Beyond All Price

by Carolyn Poling Schriber

  “You can try to understand him, Nellie. I’ll wager he’s not the first difficult man you’ve had to deal with.”

  Nellie smiled ruefully. “No, I guess not. I’ll try to remember that his outbursts may be coming from his own fears, not my sins.” The tears still glistened in her eyes, but a little of the tension drained from her face.

  “Sleep now, Nellie. Even a hurricane passes.”

  As she sank into the first stages of sleep, she was faintly aware of voices near her cot.

  “How is Nellie?” Colonel Leasure asked.

  “She’ll be fine, I think,” Doctor Ludington answered. “But I’m a bit concerned about her emotional state.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure. But her usual fighting spirit seems to have disappeared. She’s not just frightened or hurt. She’s apathetic. She doesn’t care about her own condition. It’s almost as if she were ready and willing to die. When I checked on her just now, she had folded her hands on her breast and closed her eyes in an eerie imitation of a corpse. If I had told her we were going to fasten her to a plank, I don’t think she would have objected a bit.”

  “That doesn’t sound like our Nellie at all. Keep a close eye on her, Doctor. Now you have me worried.”

  The storm increased in intensity through Saturday night, reaching its peak between midnight and 3:00 a.m. By then, of course, most of the ship’s passengers had retired to the relative safety of their quarters, where they could be somewhat protected from the driving rain and roaring wind. They lay bundled on their bunks, holding on or lashing themselves in, and straining in the darkness for warning sounds of rising water or breaking planks.

  The ship’s captain, Mr. Lee, and his pilot, Captain Godfrey, took pity on Reverend Browne and invited him to share their stateroom for the duration of the storm. It had the advantage of being near the middle of the ship, where the rocking was less noticeable. “You’ll be more comfortable here,” Lee promised the chaplain, who was still green with seasickness. “Besides, there’s little chance either of us will have time to sleep during this storm. You won’t be disturbed by our comings and goings.”

  Reverend Browne found that promise comforting and frightening in equal measure. He knew the captain had meant his words to be reassuring, but beneath them lay another message. This was going to be a long and dangerous night.

  Colonel Leasure was also among those who did not sleep. All too aware of the heavy responsibility he held for the lives of a thousand men, and of his utter helplessness in the face of the storm, he spend the night roaming the ship. He moved silently through the dark decks, where his soldiers lay in narrow bunks stacked four high. It was impossible to speak over the roar of the storm, but he did not hesitate to squeeze a few outstretched hands to offer what comfort he could.

  In the sick bay once again, he clasped the arm of Doctor Ludington, who returned the gesture—two frightened men overburdened by the knowledge the next few hours might witness the deaths of all aboard. He hesitated at Nellie’s bunk to make sure she slept peacefully, and Ludington nodded back in reassurance. The valerian root had done its job of sedating her.

  On deck, the seamen gathered in clusters, secretly frightened but at the same time exhilarated by the storm. Like bunches of bragging schoolboys, they competed to tell stories of storms worse than this one. They laughed when the waves threatened to bowl them over and shook the water from their beards with abandon. Some found release in shouting down the crashing waves; others let their laughter escalate to near hysteria. At one point their voices carried below decks so loudly that Colonel Leasure stomped out on deck to give them a tongue-lashing. “Silence! I hope no officer on this boat will make a panic among these men. The consequence would be certain loss of life.”

  The sailors grinned sheepishly and tempered their conversation, but they also had a laugh at the colonel’s expense. “Land-lubber,” someone muttered, and the others nodded their heads in agreement.

  Throughout the storm, Nellie lay on that cot and saw nothing but blackness ahead of her—no hopes, no better days to come, no purpose in life, no filling up of this emptiness that pervaded her body—and her soul. Doctor Ludington had said he wanted her to rest. That was easy now. She simply could not muster the energy to move. She just wanted to be left alone to adjust to her nothingness.

  But remaining alone was next to impossible on a ship crowded with over 1500 people. During the second long night, when the hurricane had blown itself out and the seas had calmed, she became aware of a figure standing next to her cot. A young soldier had come to sick bay seeking a sticking plaster for a minor cut. While there, he asked about her, and Doctor Ludington had pointed to where she lay.

  “‘Scuse, M’am. I didn’t mean to wake you. I jus’ wanted to make sure you was all right.”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “We’ve all been right worried about you, M’am. I was there. I mean, I saw you fall, and I was scared for you.”

  “Do I know you?” she asked, wondering why he was there at all.

