Captain Tollier was reputed one of the best in the business. And she’d not felt so vulnerable in years. Placing her trust in a man had often been the prelude to disaster. Would this be another? The captain may have made many successful runs through the blockade, but by the way he’d continued to delay she wondered if he still had what it took to get them through the crucible of enemy fire.
As if hearing his name, Captain Tollier appeared in front of her. In the dim predawn light the ship’s lanterns did little to distinguish his light gray suit from the rest of the ship. He doffed his slouch hat and bowed. “Good morning, Miss Collins.” His voice sounded lower than usual and resonated with authority. “Welcome to the Redemption.” He looked down his handsome nose, giving her a pointed inspection and didn’t seem pleased with what he saw.
Bone-deep exhaustion had thwarted her regular tidy sprucing. The cool ocean breezes would ruin all her work anyway. She stood tall and gazed steadily into his face. “Good morning, Captain.”
He gestured to a big redheaded youth nearby. “This fine lad is Ethan. He’ll show you to your cabin. Anything you need, Ethan’s your man.” With that, the captain made a starchy pivot and strode toward the helm.
He’d dismissed her! She almost called after him. Then stopped herself. Drat. She’d promised while aboard ship she would follow his orders.
Ethan carried her trunk and valises below and helped her get settled in her small cabin. The compact interior had only the bare essentials: a fold-down wall bunk, small writing table and stool, and a tiny water closet with a basin and mirror.
By the time she returned to the main deck, the ship had left Nassau Harbor. Dawn warmed the horizon and sparkled across the waves. Gazing about the ship, the same tingling excitement came over her as when she’d first seen its drawings.
The Redemption truly was a blockade-runner’s dream. The fastest Union vessels could barely reach fifteen knots. But the Redemption, modeled after the Clyde riverboats of Scotland, could do twenty.
Long and sleek, the ship was built for speed and maneuverability, and it blended with the mist and sea. Painted a light gray, its raked smokestacks, lifeboats and masts dropped nearly to the deck, making it difficult to spot on the horizon. Powerful engines propelled two large underwater screws rather than tall eye-catching paddlewheels. And to prevent noise, the steam was blown out underwater.
Her gaze halted on Captain Tollier. Until today she’d never observed him performing the duties of a captain. He stood tall and alert, calmly talking to several of his men, wearing command like comfortable old brogans.
As if feeling her regard, he turned and approached. “My compliments on your lovely white gown, madam.” Concern flickered in his eyes as his gaze traveled over her countenance. He motioned to Ethan hovering nearby. “Be a good lad and find Miss Collins a seat.”
“I don’t want to get in the way,” she said. “But I’d like to see the islands as we leave. Perhaps you can help me find a place for the best viewing.” She’d paid an egregious amount for this whole undertaking and she didn’t intend on missing a thing.
Ethan returned with a chair and helped her get settled. Instead of watching the islands, her gaze kept drifting toward the captain, like an admirer fascinated by the antics of a famous actor. And he was famous in some circles, or infamous, as the case may be. The Confederacy considered him a hero, as did the investors who financed his voyages, and the seamen who shipped under him.
Reports regaled his determination, cool head and calm efficiency under duress. In the dangerous business of blockade-running, Captain Tollier had a reputation for being wily and clever yet prudent when needs be. She’d not known if any of it was true, but seeing the ease with which everything flowed around him gave her more confidence in his abilities.
Finally surrendering to fatigue, she rested in her cabin and didn’t go above again until evening. By then the whole seascape had changed. Dark clouds loomed over a ghostly mist and slate-colored seas. The swells had grown and deepened.
Captain Tollier appeared with a wool blanket, wrapped it around her shoulders and tucked her against his side. “A squall’s brewing. Did you rest well?” His words warmed her ear.
“As well as can be expected,” she whispered back. “Have you seen any Yankee ships?”
“It’s often hard to tell who they are: enemy, merchant or pleasure craft. We avoid them all. So far, we’re making good time.”
Her teeth gnashed as she tried to smile at the irony of the situation. Ten years before a fast steamer had carried her away from the New York City in disgrace. Now she stood on an even faster one, preparing to sneak past the U.S. Navy blockading her return.
With the darkness, an eerie, haunted quality now surrounded the ship. Beneath her feet, the intrepid engine worked like a heartbeat.
Combers battered the hull and fizzed across the steel plates. Within the sound she could easily imagine the quiet rumble of a blockader’s engine sneaking up on them in the dark. The thought sent a shiver up her spine.
Captain Tollier pulled her tighter. “You’re cold. It would be warmer in the pilothouse.”
“No, I’m fine.” She enjoyed this physical connection. Before her illness, she’d never imagined how comforting being held by him could be. She gazed at the dark murk surrounding them. Somewhere out there sat Jake Rives—the torment of her youth, and possibly Captain Sterling—her first love and disaster.
While in Captain Tollier’s arms, the nightmarish events during her scandal lost their grip. His humorous way of analyzing her blunders had a forgiving effect and gave her the strength to examine them in more detail.
Back then her name frequently appeared in the New York society columns. The first indication of the devastations to come was a newspaper cartoon. It showed a brawl in McDougal’s boxing saloon. C.C.’s character stood gleefully strangling the artist’s daughter with ropes of jewels while her opponent aimed her paintbrush at C.C.’s eye. The caption read, “Come see the fight over the richest man in New York City.”
Sensationalist articles about the love triangle soon filled all the papers.
The day after Jake spurned her proposal, spunky newspaper boys screamed from every street corner, “Artist’s daughter kidnapped! ‘Miss Calista Collins Involved!’”
