The Celtic Key

by Barbara Best

  “You know the work?” Yancey asks. His guise emits superiority and general skepticism.

  “She does, sir. The—”

  “I am speaking to the girl, Mr. Staff.” Retrieving his riding crop off his desk, Yancey leans back in his chair. He taps the shaft on his open palm a number of times. “Colette, that is your name, isn’t it?”

  Colette nods, yes, keeping her head down.

  “You’ve done this kind of work before?” If Yancey could glimpse the woman’s hands, he would know the answer to his question. Most women who do the nasty job have hands like cooked lobster claws.

  “Look here,” he demands, sitting up.

  Colette slowly raises her eyes to meet the quartermaster’s. She learned much at Harbor Manor. The women not only taught her tricks of her temporary trade, but also the subservient behavior that goes with it.

  Yancey assesses his prospect full on. There is a glint of life behind her brown gaze, yet she is wise to contain her spirit.

  “Mr. Staff is correct, monsieur. I can do the work and have my own essentials — a tub and washboard, kettle, an iron, if that will do?”

  Surprise flits over Yancey’s face at the distorted lilt in her speech. The girl is French, attractively so. He shields his untamed fascination and conveys a frosty reluctance.

  “I employ all white women here, Mr. Staff,” he says sharply. “To be forthright, I fear the further drain on my rations and must address the obligation to arrange separate quarters. She certainly cannot sleep with the others.” Yancey’s gaze moves from Mr. Staff to his prospective hire who has lowered her head again. It makes him wonder what is amiss. His fleeting qualms, however, are trounced by practical need and the trials of negotiation.

  “With overcrowding,” he reflects, “Where on earth will I put her?”

  After a sizable amount of hemming and hawing, Yancey finally suggests he may have someone else in mind. This is a shrewd tactic. There is something about the way Mr. Staff plucks at his beard and rubs his oily fingers on his impaired leg that allots Yancey the liberty to haggle.

  Sensing the quartermaster’s indecision, Alvin hastily volunteers, “I am more than willing to take care of the Colored’s needs. She is suited for the job. Aye, and you know it,” his eyes briefly spark. “Why look at her. She is as healthy as a horse and can do the work of two.”

  He assures the quartermaster his new hire will have plenty to eat and be carried to and from work each day. At Yancey’s capitulation, Alvin sweetens the pot by offering the use of his mule and wagon for deliveries from town.

  “I am most humbly yours, sir,” Alvin concludes docilely. “I trust you will entertain my generous bid and sincere desire to serve the Union in some capacity.”

  By divine intervention, the sound of marching soldiers draws their attention to the windows where two lines of blue uniforms pass by. Alvin sighs, “It is a pity, sir, this ol’ injury of mine has crippled my abilities. I have so much to give.”

  Below the surface, he nearly crows at his cleverness and is, in fact, wholly rewarded. Alvin’s offerings seal the deal, but he is only beginning to understand the expense of his covert operation. Hiring a driver and ferrying his wagon back and forth across the bay, alone, will cost a pretty penny. In all, he reasons it is well worth the trouble. His recompense will come in due time.

  “We start tomorrow, then, and ’tis not soon enough.” Alvin pushes up from his chair to pump Quartermaster Yancey’s hand in agreement. Colette stands too and gets another sweeping assessment from her new employer that makes the gooseflesh crawl up her arms. Her eyes dart to the riding crop still clutched in his left fist. She reminds herself this occupation and her time at Fort Warren will be short-lived.

  The corporal shows up from nowhere and hands Alvin his hat. In his nervous state, he had inadvertently left it on the bench in the hall.

  “You’ve made a fine bargain, sir, I’ll give you that,” Alvin gushes. “One might expect more compensation for my tasty offer.” He speaks in jest, giving a snaggletooth grin that is not returned.

  “We are packed to the ramparts, Mr. Staff. This is war, sir, and money is tight,” Yancey snarls. The steady influx of Confederate prisoners is taking its toll. He had just gone over the ledgers. The disagreeable task puts him in a vile mood. Yancey turns back to his papers without giving his company another thought.

  “Corporal? Finalize the arrangements and see them out.”

