Death Piled Hard: A Tale of the Confederate Secret Services

by W. Patrick Lang

  "No, I am," the flat voice declared. A small, slender, smooth shaven man walked into the light. His thin lipped, narrow face smiled without warmth. "You are?"

  "Devereux told me to give you the story." Smoot spoke from a place somewhere by the doors.

  "Good! Good! At least there is a story." The sharp face divided in a white toothed grin. "Tell us, Sergeant Smoot."

  "Very well," the little man said when the story was told. "I see that I have no choice. Devereux should not have done this, but, I'll take you along when we're through. We may be moving pretty fast. Are you sure you can keep up?"

  A rustle of amusement ran from man to man around the unseen presence.

  "I will do my best."

  Mosby leaned forward to scrutinize more closely a man who did not meekly accept what he gave him. He frowned very slightly. "We will have one or more prisoners. You will not speak in their presence."

  Balthazar bowed a little. "As you wish, I shall wait here?"

  "Smoot will stay as your 'nurse'."

  The whispering started again in the corners of the barn.

  "Did you hear, Sergeant Smoot?"

  "Yes, major. I heard."

  The door opened and closed. Dimly defined figures crossed the square of greater illumination, leaving the two of them alone in the yellow, flickering light. In the silence, the shuffling, breathing noises of horses was loud.

  "Don't pay him any mind," Smoot said evenly. "It's his way, that's all."

  After a little, Balthazar asked the question which had formed in the part of his mind reserved for professional rumination. "How is he with wounded, with those who are truly inconvenient?"

  The animals shifted and stamped. The sound of a horse staling filled the emptiness of the space around the French soldier. "I thought as much," he finally said, judging Mosby with a finality that would lie heavily on them both.

  "He doesn't have much time for such things," Smoot commented at last. "But, he's a great man...”

  "Where did you receive the wound on your face?"

  The talk hung in the dark between them. Smoot did not reply.

  "Did he leave you?"

  "No! No... I had a letter from Claude. I had to be carried to General Lee... He couldn't leave me...”

  Balthazar shook his head silently in the sheltering darkness. "And what of my cousin?" he demanded. "You have been under his orders?"

  "He's a fine man, your cousin. There's no better. The whole family is nothing but the best, nothing but the best, especially…. and that's all I'll say about it." With that he could be heard settling into the straw of an empty stall.

  The raiders came back after midnight. With them they brought a man in Union Army blue. The Rebel soldiers gathered in one corner of the barn, surrounding their prisoner.

  Balthazar watched from a discreet distance.

  After a time, a young man left the group to speak to Balthazar and Smoot. Whispering to them in a corner he gave them the news, laughing the while. "We went to Pierpont's house," he began. "Snuck up on it real good, we did! I went in the back door since I know their cook and maids and such real well."

  Smoot held up a candle to see the man's face.

  "And who are you my young friend?" Balthazar inquired softly.

  "I'm French Dulany," the handsome youth responded in surprise. "I'm from here. You're the Devereux cousin, aren't you?" Satisfied that this was correct, he continued his story. "He wasn't there. He’s gone to Washington City for the night. I'll bet he's sleepin' snug as can be in one of the Willard's big beds." He chuckled agreeably at the thought.

  "So, what did you do, French?" Smoot wanted to know.

  "Oh, we went over to my pa's house, and collected him instead. He was right surprised to see us, I believe. That's him there in the Yank uniform. He was real impressive to see, stood up to the major, told him he wasn't welcome in his house, but said I ought to take a pair of boots before I left. Of course, they were old boots. I took them, and we took him as well." The soldier looked across the barn at his father who appeared to have a lot to say to the partisan leader.

  "Do you have a mother?" Balthazar asked.

  The beautiful young man turned to face him. "My mother is with us!" he said forcefully. "She knows we won't hurt him. He'll be in Richmond in a couple of days and then we can trade him for an important person that we want back. I won't let anything happen to him, she knows that. He's just wrong, sidin' with Lincoln."

  "He does not know who I am?"

