The Crescent Spy

by Michael Wallace

  “Something wrong with my story?”

  “It’s fine, I suppose.”

  “There wasn’t much to work with. Eyewitnesses in the city heard an explosion at the hospital and saw a column of fire. Windows blew out. Buildings shook. Some large quantity of powder, cartridges, and shell were destroyed. The army won’t say how much.”

  “Nor should they, with the saboteur still at large.”

  “Everything else is conjecture.”

  “It’s not the conjecture that’s a problem. The prose is workmanlike, adequate. But it doesn’t shine. I was hoping for more.”

  “I know,” she admitted. “I wrote it quickly.”

  “You always write quickly. This time you seem distracted. Are you burned out? I’ve been riding you for months, throwing everything your way. Maybe it’s too much. Wait, you’re not still sore because I put Keller on the story first, and this is your way of punishing me?”

  “I’m not punishing you, I swear.”

  “Then what is it? Why is this story . . . mediocre?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe my enthusiasm waned coming to it so late and already having to flog Keller’s dead dog.”

  He set down the pages on his desk. “I’ll run it, of course. It’s not front-page material, though, not two days after the blast. What else have you got?”

  This was the opening she needed. She glanced around to make sure nobody was close enough to overhear, and pulled up a chair. “That’s the other thing. There’s a big story I’m working on, and it’s distracting me.”

  He perked up. “I like the sound of that. How big?”

  “I’ve got to travel downriver for a few days.”

  “It’s not Major Dunbar, is it? I hear he’s sweet on you. If you’re going to the forts so he can woo you . . .”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Then he’s not sweet on you?”

  “I don’t care if he is or isn’t—that has nothing to do with me or my work. It’s not the forts that are drawing my attention, or their officers, for that matter.”

  “Then what is it?”

  She pushed past his question. “I’ll need your help. Can you get me a blockade-runner? Someone clever, someone who isn’t overly attached to the cause. Someone who won’t ask questions, who will deal with Confederates and Yankees alike.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to be smuggled to the Gulf. I have a contact in the fleet, a Union officer who really was, as you put it, sweet on me. Back when I was in Washington. He has information. Something big is happening.”

  “Good Lord. It’s an attack on New Orleans, isn’t it?”

  “I believe so.”

  “From the Gulf?”

  “I can’t see how they’d get past the forts,” Josephine said. “They couldn’t in October, and General Lovell has been hard at work strengthening our defenses. It might be the enemy ironclads upriver. Rumor has it they’re on the move.”

  “How sure are you of this information?”

  “I’m not sure of anything. That’s why I need to get downriver. Can you get me someone?”

  “It won’t be cheap.”

  “Of course not,” she said. “But it will be worth it.”

  “I don’t know. Seems risky. I can’t have you arrested by the Yanks.”

  “I won’t be. Trust me.” This was the truest thing Josephine had said during the whole conversation. “I have plenty of tricks, and my gentleman friend and I have a rendezvous planned.”

  “Have you thought he might be playing you? That he might have nothing, has told you whatever he thinks you want to hear so he can seduce you?”

  “Oh, come now,” Josephine scoffed. “Who do you think I am? Nobody will play me, and I won’t be seduced. Can I have the transport or not?”

  “I don’t know. It’s dangerous business you’re about.”

  “Listen to me,” she said. “I swear this to you. Even if I don’t return with the entire battle plan of the Union army, I will bring back all manner of useful information about the enemy’s intent for naval actions on the Gulf and in the Mississippi.”

  Fein ran his fingers through his hair again. “Very well. I’ll find a runner. When do you need it?”

  “This evening,” she said without hesitation. “Your man can’t know it’s me. He can’t know it’s a reporter, or anything at all about the passenger, for that matter, not even whether he’s waiting for a woman or a man.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. I never speak directly to this man, and he never speaks directly to me. Safer that way.”

  Even better. That made it unlikely that word would get back to Fein that she had deceived him about traveling to the Gulf.