  Chapter 76

  FORT WARREN

  Clicking his tongue, “Get-up,” Gael Burt drives his distant cousin Alvin Staff’s mule through a checkpoint at Fort Warren. The wagon slowly creaks over uneven planks on the dock as they pull behind a cart that is temporarily blocking the way.

  “Patience,” he says out loud and shoots a look at Colette who sits next to him on the bench. The back of their wagon, covered by a soiled canvas tarp, is loaded with water-soaked cabbages. They are casualties of an early winter’s freeze. The stink is enough to gag a man with a strong stomach. Inspectors fanned their faces and covered their noses, barely checking his papers before waving them on.

  “Where you goin’ with that foul mess,” a Union private calls sourly. He had seen the man and his Negro come through the day before. “It smells like the latrines out back,” he grumbles. “More of that garbage they dish up as food.”

  “I reckon you whine as bad as that mule there, son,” his kin chuckles. “We got it pert good here, I’d say. The chow is better than field rations any day. At least the bacon ain’t slippery.” His teasing gets a hoot from two others. The men belong to the 15th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry.

  “Well, at least out in the field I could forage me up somethin’ fresh and tasty. Helped ourselves, we did.” The private spits tobacco juice at the wagon wheel as it passes. His gut growls angrily and his arse burns like fire. He can never get the right things to eat.

  Gael Burt shrugs, unfazed by the remarks. He would expect no less from men who are hungry and drenched to the bone. Food, while more plentiful in the North, along with inexorable monotony are the most trying features of a soldier’s life. Gael can attest the men’s time in the military is a powerful contrast to the lives they led at home.

  He surveys the grounds from the docks to the fort’s portico. It is typically swarming with Yankees, but bad weather and a rapid pandemic have lessened their numbers. Gael lifts his hat and scratches his head. The rain came with a vengeance on the ferry ride over and he cursed Cousin Alvin more than once for talking him into this sullied affair. The ol’ seadog has a convincing way with words and knows how he feels about family.

  Need outweighs the danger, Gael reminds himself. How can he turn down compensation that is enough to buy one of those three-wheeled riding plows in town? A sense of excitement and determination sets in every time he thinks about it. He wants that newfangled contraption so bad it hurts. There’s nothing like taking the lazy man’s way.

  His Martha took his plainspoken reasoning with a grain of salt. “We need the money,” Gael told his wife, with a nervous snicker, “And ’twon’t hurt to give those Union boys a little misery to get it.”

  After Gael disclosed parts of Cousin Alvin’s plan — mostly how he was making deliveries to Fort Warren, the stuff that wouldn’t worry her needlessly — she seemed more interested in teaching their youngest, Lily, the art of churning butter. He noticed a streak of premature gray in Martha’s hair when she bent over, guiding their girl’s small hands to work the plunger up and down. His family deserves a better life. But before he could say so, Martha shooed him off.

  When it comes to war and patriotic ideology, Gael blames both sides for their dire situation. His small farm is a hindrance in many ways, but as of late things have gotten worse.

  In 1862, following Abe Lincoln’s call to serve, Gael signed up for ninety days with the first wave of volunteers. Leaving his peeved wife and their five children, he thought the conflict would be brief and bloodless. Before his three months were up, he had landed
himself in a camp triage. A white-hot minié-ball cost him two fingers and stiffened the others on his shootin’ hand before it embedded itself deep into his thigh. The wound festers to this day.

  To add to his hardship, Gael couldn’t afford the new reapers and horse-drawn planters that save on labor. Now that most able-bodies are off fighting, workers to help with the harvest are hard to come by. It pained him to watch his neighbors abandon their agricultural pursuits, one-by-one. Some sought their livelihood in the city, having their farms gobbled up by large agricultural businesses. Others headed west to get a fresh start. A few respectable souls, because of better decisions and resources, prospered beyond expectations.

  A couple of loud slaps on the side of his wagon brings Gael fully alert. “Whoa now, easy,” he says, flicking the reins on the mule that acts just as edgy as he feels. He follows the orders of a soldier to pull around the obstruction ahead.

