It was not what he saw that shocked him, for he could not see a thing. All the lanterns were out on the beach, and not another light yielded any clue of the situation there. The sound, however, was eerie. All firing had stopped, and moaning, screaming, and pleading from the beach and the foreshore had taken its place. The wounded of both sides mingled their cries. The battle was over, but the pain was not.
He could hear people starting to move among the wounded on the beach, and Wake assumed that they were Rebels trying to rescue their wounded comrades. He let them go without ordering any more firing. It was over, and he had to rescue his own sailors, who were scattered, dead, wounded, and dazed, on the beach and in the water. He suddenly realized that he did not know what time it was. He reached in his pocket for his watch and found by the lantern light on deck that it was four in the morning. His mind jumped back to that other battle on that other river. Wake’s hand subconsciously went up to the scar on his head as he remembered the aftermath of that battle.
This one was different. And not in favor of his side. The Rebels had pushed them off their beach position and scattered their men and equipment. The only thing that had saved many more from dying here was the twelve-pounder of the Rosalie and Durlon’s skillful use of it.
Wake also realized that he still had soldiers depending on him who were inland on their mission. He had no idea what had happened to them. No sounds of battle had been heard from their direction, so he had to assume that they were still in good shape and active.
As he surveyed the carnage around him, he knew his first job was to get the wounded aboard and the still-effective ones into some type of organization in the cutters. He had to struggle to concentrate with all the noise of the suffering. When he saw Rork coming toward him, he knew it would call for more decisions.
Rork stood quietly, waiting for his captain to recognize him. When Wake finally did, Rork gave the report Wake had been dreading.
“Sir, butcher’s bill is bad, but old Rosey saved it from being a worse un. Dead are six men, including little Fox and Bosun Moore. Fitzhugh is among the fourteen wounded, three of ’em bad, including the little lad Sommer. I don’t know about that wound of Sommer, sir. Through an’ through, but we’ve got to keep that thing clean for certain. After all of them are counted off, sir, we have in the way of nine men not wounded. Countin’ the lads not wounded too bad to fight, includin’ Lamar there, we have about thirteen men effective for fightin’. Damage to one of the cutters makes it too bad for using. Between the Reb bullets and Durlon’s grape, that boat is done for. Leavin’ us two cutters and the Rosalie, sir. Old Rosey is ready for action or sailin’ though, sir.”
Wake exhaled a deep breath. The list of wounded and dead had almost made him sick. There was another question to be answered.
“Rork, did any of them say how this happened?”
Rork scowled and spoke in a low tone.
“Aye, Captain. Fitzhugh told me the Rebs said the proper password and walked forward until they were almost within the camp. Opened fire at point blank range. Our lads didn’t have a chance till the Rosey saved ’em.”
“They knew the password? Then there’s a traitor or a fool involved in this endeavor, Rork, and we’d better find out who it is quickly. You heard no firing from the direction of the army expedition?”
“Just the odd shot now and again, sir. No sound of any battle. Further orders, sir?”
“Very well, Rork. Make sure the wounded on the beach are taken off immediately to the boats and the sloop. Leave the Reb dead and wounded for the Rebs to get. Keep a strong watch tonight till dawn. At that time, we’ll get under way and take the wounded to the Gem of the Sea. We will have to come back for the soldiers as soon as we can.”
“Aye aye, sir. ’Bout two hours till light. I’ll put half the men down till then, once we make sure of the wounded boys ashore.”
“Rork, what do you make of the weather?”
“Nor’wester later today or tonight, for sure, sir. Winds veerin’ now and risin’, sure as hell.”
Wake told the bosun to carry on and stood there looking aloft at the clouds, worrying about the impending storm. Wounded men covered the open areas of the deck. Wake felt suddenly so tired. But now Rork was back with something else.
“Sir, what about our dead lads? A burial on the beach in the morn, or take with us when we leave this place?”
“We will take all of our men away with us, Rork.”
With those tired words, Wake sat down at the stern and looked about him as Rork turned away to lead the working parties. The men were finally all back aboard the sloop and the two remaining cutters. Wounded were laid out on the deck of the sloop and were being tended to by Durlon and Burns. Wake, feeling useless and wanting to do something, went to help them.
The watch indicated six-thirty in the morning when Rork came to his captain and advised him that all vessels were ready to get under way for Boca Grande and the surgeon’s mates aboard the Gem of the Sea. Extra sailors from the cutters were on the sloop to help work the sails, and Rork soon had them hauling away on the main and jib halliards to set the reefed sails. Other men were weighing the anchor, and soon the Rosalie spun around and downwind to the mouth of the river. The cutters set smaller sails and followed along in the path of the larger ship. The wind had picked up considerably during the remaining dark hours, by dawn becoming enough that sail area had to be reduced to dampen the roll of the vessel for the safety and comfort of the wounded, who still lay on the deck of the gunboat.