  "No. The major aims to keep it that way. He sent me over to tell you to stay away from him. Ah! Here we go. You bring up the rear with Isaac."

  Mosby's men collected their animals and now began to lead them out the back side of the barn, heading south; angling for a place by the river where they could pass out of Union held territory.

  Balthazar followed them in the maze of moonlit alleys. From time to time he looked back to be sure that Smoot was still there leading his own horse and the pack mule that Devereux had given for baggage. A gleam of silver made him look to the left, where the Potomac River was visible between two houses. The buildings became fewer, the spaces more frequent and threatening in their openness. Up ahead he could see a belt of thicker vegetation.

  A stream, he thought.

  The tiny column slowed. The men spread out, entering the brush in a line parallel to the vegetation. Several halted on the edge. They gathered the reins of others who pressed forward through saplings and vines.

  Smoot tied the animals to a tree. They followed the line into the scrub. Balthazar felt with his toes for sticks that might snap. He found none. He came to the edge of the growth and looked out across an open space at a stream. It did not seem to be more than thirty meters wide. Four of Mosby’s men were half way across in waist deep water. In the middle distance a Union soldier lay on the ground, a huddled lump of darkness and indistinguishable details. Only his boots made him recognizable as a human being.

  Balthazar and Smoot stood at one end of the line hidden in the brush. Several Confederates were within a few feet.

  "The major will wait until the scouts clear the other side, and then we'll all go over together," Smoot muttered.

  Balthazar nodded, not listening very closely, engrossed in watching this small affair, hoping for early understanding of his host's competence.

  Brush crackled to the right.

  Balthazar turned his head and watched another Northern soldier emerge from a clump of small trees.

  The man tripped on a root and fell heavily to one knee. He grunted loudly in surprise. Regaining his feet, he rubbed one hand on the knee and peered about. He held a cavalry carbine in one hand. In the other he held some sort of container. "Evan! Evan!" he called. "Where are you? It's me, Henry! I brought you some coffee." Henry straightened up seeking his friend in the open space near the stream bank. The broken figure lying nearby was so unacceptable a possibility that he seemed not to see it. On the far bank one of the scouts was a poorly defined human shape. "Evan! Is that you?" the cavalryman called. He removed his cap waving it above his head.

  To either side of Balthazar, rebel guerrillas shifted perceptibly in their stance, gathering themselves to spring on the unsuspecting man before them.

  Balthazar considered the possible outcomes. A messy, botched killing might involve noise. The reserve force for Evan and Henry must be somewhere nearby. A fight inside Federal lines would mean the end of his mission. With his left hand, he pushed back the lapel of his coat, reaching into the small of his back for his knife.

  The soldier to his right began to move forward.

  Balthazar gripped his sleeve, and stepped past him, walking quickly toward the man named Henry. The unsuspecting victim still had his hat in hand, waving it above his head. As he came closer, Balthazar could see the details of the man's dress.

  Henry wore a long, blue overcoat with a short cape. Two small brass buttons were sewed on at the waist, in the small of his back. It was a copy of a French Army coat.
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  Balthazar held the khanjar in his left hand. The familiar, dry comfort of the bone grips filled his consciousness. He had not formed any specific plan as yet. He knew that in matters of this sort it was better to let instinct and the body's habit decide. The long hair on Henry's head attracted his attention. With his right hand he grabbed a handful of hair, yanking the man's head back and to the right, tipping his chin up until his eyes must have been filled with the quarter moon. He could see the spot he wanted in the side of the soldier's throat. The knife went in easily. The point was made for such work. Its narrow blade was fearfully sharp on both sides for the first few inches. A slight resistance assured him that he had found the windpipe. The tip grated on something which he knew must be the uppermost vertebrae. Balthazar forced the point higher, feeling for the hole in the bottom of the skull through which the spinal cord emerged. Resistance to the progress of his dagger ceased suddenly and the knife moved on an inch. It then wedged solidly against the walls of the foramen magnum. With a sharp twist of the wrist, he severed the man's spinal cord from his brain. All life instantly disappeared from the body. What had been a sentient being became dead weight. He kept his grip on the hair, feeling the oily mass between his fingers. The weight of the body was suspended for an instant from his right arm. He withdrew the blade, being careful not to damage the man more. The body fell to the ground.