  They slowly roll past five rough wooden coffins. Three of them are nailed shut. Insects buzz over the unburied dead who will make the final trek across the harbor. Two empty coffins, stacked on the ground beside the cart, brazenly await new occupants and compel a person of good sense to shrink in disgust. Death is everywhere. Gael glances again at the Colored woman. Same as his, her eyes are glued to the gruesome spectacle.

  Colette firmly represses another sizable shiver. Holding a rain-umbrella high over their heads to shield them from a passing shower, rivulets of water slink down her back under her clothes and intensify her discomfort.

  As they approach the prison gates, she firmly plants her work boots to keep her balance. Her heart thuds in her chest, as it always does at this point of the trip. It is difficult to keep her eyes downcast in servitude, when she has so many emotions contained inside.

  During the short time she spent with Harbor Manor’s Black servants, Colette heard about their organized underground network that assists fugitive slaves North, and to Canada. Pursuing her studies at Normale Sup, she wrote a thesis about the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and Underground Railroad. She hopes to be part of this movement. If she is to believe the sketchy forecast that promises a win for the Confederacy, Southern slaves will need all the help they can get.

  But first, she must fulfill her commitment to Sophie and her child. The one predestined to forge a free nation for the Native American people. Whether Cambrio and the Highland Gaelic Rite’s predictions can be trusted or not, she will see Sophie to Georgia, along with Jane and her husband. From there their future is anyone’s guess.

  Putting her hand out and happy the drizzle has stopped again, Colette furls the umbrella and wraps her tender hands in the folds of her heavy wool cloak. The duties of laundress are difficult. Unlike the other washerwomen at Fort Warren, it bodes well to know her own experience is transitory. She has sympathy for those of her gender forced into such a degrading social class to eek out a living. They are no better than slaves to their cast-iron kettles of boiling filth they say kills lice.

  Being a washerwoman is a backbreaking vocation. The fee for laundry service at Fort Warren is a despicable two dollars for enlisted men and five dollars for officers. Incredibly, this paltry amount is for a whole month’s washing and ironing. The garrison provides the women one ration of food per day, bedding straw and access to a surgeon.

  The women toil long hours for anyone who has money to pay them. Some days they earn an extra sum for mending, alterations, and sewing on buttons at three cents apiece. Fortunately, Colette’s skill with a needle allows her time in the repair of men’s garments. In any case, her hands are taking a severe beating. They are so raw she feels the skin will fall off the bone, but her tedious chore will be worthwhile should it successfully cover her covert actions.

  Under Mr. Staff’s careful direction, Colette is pleased with her progress. She has located their two target diplomats and established a clever communication system with one Mr. Mason. She discovered the garrison had detached a number of their prisoners to the infirmary for doctoring because of a serious dysentery outbreak. Mr. Mason’s colleague, Mr. Slider, is there now under guard and gravely ill. Though the mortality rate at Fort Warren is considered low, a few prisoners have died. Sadly, this includes Jane’s friend, Doctor Elliott.

  With Colette’s bold cunning, Alvin Staff got his first piece of critical intelligence from Mr. Mason in record time. An offer was soon made to assist the Confederate diplomats in their escape, but Mr. Mason strongly opposed the idea. He refuses to leave Fort Warren without his stricken colleague. The same opportunity to escape was then extended to Major Matthew Hopkins. With this turn of events, Alvin Staff will uphold his end of the bargain. The three women are grateful and vow, without reservation, Mr. Staff is truly an honorable man.

  Colette compares the 1860s spy game to child’s play, or almost. Her first taste of espionage and infiltrating enemy ranks is far less sophisticated. In her old life, with complex technology that erodes privacy and can track a person’s every move, there is no way she would ever take on such an enterprise.

  Regulations for the political prisoners and some 600 Confederate soldiers at Fort Warren are glaringly lax. It is surprising to see the two sides, Johnny Rebs and Billy Yanks, fraternize. Some men are allowed outside their quarters to congregate, walk, pitch quoits and have a smoke. They swap tobacco for sugar and other delicacies and tease and crack jokes with one another like they are the best of friends. Union superiors, who witness the behavior among the palpable combatants of war, turn a blind eye. The fort’s commander, Colonel Dimick, believes in treating the prisoners with all kindness. His humane tone is largely echoed throughout the garrison and makes Colette’s cunning game of subterfuge a lot easier.