  “And I can’t be challenged or seen in any way at the forts,” she added. “Can he manage?”

  “I’m sure he can, but it will be expensive.”

  “You already said that. Pay whatever he asks. If I don’t deliver, you can deduct it from my pay.”

  Josephine reached into the satchel at her feet and retrieved the pocket watch with the gilt cover and the Persian-looking crescent and star. She set it on the desk next to her and made a quick sketch of it on a pad.

  “This is all I want your man to know,” she said. “A passenger will arrive at the levee outside Jackson Square at eight o’clock. This passenger will be carrying this watch and will be beneath one of the gas lamps, continually checking the time.” She put away the watch and folded the sketch and put it in Fein’s hand. “With nothing more than that, can your man be relied on to get me downriver?”

  Fein nodded.

  “You won’t regret this,” she said. “This is information that will change the course of the war.”

  “If you’re right, Richmond will need to know about this.”

  “And they’ll get it,” she said. “Just as soon as it appears in the New Orleans Daily Crescent under my byline.”

  At this, his uncertainty faded, replaced by a grin. “Now that’s my girl. You had me worried there for a minute.”

  Josephine planned the evening like a military expedition. First, she hired a cab to be waiting on the next street over from Nellie’s house at seven. Then she went home to get Franklin out of bed and dressed, with a bag holding a change of clothing, a pistol, and other personal effects. After dinner, she went downstairs, prepared to lead Nellie outside with some nonsense about a strange animal she’d spotted snuffling through the flower bed. It proved unnecessary, as the woman was already on the porch with the rest of the neighborhood, watching the militia march down the street on its way to the parade ground.

  Josephine hurried upstairs. It was a struggle getting Franklin down the back stairs and into the garden by the side gate. She’d stashed a pair of crutches in the garden shed, and once he had them, they were able to make better time down the side street. With a hat pulled low over his head and the daylight already gone, only the crutches would draw attention on the darkened side street, but none of the handful of passersby challenged them.

  There were a few tense moments waiting for the cab, which arrived ten minutes late, but then they were inside, Franklin’s bag at their feet, and the driver up front leading the horse down the cobbled street.

  Franklin wheezed and clutched his ribs. She took out a vial of laudanum, but he waved it away, saying he needed to keep his wits about him.

  “Why does it hurt more now than three days ago?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe it’s your body telling you to go back to bed and let it mend.”

  “Doesn’t seem such a bad idea, if you ask me.”

  “Everything is arranged. You’ll be safely in the Gulf in two days.”

  She wasn’t confident about this assertion. Fein’s man must be a scoundrel or he wouldn’t have agreed to smuggle a passenger past the forts, a request that would arouse suspicion in any smuggler sharp enough to thrive in the present circumstances. If the smuggler saw the injured man, spotted the wound on his forehead, he might figure
out the game. A quick glance at the cards in his hand would reveal more profit to be made handing over a spy for a hundred dollars in gold than whatever Fein was paying him.

  Traffic was light, and the cab driver’s horse young, not like some of the nags that dragged their tired, bony bodies up and down the streets, and they arrived at the levee barely twenty minutes later. They stood in the shadows on the edge of a brick warehouse, Franklin leaning on his crutches.

  “What now?” he asked.

  She pointed in the direction they needed to travel. “Can you manage?”

  He nodded.

  She had dressed him in the butternut jacket with captain’s bars at the house, and now she removed a forage cap purchased in the city and placed it on his head.

  “There. Now you look like a proper soldier. You took a wound and came downriver to recover under your wife’s tender care, who is staying with her sister in New Orleans. That story should be easy enough for both of us to remember.”

  “I hope you’re the wife, and not the sister.”

  “Hah!”

  “I beg your pardon, it was a poor jest. After the stupid things I said last night, I should be more careful.”

  “I know how you meant it,” she reassured him. “And I know you had no ill intentions last night, either. My pride got the better of me, and my behavior was wretched. I’m the one who should be begging forgiveness.”