  Several men appeared at his side. "My God!" one whispered. "I never saw the like."

  Balthazar looked at the knife, and the hand that held it. The blade was dark with blood, but his hand was clean. He reached down and took the dead man's hand, holding it as though in friendship. He wiped his weapon on the blue sleeve.

  John Mosby came to his side. "That is quite a knife...”

  Balthazar handed it to him, hilt first. "It was made for me in Fez. It fits my hand exactly."

  Mosby held it up to the moonlight. The blade rippled with the watered silk loveliness of Damascus steel.

  Balthazar took it back.

  Two soldiers finished tying Evan's body across a saddle. Two more approached.

  Balthazar gave one of them Henry's hand, then picked up the carbine, examining it in the moonlight.

  "We should be off," Mosby said. "Others may arrive unexpectedly." He began to walk away.

  "One moment, major."

  Mosby turned back to face him. "Yes?"

  "I am alone among you now. My government has given me an important task, important to you as well. I find that you have a droll sense of humor. In most circumstances I would find it amusing to indulge you, but I can not afford to be an object of ridicule. If you do it again, I shall be forced to take notice." This was said in a whisper that allowed an illusion of privacy, but which was heard by all nearby.

  Mosby said nothing for a long moment. "Understood," he finally responded. Mounting his horse, he led his troops across Hunting Creek.

  Balthazar watched him go, and then turned to find his animals.

  Smoot waited at his elbow with all three. "I've got these two. You just keep up with him. He's not happy."

  The others were nearly all across.

  As they urged the horses into the water, Smoot's voice came to him. "You're not alone. I'm right behind you...”

  Chapter 8

  Rappahannock Station

  Rappahannock Station

  (Somewhere Near Culpeper, Virginia)

  Jubal Early chewed reflectively. “If I understand correctly,” he said. “You met everybody of importance in Richmond. You must have been a busy man.” He and Balthazar lounged in camp chairs built of tree branches. The weight and bulk of the two of them made those watching wonder if the interview would end in a general collapse of the furniture. They sat with their backs to the open end of a tent. You could see General Early’s field desk and camp bed inside. The chairs were angled toward each other so that discussion was easy but not too intimate. A bottle and two glasses stood on a small table.

  The weather was clear and warm in an Indian summer display of generosity to those who lived in the forest. There were still birds singing in the trees.

  Balthazar noticed a brown bird with a crest and an orange beak. As he watched a second arrived to sit beside the brown creature. This one was brilliant red in color. Ah, the mate, he thought. I must ask of these birds.

  "Where've you been since then?"

  "With General Lee's headquarters."

  "And you're an officer of our army?" Early held a collection of official papers in a large hand. His morose features darkened in a frown. The reddish whiskers added to the effect. He spat a stream of brown liquid onto the green grass out in front of his boots. The stain lay there among others.

  Balthazar liked him. The Gascon formed impressions of people at once. Sometimes these were quite wrong. He thought of Early as similar in character and physique to the mastiff that one of his English cousins once kept. As a boy, he feared the dog, but then came to know the kindness which the beast hid in his heart.

  The general poured a couple of fingers of brown liquor into each glass.

  Balthazar tasted his, expecting the silk, smoky sweetness of his first experience of American whiskey.

  Raw, hot power slid down his throat.

  He felt the warmth all the way down into his gut. "General Cooper thought it best that I should become a 'volunteer,'” he said. “I understand you have a number of these?" He looked quizzically at Early who spat again.

  "Not enough!"

  "No?" Balthazar shrugged. "In any event, he reasons that there will be fewer unanswered questions if I am taken by the United States authorities, and am truly one of your own...”

  "The United States authorities...” Bitterness appeared in the other's slow, sharp edged speech.