Wake set the course to the south. As the flotilla left the mouth of the Myakka River, the wind and seas picked up even further, as did the speed of the advance. Wake could see that all hands were exhausted and told Rork to set watch with a skeleton watch and send the rest off watch to get some rest. Though he was exhausted himself, Wake sent Rork off for a couple hours of sleep also.
Several hours later, now on a broad reach that sent them racing along the coast of the Turtle Bay islands, they saw the Gem of the Sea anchored off the island of Gasparilla in the Boca Grande Passage. When they came alongside and rafted up to the Gem, Wake could feel the eyes of the other crew on the men on the deck. An unusual quiet settled over both crews as the wounded were transferred and the cutters rafted. Wake went aboard the other ship to make his report to Baxter.
In the cabin, after a large glass of rum had steadied his nerves and facilitated his voice, Wake told his superior what he had pieced together of the battle. Baxter listened with concern as Wake explained that so many of the Gem of the Sea’s crew had been caught unaware on the beach because the enemy had known the password and deceived the sailor pickets on the breastworks. Once inside the perimeter, they had opened fire with devastating results. Lt. Baxter calmly refrained from any comment until Wake had completed his report. He bade Wake to sit and rest as he said, “Peter, you’ve been through yet another confrontation with the Rebs and have come out of it in good order. Your luck holds, my friend, and I owe the lives of so many of my men to you and your men. Without your gunfire, they would have all been killed on the beach. It is a wonder to me how more were not killed. I am glad that you were not wounded again.”
“Durlon did terrible but effective work, sir. He knows what he is doing with that gun.”
“Yes, Mr. Wake, he does. But someone else did not know what he was doing. Something went horribly wrong. I want to know how the Rebels knew our password. And I want to know as soon as possible. I want the man who is responsible for this. There is a spy somewhere and I want him.”
Baxter’s voice had gone low and cold. His eyes leveled on Wake and the silence after his last statement was deafening.
“Yes, sir. We’ll find out. We will get the man who did this.”
“Very good, Peter. Now get under way as soon as possible and get back t
o that place to take the Rangers off and away.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Wake saluted and left the cabin. He felt a chill as he left the other man standing there gazing vacantly at the deck beams overhead. Baxter had never shown this side to Wake before. The death and wounding of so many of his men by treachery had affected the lieutenant strongly. Wake had no doubt of the will of his friend, and left the ship quickly to attend to the departure of his sloop.
The sail back to the Myakka was not nearly as fast nor as calm as the sail downwind from the river had been. The course back to the beachhead was upwind and against the seas. Tacking back and forth up the twenty-five-mile length of Charlotte Harbor was a laborious process that took a full night and much of the next day. The wind, which had been strong before, was now at gale force. Rosalie, without the cutters this time, slogged into the tempest with animal force. Everything and everyone on her was wet and cold, for the temperature had plummeted as the wind had risen. Gone were any sensations of the tropics as the storm delivered its northern-born fury. It reminded Wake of the New England weather that he had known for so long, and he bent down in his foul-weather slicker and held onto the binnacle box as his sloop crashed into wave after wave.
When they finally arrived at the beach, upriver from the mouth of the Myakka, they found it deserted of equipment or people. When they had last seen the beach, as they had sailed away with the wounded, it had been covered with strewn boxes, rifles, and supplies. Movement had been seen and heard at that time in the tree line upland from the beach, and Wake had departed with the wounded without chancing more casualties to remove the abandoned equipage.
In the short time since then, the beach had been picked clean. The contents of that area were now probably serving the Confederate soldiery, suggested Rork as he stood next to his captain, surveying the sand where so many men met their fate in the darkness and chaos.
The Rosalie was anchored midstream with spring lines bent to enable her to swing her bearing in a wider arc. Wake and his men sat and waited and listened for any signs of the volunteer Florida Rangers and the Pennsylvania troops who were dependent on the sailors to transport them away from here.
They waited for two days, then, hearing them long before they saw them, the sailors greeted the soldiers as they shuffled down the path out of the jungle onto the beach. Wake was rowed ashore in the dinghy, leaving Rork to get the gunboat into shallow water so the troops could just walk out to her and climb aboard. When he got to the beach he found Cornell and Vanding. For a moment no one said a word, then Cornell said, “Thank God you’re safe, Peter. We heard the shooting several days ago and knew it was a bad one when we heard the big gun firing. Where are the rest of the sailors and boats?”
As several of the soldiers formed a rear guard defensive position in the trees just in from the beach, others trudged past Wake and stood in the shallows, waiting for the Rosalie to anchor close enough to shore for them to wade out to her. Wake told the two army officers about the battle and the aftermath. They stood there stunned. He then inquired about their mission and its results. For a moment they did not react, still contemplating the events that had taken place right where they stood. Then they told the story of their expedition. Vanding spoke first and related to Wake how they had marched for two days in a skirmish line to find the Confederate cattle supply. When they finally found some scraggly-looking range cows, they made camp and spent the night without fires to conceal themselves from the enemy. During that night some of the men slipped out of the camp and had not been seen again. The men who had left were some of the Key West volunteers who had come up the coast to Useppa Island and joined the new militia regiment.