  When the big day came, Colette simply slipped a handwritten note into the pocket of Major Matthew Hopkins’ freshly washed and pressed trousers, giving him twelve hours to prepare. The coded message with different words under-marked by a dot or period ensured the major would be ready at the appointed time and meeting place.

  When Gael Burt drives Mr. Staff’s wagon heaped with his stinking, unwanted cabbages past the prison gates, and he and Colette finally board the ferry on the return trip to Boston, no one suspects the grandiose prison break. Major Hopkins’ escape under the very noses of the Union Army goes off without a hitch.

  Word of Alvin Staff’s commitment and steady stream of successes quickly spreads throughout the various channels. His Confederate-loyalist counterparts shower him with encouragement and praise. Stories round how he is good enough to work for the great Allan Pinkerton. An interest is also expressed in the clever French woman who makes the act of espionage appear seamless. As Alvin plots and schemes, he prays every day God will keep the Union from guessing his next move.

  Chapter 77

  MASSACHUSETTS’ COUNTRYSIDE

  Gael and Martha Burt’s clapboard-style farmhouse with a timbered roof and crooked stone chimney sits perched on sixty acres of hilly Massachusetts’ countryside. The land is meant for corn, cabbage, wheat, potatoes and apples. The corn is fed to the pigs they raise. Their pigs and wheat are considered cash crops in a good year. Potatoes, cabbages and apples are the staple foods of most meals. Belonging to Martha’s father and generations before him, her family’s overworked place was willed to her husband.

  When Gael came home with his head full of Alvin Staff’s nonsense, she was immediately angry. Martha argued harboring the enemy under their roof could be disastrous. And what of the children? When her husband patiently explained only one in the bunch is a true Southerner whom God doesn’t love any less, it gave Martha pause. When Gael sternly concluded they need a new plow to keep food on the table, it ended their quarreling. It is not always easy, but she must yield to Gael’s wishes.

  “I will abide, husband,” were her soft words before she turned away. Gael is a just and loving man, although he can be foolhardy and weak at times. Someone should tan Alvin Staff’s hide for getting them into this.

  Martha stands with flour up to her elbows at
a wooden table making bread for supper. She faces the single kitchen window where she can keep an eye on the two strangers near the barn. Gael told her the women will be gone by sunset. She promised him a charitable heart. It is the Christian thing to do, but her charity or kindness is no match for her frustration. This is an intrusion in their lives. She needs Gael home safe with her and not gallivanting off to Boston, doing his cousin’s bidding. What would she do if something happened to him? Her husband has already had one close call because of the war.

  Her temper shows in the way she punches and pulls at the dough. Martha’s vigorous pains will make her freshly baked loaves light and fluffy. She sprinkles a little more flour on the counter and thrusts the heels of her palms again, repeatedly rolling and stretching. Her round hips, which bore five surviving children into the world and support another in the oven, move in a subtle tempo.

  Martha hums a few bars of See Gentle Patience Smiles on Pain. It is a suitable hymn to appease her uneasy spirit. Though she would keep her husband’s confidence and do his bidding, she wonders what Preacher would think about their conduct. One thing the perversity of war has taught her, the shrewdest secrets are concealed in the most unlikely places.

  “That woman is watching us. I can feel it,” Sophie says, pressing her hand to the flutter under her ribs.

  “Do you want to go back inside?” Jane asks, skirting a puddle.

  “Not on your life. You can tell she doesn’t want us here.”

  “Martha? She hasn’t said a word.”

  “She doesn’t have to,” Sophie stresses. Overall excitement and lack of sleep have made her grumpy.

  “I can’t ditch this archaic torture device soon enough,” she complains, scratching the hard surface covering her tummy and not feeling her fingers come in contact with her itch. Her new corset was made to wear the full length of her pregnancy, but as soon as they get settled, it’s history. That, and the gloomy clothes she wears. Colette is already working on the start of her new dress and talks about making a proper wrapper for her.