  “Prob’ly not. My name’s Jim McCaskey, from Company C. Some of my friends have had dealings with you. You taught a couple of them to play poker. But me? No, I’m just one of the boys. We all know you, though, and we’d be in deep trouble if we’d lost you.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “You’re important to me, M’am. You remind me of home and my sister, Sarah Jane. She’s older’n me by a couple of years, and I always knew I could go to her if I needed somebody to talk to. You seem like the same sort. Not that I need somebody to talk to right now, but it gives me comfort to know you’re here if I do. I jus’ wanted to make sure you’d be back, cheering us all up and keeping us lively.”

  He went on his way, and Nellie discovered her head was feeling a bit more normal. She pulled the blankets closer, still not ready to venture beyond her cot. Since it appeared she was going to survive, she would have to reconsider her options.

  ggg

  10

  Port Royal Sound

  By Sunday morning the worst of the storm had passed. The seas were still rough, but the wind had died down, and the white caps no longer seemed about to erupt over the sides of the ship. For the soldiers of the Roundhead regiment, however, the most frightening sight was the emptiness of the sea. Their magnificent fleet with its serried ranks of sails was simply gone. From the afterdeck they could see only a tattered hawser where the little Zeno’s Coffin used to be.

  Doctor Ludington found Nellie in the passageway. Gently gripping her arm, he steadied her against the rocking of the ship. “Where are you going, Nellie? You shouldn’t even be out of bed.”

  She shook him off. “My head is healing, Doctor, and I need to go topside. I need to know what is going on.”

  “We’re fine, Nellie. We suffered no major damage or injuries. The ship is at anchor, and we have everything under control.”

  “No, I need to move. I need to see for myself. Please.” Resolutely she turned and headed for the gangway.

  The doctor watched her unsteady steps become more assured as she walked. “Do what you must, then.”

  A beam of sunlight greeted her as she emerged onto the deck. The sky was a brilliant blue, unmarred by clouds. Sailors swarmed over the rigging, rehanging the sails. The soldiers of the Roundhead Regiment lounged on the deck in small groups, chattering among themselves. Nearby, several other ships of the fleet also stood at anchor, their crews similarly busy. Nellie realized she had been holding her breath, taken by surprise that the scene had changed dramatically from her tortured memories of the storm. Now she willed herself to relax.

  Once she had regained her sea legs, she moved among the men, inquiring after their well-being. She was astonished to see how welcoming the men were. Apparently it had not only been young Jim McCaskey who had worried about her injuries. As she and her soldiers reassured one another they had indeed survived the battering of a hurricane, Nellie began to piece together the story of what
had happened.

  The ships of the fleet had separated themselves as much as possible, to ensure they would not be dashed together in the dark. Then they turned their bows directly into the wind and rode out the storm. The fleet commander had opened his sealed orders and signaled clear instructions to every ship in the fleet to head for Port Royal Sound on the coast of South Carolina. The fleet would reassemble offshore there.

  To be sure, there were reports of losses. The Winfield Scott had her bow caved in and her masts split. The hold had already begun to fill with water when the damage was discovered in the middle of the night. The engine fires went out, and the pumps were too far underwater to work. Soldiers from the Fiftieth Pennsylvania aboard the damaged ship had kept themselves afloat by throwing overboard everything that could be picked up or shoved over the rails. Baggage, guns, tools, food supplies—all were vital but would be useless if they went to the bottom along with the men for whose use they were designated. The soldiers had bailed the ship manually, using barrels rigged with pulleys, even though some of the barrels were half full of crackers or beans.

  The Governor, carrying a battalion of marines aboard, began to sink during the storm. The marines were rescued by the crew of the Sabine, but seven men drowned. Both the Osceola and the Union, loaded with the Army’s artillery, were driven ashore, and ninety-three of their crew members became prisoners of Confederate troops, who must have been amazed to have these spoils of war washed up on their beaches. Still, most of the fleet had survived with only minor damage, and experienced sailors recognized that fact as miraculous, even if they wouldn’t admit it to their landlubber companions. They needed little encouragement from Reverend Browne to join the soldiers on the forecastle in a prayer of thanksgiving for their deliverance.

  After the service, Nellie remained on the forward deck, looking out toward her first sight of land in several days. She blinked, trying to clear her vision and figure out what she was seeing. At home, when a fishing boat returned home, the shoreline was a narrow outcropping of rocks, closely backed by the dark curtain of a pine forest. Here, the water seemed to lap against a strip of bare land and then a sea of waving grass that stretched far inland. A few bent and twisted trees dotted the far ground, but they were draped in rags, which made no sense at all. And then there were the palm trees, suddenly rising above their gnarled neighbors to wave their fronds in midair. “Palm trees? Here? And what are those rags?” Nelly did not realize her astonishment had been spoken aloud until a voice at her elbow intruded.

  “Your first time in the Low Country, M’am?”

  “In what?” She turned, puzzled, to find a freckled-faced young sailor grinning at her.