Cornell now broke into Vanding’s narrative and continued.
“Peter, I am ashamed to say that I believe that those men—there were three named Brown, Liter, and Simmons—were probably spies. Every day and night thereafter we had sharpshooters firing at us. Four men wounded but none killed, thank the Lord.
“I further believe, Peter Wake, that they gave the password to their brethren, which allowed the Rebels to attack you through the treachery you’ve described.”
“Captain Cornell, what do you know of these men? Their origins, families, anything?” questioned Wake.
“All I know is that they were from Key West and that they kept themselves quiet and apart. They had been in Key West for some time apparently, having come over from some island in the Bahamas after they were stranded there on a vessel as refugees. They were all friends and did not take kindly to inquiries about their past.”
Vanding added, “They looked a surly bunch from the start, but I had no experience with Florida pro-Union men and kept my impressions to myself. I wish now, Captain Cornell, that I had spoken with you about them.”
“’Tis all right, son. I should have deciphered them early, but I did not catch them either. Captain Wake, I cannot tell you how very sorry we are this has happened to your good sailors, sir. We will find those men and hang them when we do.”
“Sir, you mentioned they were from the Bahamas? Something about being stranded there as refugees? Then Key West?” asked Wake.
“Yes, Peter. Can’t remember the island, but it was in the Bahamas. Evidently the Rebel spies in Key West had sent them on this mission to gain intelligence of our plans and movements. Everyone knows that Key West has spies in the town. I am just shocked that they were allowed to join our group of patriots.”
“Yes, . . . well, gentlemen, let’s get the men to the sloop and get away from this place and back to your island of Useppa, sir,” said Wake. But even as he said those words, he was thinking of Rebel spies in Key West and Confederate spies from the Bahamas. Could it be connected to Saunders, from Abaco Island in the Bahamas. And what of Linda’s father? Was he the Rebel spy master in Key West? Was he involved with all of this? Could Commander Johnson have known or wondered about any of this? Wake felt suddenly ill in his bowels with the enormity of what he was considering. His confidence now faltering, he turned to the job at hand and urged the weary soldiers to wade out to the sloop for their ride homeward.
As he was standing on deck an hour later, taking a last look at the shoreline of the river while the sloop was weighing anchor, Cornell came up to him and said nonchalantly, “Well, at least they won’t call us refugees anymore. We are on the offensive now and have drawn our first blood. Started our revenge.”
Wake looked at his older friend with surprise and queried, “I thought that you had no opportunity to fire back at the Rebs, Mr. Cornell. That was my impression, sir.”
Cornell gazed at the shore and said, “You are right, my friend. We didn’t shoot any Rebs. Never saw them. They just occasionally fired from long range and then disappeared. No, Peter, we killed the cows. Killed them all where they stood. That was our battle. Against . . . cows . . .”
Wake became oblivious to the sounds and bustle all around him as the crowded sloop set sail. He just stared at his friend and muttered, “Cows . . .”
Cornell regarded the man who had been through so much in the last days, and had lost so much, in order that the Florida Rangers could finally fight like men against the enemy who had humiliated them for so long. “Some revenge, wasn’t it, Captain Wake?”
8
The Shoals of Havana
The room appeared the same, but something was different. Wake had been in the squadron offices many times before and could tell that this time changes were in the air from the way the yeoman was looking at him and the way the other officers glanced at him in the reception room, where they all waited for a meeting, an audience, or orders from the chief of the admiral’s staff. Even the marine guard had looked at him differently when he entered the building.
Of course the weather was far more pleasant these days than in the summertime. The southeast trade winds blew fresh across the isla
nd of Key West, the sun warmed the air to just the right degree but without the pervasive humidity of the summer, and even the people and animals of the island seemed to be more pleasant and efficient in their interactions with each other. Wake had decided that in the month of December Key West was not all that bad.
The staff yeoman did not call out this time for “Master Wake!” Instead, he walked over to where Wake was standing by a window and quietly invited him to enter the admiral’s office. Wake, who had been summoned from his vessel to see the chief of staff, Commander Johnson, was surprised by both the manner and the destination of the invitation. He tried his best to appear calm in front of his brother officers at this turn of events and slowly walked through the offices of the yeomen and the chief of staff to that of Admiral Barkley.
Barkley was with Johnson at the window overlooking the harbor. The admiral was looking out past Johnson’s pointing arm and confirming something as Wake walked in and stood at attention. The yeoman announced, “Master Wake of the sloop Rosalie has arrived, sir.”
“Ah, Wake,” said the admiral, “good to see you again. Another brush with the enemy up there at Charlotte Harbor, I’ve heard. The report of the militia commander and of Lieutenant Baxter was that you saved the day on that river up there. General Woodbury is very appreciative of your help to the army. I believe that he mentioned as much to Washington.”
“We were very lucky, sir. And I have a gunner’s mate named Durlon who did good work and saved a lot of sailors’ lives that night.”
At the Edge of Honor (The Honor Series) Page 18