees along the shore.

The moon came up above the cooking fires and shimmered behind the heat that was still held by the sands of St. Helena Island. Mosquitoes rose from the swamps and pools and sluggish rivers to the west.

The soldiers unstacked their rifles and cleaned them. They packed their gear and settled down by the cooking fires and boiled what might be their last hot meal for quite a while.

Tim and Red shared a tent with Captain Kautz and Dawson but tonight they sat at the table alone. Tim had set out a candle in a bright brass holder. A faint breeze stirred the tent flaps, and the light flickered on the tin cups and plates. Red's beard glinted in the yellow light.

Most of the boys had already struck their tents, but Kautz liked to keep things set up until the very last so he could spread out maps and do his work. He was short and fierce and powerfully built. He would sit for hours before the company went into action, his blouse open and his head bent, studying the map. He would pull his beard and fuss and fidget and suddenly get to his feet with his bristling chin thrust forward. "And that's how it will go," he would say and then smile frostily to himself. "If the Confederates will cooperate."

Tonight Kautz was having supper with the colonel. Tim hadn't seen Dawson since early morning. Everyone knew the regiment was to sail at dawn, and the camp hummed with talk of the fighting that lay ahead. The boys knew they were moving against Charleston, and most of them were eager to go.

The candle guttered as the two men finished their meal. Red cupped his hand around the flame and blew it out. In a nearby tent they heard a clatter of plates, and a shout went up. Tim leaned back so that he could see past the tent flap. A man was running wildly around a cooking fire, stripped to the waist. "It's Corporal Steele," Tim said. "Every company has a clown."

Now Sergeant Fitch and some of the other boys joined the fun. They whooped and hollered and jigged. The firelight struck their bodies like a patchwork quilt. Tim smiled to himself.

A voice was suddenly raised above the din. A blond-haired man of middle height came into the light, with both fists clenched. "You men have work to do," he screamed. "Clean your rifles and assemble your gear. Tomorrow we move up the coast."

Tim said, "Dawson's drunk as a lord." He stood up and stepped outside the tent, moving toward the fire.

Dawson looked up, his chin trembling. "Lieutenant," he said in a shaking voice, "are these your men?"

"Yes, Captain, they're my men," Tim said. "Their rifles are clean and they're ready to go. They were just letting off a little steam."

"Are you being insolent with me?"

Tim looked down at the captain's sweat-streaked shirt. He turned to Sergeant Fitch. "Sergeant," he said, controlling the anger in his voice, "you men look over your gear and report back to me."

"Captain." He turned. "Can I help you to a cup of coffee?"

Dawson put his hands on his hips and swayed a little, focusing his watery eyes on Tim. "Mind your manners, Lieutenant," he said and turned and walked unsteadily away.

As soon as he'd gone Red staggered out of the tent. He put his hands on his hips, swayed back and forth and crossed his eyes. "Were you bein' inshulent wi' me?"

Tim grinned, reached out a long arm and pushed Red so hard that he staggered back and fell on the grass.

It wasn't long before Sergeant Fitch came back with his boys. "Our rifles are clean and our gear is packed," he said.

Tim stood up and kicked some sand into the fire. "Are your buttons nice and shiny so the Rebs can see them in the dark?"

"Like diamonds, sir."

Corporal Steele was hanging back, but Tim could see that he was smiling. "Why don't you boys sit down for a while?"

Steele sat on an empty hardtack box and the others sprawled on the grass. Sergeant Fitch cleared his throat. "Lieutenant Kelly, I wonder would you sing us that Irish lullaby?"

"Now what would a strapping man like you be wanting with a lullaby?"

Red sang in his fine tenor voice.

As other soldiers gathered around, Tim stood up and left the group. He walked back to the tent. A warm breeze blew in from the ocean. He reached for his poncho and spread it on the ground not far from the tent. He lay on his back with his hands behind his head.