  “We’ll make a pact,” he said. “I’ll forgive your pride if you will forgive my clumsy tongue.”

  “Done.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting on a downed sycamore log that had been half buried in the levee with its top skimmed off to serve as a crude bench. They’d tucked the crutches into the shadows behind the log, and Franklin put the watch in his breast pocket, prepared to pull it out and check anytime someone walked by close enough to see. A gaslight flickered above them, lighting the docks. The sound of cornets and saxophones drifted from Jackson Square to their rear. It was New Year’s Eve, and the celebrations were beginning in front of the cathedral. In a couple of hours they would spread throughout the Quarter and move up to the levee as well. But at the moment, the levee was nearly empty.

  In past years, the riverfront had been swarming with stevedores, both free and slave, day and night. New Year’s Eve would have been no exception. They would be unloading flour, vegetables, and beef from upriver, and molasses, sugar, salt, and manufactures from the Gulf. But river traffic had choked to a near standstill. Tonight, the Mississippi in front of the levee was nearly empty, except for a single barge preparing to depart downstream with a pair of long, dark cannons lashed on its deck, surrounded by crates of guns and foodstuff for the forts. A good twenty soldiers milled about smoking and talking. The main group stood forty or fifty feet away from Josephine and Franklin, and one would glance in their direction every minute or two. She worried that the blockade-runner would take one look at the military traffic and renege on his promise to Solomon Fein.

  Franklin took Josephine’s hands and leaned in as if he were her husband and they’d come up to the levee to get away from the crowds at Jackson Square. Her hands felt small and frail in his big ones, a sensation that gave her a peculiar feeling in her belly.

  “Come with me,” he said. “Not to be with me, you understand. But to be out of harm’s way with the fleet.”

  “I won’t lose my nerve now,” she said. “Let Francesca accuse me. Remember what I said. It doesn’t matter if there’s blood. No body, no murder.”

  “I don’t believe that, and neither do you. It’s no longer safe for you here.”

  “Mr. Lincoln didn’t ask me to be safe. He asked me to do my duty.”

  “Yes, but what was it you told him? If there’s an alligator in your path, you should go downstream a stretch. This is your metaphor made true. You should paddle downstream.”

  “I’ll paddle downstream when New Orleans falls. Not a moment before.”

  Franklin put a hand to her cheek. “My dear,” he whispered.

  She caught her breath. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted movement, which proved to be a pair of soldiers strolling along the levee, muskets held sloppily in hand. Before she could decide if this is what had drawn Franklin’s touch, he withdrew his hand and pulled out the pocket watch. It wasn’t for the benefit of the soldiers, but for an elderly gentleman with a cane who followed a few paces behind the two men. The man with the cane didn’t take notice of the watch, or look in their direction at all.

  “What time is it?” she asked while he still had the watch open.

  “Ten past eight. Your man is late.”

  “Studying the surroundings, perhaps. Seeing if we look like a threat.”

  “Or scared off by the soldiers,” he said. “Anyone who would smuggle a fugitive wouldn’t put his neck out if he thought he might be caught.”

  Another soldier came toward them, this one from the group of men milling near the gangplank that led to the barge. He took out a cigarette, while Josephine and Franklin pretended not to notice, speaking to each other in the low tones of reunited lovers. At last he came over and stood a few feet away, watching.

  “I’m fixing to have a smoke,” the soldier interrupted at last. “But I’ll be durned if’n I don’t have a match. I don’t suppose—”

  Josephine didn’t believe this. Whether or not he had matches, his companions back at the river surely did, as they were puffing away. The soldier had come to give them a once-over, for whatever reason. Suspicion maybe, or perhaps curiosity about Franklin’s uniform.

  But Franklin obligingly fetched a vial of matches from his pocket and lit the man’s cigarette, who then turned to go. Suddenly, something occurred to Josephine.