  “You’re looking at what the natives call ‘The Low Country’ or ‘The Sea Islands,’” he explained. “I used to visit here frequently. My mother’s family hailed from Charleston, so we sometimes came to visit my grandparents’ rice plantation during the holidays. I grew up paddling around what you’re seeing as a sea of grass, which is nothing of the sort. Would you like a quick lesson on South Carolina?”

  “Yes, I would, but a geography lesson first, if you please. Where exactly are we? This all looks like it might be some exotic foreign land.”

  “It’s all South Carolina, M’am, although there’s some folk who would agree with you it’s a foreign land. We’re anchored in the roadstead, a protected bit of sea outside the entrance to Port Royal Sound, which is one of the south’s great natural harbors. It’s anywheres from two to five miles across, and a good ten miles long.

  The island to your right is sometimes called Phillip’s Island, although it’s really part of St. Helena Island. People around here tend to see any creek as a break between two islands, even though it may not separate the two land masses completely. I don’t think anybody much lives there; the ground’s too marshy. The structure you see at the tip of Phillip’s Island is called Bay Point, or Fort Beauregard. If you head about fifty miles further to your right, you come to the city of Charleston. It has a harbor, too, of course, but it’s much better protected by narrow channels and a series of forts.

  “To your left is Hilton Head Island. There’s not much there, either, except for some rice and cotton plantations—and its one fortification, Fort Walker. You can see Fort Walker, almost directly across from Bay Point. Trouble is, the two forts are too far apart to protect the entire channel leading into Port Royal Sound—good for us but bad news for the rebels. Anyhow, if you head further off to your left, the city of Savannah, Georgia, sits at the state border about twenty miles away. In between those two cities lies ‘The Low Country’. It’s a beautiful swamp filled with islands that change their shape and size with every ebb and flow of the tides.”

  “A beautiful swamp! What a contradiction of terms!”

  “I suppose so, but after you’ve been here a while, you’ll start to see the truth in the phrase.”

  “You said something about a sea of grass that’s nothing of the sort?”

  “Ah, yes, and I’m really wondering how many Pennsylvanian backwoodsmen we’re going to lose in it. When you look at the coastline, you see a grassy field, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Except it’s not solid ground. It’s something called ‘pluff mud,’ which almost defies description. That grass grows in a sticky, deep mixture of dirt, sand, ground up oyster shells, and rotting plant and animal matter, all diluted with sea water. When the tide comes in, you can paddle a small boat on it. When the tide goes out, it looks like dry land. Sometimes in the summer, it bakes in the heat until it really is solid—at least for a few hours. And it gives off an awful stink, like a rotten egg or a really powerful fart, begging your pardon, M’am.

  “Those trees are palmettos, a true palm tree variety. They grow up to sixty feet tall; you can tell a mature palmetto because it will have lost the crisscrossed dead frond stalks around its trunk. The gnarled giants you see are live oak trees. They don’t grow terribly tall, but their branches spread out in search of patches of sunlight. They end up looking strangely twisted and distorted, but they are successful survivors, even if they have to bend into torturous shapes to do so.”

  “There’s a good lesson to be learned there, but why are they called ‘live’ oaks? Aren’t all trees live?”

  “Ah, that’s because their leaves don’t turn colors or fall off. They are leathery and stay green all year long. Their acorns are different, too. They are small, long and pointed, and almost black.”

  “It is like a foreign country, isn’t it? And the rags?”

  “That’s spanish moss. It’s not a parasite, but a plant that lives on air and water. It prefers to hang from the branches of trees so it gets as much exposure as possible. In dry weather it’s a beautiful silver, but when it rains, you’ll see it turn green.”

  “You’re a salesman for the area. It’s obvious you love it. It must be painful for you to think of South Carolina as the enemy.”

  The young ship’s mate shrugged his shoulders. “I love their land; I hate their politics. And I believe it’s worth fighting to keep this wonderful state a part of the United States. I separate the two. I’ll fight them because I believe they are wrong, but I’ll welcome them back when they see the errors of their ways.”

  “I hope that’s soon. Thank you, Seaman Scott. I’m looking forward to exploring your islands.”

  That adventure, however, was still some days away. A series of untoward mishaps and miscalculations combined to postpone the Union attack on Port Royal Harbor. The first order of business was to be sure the fleet reassembled in good order. Through much of Monday and Tuesday the ships straggled in. Sailors in the rigging reversed their usual positions to keep watch, not for land, but for the first glimpse of a sail coming over the horizon. Cries of “Ship ahoy!” replaced the usual shout of “Land ho!” Soldiers and sailors alike hurried to the seaward side of their ships to see who would be the next to arrive. General rejoicing welcomed each arrival, and the cheers continued until each vessel anch
ored in the roadstead. The ships lined up as close to one another as was safe, and soon the entire mouth of the generous harbor was blocked by several rows of transports and small boats.