Red's voice came clear in the silence of the starlit night. Tim thought of Kate. The last time he'd written her he'd known in his heart he was writing the thoughts of a boy who had left home two long years before. If only he and Kate could meet and talk for a while.

He remembered the first time he'd danced with her, the light from the chandeliers striking the whirling figures in the white-painted room of the new Town Hall. As he drifted into sleep Tim thought about the dresses, pink and salmon and powder blue against the men's black suits.

When reveille sounded Tim woke up and rolled over. Red lay on the sand a few feet away, groaning as he opened his eyes in the predawn light. "Last night when I curled up here," he said in a rasping whisper, "I thought you had a good idea, sleeping on the ground."

Tim felt his poncho and his clothes. They were soaked with dew.

Captain Kautz was already up, sitting on a keg outside the tent, straining his eyes to take in every detail of the waking camp, already thinking about the day that lay ahead. "We break camp now. The transport moves with the morning tide." He stood up. "I suppose we have to set off a charge of powder by Dawson's head to get him up."

Dawson came out of the tent and stared, silent and hostile, at Kautz's back. "Very funny, Captain," he said, putting his hand to his head.

The four men ate their rations of salt pork and hardtack and bitter coffee. The companies formed in columns to march to the pier and board a ferry that would take them across to Hilton Head.

As they crossed Port Royal Sound the sky in the east was touched by the light of dawn. A mist hung over the sea. The ferry coasted into the landing and the soldiers were silent, watching the shore or staring moodily at the deck, showing none of the spirit of the night before. The troops waited by the big, gray sheds, built when the islands had first been occupied. The men talked quietly and some of them realizing that there would be a wait, took off their cartridge boxes and canteens and stacked their rifles.

The pier crossed a narrow strip of beach and jutted more than a hundred yards into the water. A narrow-gauge railroad track ran out to the end of the pier where a T-shaped float broadened the docking space. Two large transports waited at the end of the pier, smoke trailing away from their single funnels. Just ahead of them a smaller vessel was being unloaded by half-a-dozen stevedores. Beyond the pier were the masts and funnels of a score of other ships, the farthest ones dim in the morning mist.

Tim went forward to speak to Kautz. The captain turned. "The colonel says dispense with roll call. No one will want to desert us here." He motioned toward the waiting transports and gestured toward a column of men that waited on the pier. "We board the ship on the left," he said. "Company K will occupy the forward deck. We will occupy the stern."

Tim made his way back along the wall of one of the sheds. He found Red no more cheerful than anyone else. Tim said, "At least we're heading north."

"I suppose there should be comfort in that."

Dawson stood close by. "North or south, it's all the same to me," he said. "I want to see the last of these flea-ridden islands. I'd like to be defending Beaufort. That's the job for me. The boys in Beaufort sit on verandas and rock all day."

Red smiled. "A veranda in New Haven would look good to me."

The branches of a spindly oak showed above the roof of the nearest shed. The place was colorless and barren in the early morning light.

Now the columns of soldiers began to move.

A couple of Navy men dashed past on their way to their ship, holding their little pie-shaped hats, their bell-bottomed trousers flopping foolishly around their ankles. A soldier raised a little cheer and the whole column took it up. One of the sailors blushed and quickened his pace.

Kautz and Dawson were waiting at the end of the pier. They motioned the soldiers forward and directed them to climb the gangplank.

As the men reached the deck they passed a solemn old sailor with a full white beard. He watched them closely as one by one they stepped to the deck, nodding to each in a silent gesture of mournfulness.

The transport moved through the anchored fleet and into the channel. She steamed east until she was well away from shore. When she was two miles out she swung northeast, and some of the soldiers sought shelter from the heat on the deck below or in the shadows of the boats.

Tim leaned against the rail with Red, watching the distant shore. Close by, the air seemed clear and the sun reflected on the water, but the distance was shrouded in haze.

Shortly after noon one of the lookouts gave a yell. A big, black-bearded gunner shouted to his men, and they struggled up from where they lounged with the soldiers on the deck.

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