  “What time is it, dear?” she asked Franklin.

  Franklin’s eyes widened slightly, and he hurriedly fished out his watch, which he flipped open so the lip with the crescent and star faced the soldier, caught with the reflection of the gaslight. The soldier turned and took a puff. No emotion registered on his face, and her hopes sputtered.

  But then the man spoke. “Two downriver? That’s a change. It will cost you.”

  “How much?” Franklin asked.

  “No,” Josephine said firmly. “One person, not two. Just my husband, not me.”

  “Listen carefully,” the man said to Franklin. His folksy accent was gone, replaced by something both cultured and calculating. “Don’t turn, but there’s a warehouse to your right about fifty feet away. Did you see it?”

  “Yes,” Franklin said.

  “Go inside. There’s a box about the size and shape of a coffin standing in the back left corner. The lid is loose—you can pry it open with your hands and step inside. In about ten minutes, we’ll be loading up the rest of the crates.”

  “You can’t drop him at the forts with the rest,” Josephine told him.

  “Don’t tell me my business,” the soldier said. “The forts are only the first stop. The rest of the shipment goes to an outpost near Head of Passes.” He turned back to Franklin. “Understand? Good.”

  He gave a curt nod and turned away to rejoin his companions.

  Josephine cast a lazy glance over toward the warehouse the soldier had mentioned. It was little more than an oversize, ramshackle shed, the kind built from flatboats floated down the Mississippi and broken apart for building material rather than hauled painstakingly back upstream.

  “It looks clear,” she said. “As soon as the soldier is back with the others, you should go.”

  “Be careful.”

  “You, too.”

  “When the attack comes, find a safe place and wait until the fighting is over.”

  “You know me better than that,” she said. “I’ll be where the story is. Now go.”

  He placed the watch on her lap as he rose. Only when he was up and hobbling toward the shed did she remember the ugly bruise on his leg. She hadn’t felt a break, but the way he was walking she wondered if maybe there had been a small fracture.
Yet she couldn’t give him the crutches; that would surely draw more attention still. So she sprang to her feet, pocketing the watch as she caught up with him. She put her arm around his waist, grabbed his belt, and lifted with all her strength every time he put his left leg down. This caused him to groan as she pressed into his broken ribs, but it kept him from limping quite so markedly.

  “Thank you,” he whispered as he left her and entered the shed.

  Josephine turned around, worried that the eyes of the soldiers near the barge would be fixed on them. Instead, they all circled around a man gesturing wildly as he related some anecdote. Moments later, the group of men guffawed and slapped each other on the backs. She had no doubt it was the smuggler telling the story to draw their attention. The man did know his business.

  She returned to the log bench to wait. A few minutes later, an officer came down from the barge and shouted at the soldiers to get to work. Those with weapons set theirs down, and the lot of them went to the warehouse and hauled out the boxes. This took a good hour. Toward the end, she spotted a long, coffin-like box being hauled roughly along by four men. They grunted as they passed her, complaining about the weight.

  It was ten thirty before a tug came huffing up to pull the cannon-laden barge into the current, together with its soldiers and crates of goods. By then the celebration was in full swing along the levee, and a boat with fireworks had been towed into place. A few minutes later, the tug and barge disappeared down the inky channel of the Mississippi River and into the night.

  Josephine stayed on the levee with the revelers as midnight approached. Bands played martial music, while black, white, immigrant, and native-born joined in singing and dancing and drinking. Fireworks launched from the barge anchored in the river, illuminating the night. In spite of the cheers and lusty voices raising in song, there was an edge to the festivities, worry and anger perhaps making people drink harder than usual, celebrating as if it was their last time before war and the blockade wrecked things forever.

  The bells on the cathedral chimed midnight, and a great cheer roared from the crowd. Josephine opened the pocket watch. She thought about Franklin and wondered whether she’d ever see him again. She still held the memory of his hand on her face, her arm around his waist, and her body pressing into his.