  Balthazar tried to remember what he had been told of this man. "You are a graduate of the military academy at West Point?"

  Early dropped his chin in acknowledgment of it.

  "But, you did not follow the profession of arms?"

  The big, slope shouldered man heaved himself erect in the chair, and spat again. "No, never intended to, always wanted to be a lawyer. I left the army when I could and took up the law. I was Commonwealth's Attorney in Franklin County for a long time." He saw the lack of understanding on the other's face. "That's the state prosecutor. Was a militia officer as well, went to Mexico in fact." He laughed. "You probably haven't heard this, so you might as well know it from me first. I led the fight to keep Virginia in the old Union. Charles Devereux and I, we fought to the end at the secession convention. We only lost by one vote, one vote. It was that bastard Lincoln that caused our defeat. He wanted us to help him fight South Carolina! They were right all along, the secessionists were. The Yankees have always meant to rule us. This war proves that. They'll stop at nothing to have their way with us." He saw that Balthazar's glass was empty and poured.

  "And you think you can win your independence?"

  Early stared at him, looking for signs of mockery. "Yes... I do. We've hurt'em bad, killed'em in droves. They're not all crazy. If we keep on hurtin'em, and don't give up, who knows? The main thing is to wear'em down." He saw the doubt in Balthazar's face. "Not in material things!" he said quickly. "There are more all the time countin' those they're enlistin' in Europe. And then, there're the niggers, our own niggers by and large, since they don't have any to speak of." Early looked up at his orderly.

  The uniformed black man stood a few feet away.

  "Don't pay me any mind, Justus. You know who I mean...”

  "I do gen'rul. You mean them trech'rous nigguhs goin' to the Northe'n side." He looked at Balthazar. "Them Yankees don't give a dam' for us cull'ed people. They jus' usin' us. We not fooled. After the war it'll be bettuh here."

  Early continued to look at Justus for a second, and then turned back to his visitor. "He's right. The old way is dead. It was gonna die soon anyhow.” He inclined his head toward the black man. “We'd be finished by now without their help. We're gonna be somethin' diffe
rent afterwards, somethin' interestin'...” He spat again, wiping his lower lip with the back of a hand. "You look comf’table in that uniform," he said inspecting Balthazar's new clothing. "You want to paint those stars dark, or not wear'em. A lot don't. Sharpshooters are somethin' awful up in the line. They shoot better than they used to."

  "You do not follow your own advice, my general." Balthazar smiled looking at the faded, corroded, three stars and wreath on Early's collars.

  "Well, shit! They'd be crazy to shoot me. The Congress might make a mistake, and appoint somebody worthwhile. Besides, I'm not pretty enough to be taken for a general from a distance. Thomas Jackson was my only rival for shabbiness, and he's gone now. No, I'm safe enough. Well, you suit yourself. What'd you think of Cooper?"

  "A deep subject."

  Early smiled broadly. "That would be fair."

  "I assume he is the chief of military information."

  "What! Who said that? He's the Adjutant-General!" Early looked around to see who stood nearby.

  "No one." Balthazar replied, pleased to know he had guessed well. "But, Seddon and Benjamin take him so seriously in my own case… And then, there is the way in which the British deal with these matters. The AdjutantGeneral is the responsible person for such business... One of his assistants brought me to you."

  "You mean that red headed fellah, Jenkins?"

  "The very one, a serious man."

  "What about that one?" Early glared across the open space in front of the tent at Isaac Smoot.

  Smoot sat on a stump twenty yards away staring back at him.

  "I asked for the services of Sergeant Smoot. General Cooper was kind enough to honor my request. This is all so strange to me."

  "Yes, you need a guide, but one of Mosby's men?"

  Balthazar was surprised at the tone. "You do not care for them?"

  Early grimaced, still looking at Smoot. "I don't like cavalrymen much. I don't like anybody who can get on a horse and ride away from a fight they started." He glanced at Balthazar. "They're good at that, and they ride off and leave my infantry at the same time! What's so funny?"