Then a beautiful young woman was found brutally murdered in Hoboken. Somehow, C.C. became the prime suspect. Until Captain Sterling verified the body wasn’t his lover’s, the authorities believed it the artist’s daughter. Still, Sterling thought her culpable and sent a desperate letter begging C.C. to turn his ladylove loose.
That night, a mob carrying torches formed outside the gates of her parents’ mansion demanding that C.C. be taken into custody. Though the artist’s daughter was found two days later, the damage had been done. The newspapers painted C.C. as a madwoman gone berserk.
On the day Sterling and his ladylove married, C.C. sat in the cabin of a fast steamer bound for London. The morning’s headlines claimed a cover-up and miscarriage of justice. They reminded the public of the murdered young woman and asked why C.C. hadn’t been arrested or at least locked up in the Bloomingdale asylum for the insane.
A chill wind whipped over the deck and swirled around her ankles. C.C. laid her head on the captain’s shoulder and snuggled into him.
The stress and strain of her scandal and her family’s financial reverses afterward weakened her father’s heart and killed him. Her mother never forgave her. Even after all these years, questions still tormented. Where did the newspapers get their information, and why did they target her for such viciousness?
The captain rubbed his hand up and down her arm and kissed the side of her head. Oh, how she liked his reassuring closeness. It had begun when she was so very ill. She didn’t want to think about losing this warmth at their journey’s end. And it would end very soon.
For years she’d craved her mother’s forgiveness and hoped she could soon shed light on what truly happened. Dread immediately followed the thoug
ht, and she stiffened against the captain. No one believed her protests that the newspaper stories were lies. Captain Tollier must never hear any of those tales. She couldn’t risk him believing them as well.
He squeezed her shoulder and breathed against her ear, “A penny for your thoughts.”
Her thoughts?
“They’re silly, not worth mentioning.” She tried for a cheerful tone. “Just hold me…please.”
***
By early afternoon of the second day they crossed the Gulf Stream current. No sooner had Beau established their position than the lookout spotted a mast on the horizon and then another. They spent the next two hours evading them only to pick up several more and repeat the process. Never had he encountered so many ships.
Beau peered steadily through his telescope for masts, smokestacks, smoke trails, paddle wheels, smudges in the mist, basically anything afloat. Dark clouds and haze now hovered over heavy gray seas. A large wave smashed against the hull sending spray high into the air. Beau tasted salt and wiped the cold brine from his face. He raised the telescope again.
Although commanding the Redemption and crew occupied much of his attention, C.C. still remained uppermost in his mind. She’d not made one word of complaint, but he could tell she was very weak from her illness. Everyone on a blockade-runner needed to be in good condition. Anything could happen. Swimming for shore was not uncommon. And he hoped to God she’d more sense than to sew gold into her skirts like Rose Greenhow, a famous Confederate spy who’d drowned when her rowboat capsized.
As he swept his telescope starboard, C.C. filled the lens while she strolled along the bow. A heavy white wool shawl covered the shoulders of her white gown. Her hem lifted in the wind and fluttered about her ankles. The pretty sight made his pulse skip. He’d grown to admire her more than he wanted to admit.
Few people voluntarily rushed into a war on a rescue mission. With all she’d been through, the woman was indomitable, unstoppable. She’d spent her own money, great gobs of it, to organize and embark on this voyage. Initially he’d thought C.C. had charged into this blindly. Now he wasn’t so sure.
He watched her through his telescope as she went below and out of sight. Odd that he should feel grateful to such a vixen. A year ago he’d welcomed the gallows. In her own stubborn way she’d inspired him, given him reasons to cherish life.
The memory of the Roundabout’s capture shrilled through his mind. Beau had always trusted his British citizenship documents to guarantee his release if he were caught by the Yanks. What he hadn’t anticipated was Union Navy Commander Rives’s seething determination to see him hang.
The first trial had been a revelation. Rives arrived carrying a thick dossier. In it were most of Beau’s noms de guerre and aliases. He even had a fairly accurate count of the number of runs Beau had made through the blockade. Clearly, Union spies had been following him for some time.
Rives began by giving testimony that Beau had been first mate on the commerce raider, the St. Charles, when the Lark sank. The Union did not honor the St. Charles’ Confederate ‘Letters of Marque’, and called it piracy. Fortunately, when the commander couldn’t provide adequate proof of Beau’s involvement, the judge threw it out.
Rives nearly had an apoplexy. A vein in his temple throbbed so noticeably Beau thought it would burst. The commander then moved on to the next pile of papers, obviously reserved for such setbacks. He gave testimony that the Roundabout fired on Rives’s gunboat, the Stampede.
Beau knew where this was going. A Yankee ship could fire at will on a blockade-runner. If the blockade-runner returned fire it was termed an act of piracy, a hanging offense.
In truth, the Stampede sat blocking their way into the Cape Fear and fired shells on Beau’s ship. One hit the deck and blew away some of the surrounding cargo. A piece flew back and damaged Rives’s vessel. Outnumbered by three Yankee cruisers and dead in the water with a blown engine, Beau had been forced to surrender his ship.
Rives’s guards then went to work on him, leaving several bone-deep souvenirs of their handiwork. When Rives threatened to hang the Roundabout’s entire crew, Beau did what he had to, he confessed to the lie to save their lives.
The two guards who’d tortured him were called to the stand. Each testified they saw the Roundabout fire on the Stampede and swore they heard him confess to piracy. Never mentioned was the fact that the Roundabout had no guns.
With three witnesses against him and none of Beau’s crew at the trial to refute the lie, the judge sentenced him to the gallows. Then the message arrived about Millie and Freddie’s deaths. In the spare lines of a telegram, all the light went out of his life.
The day before his execution Beau had been dragged into another court. By then grief so overwhelmed him, he had no idea who was there or what was said at the trial. When his senses returned days later, he found himself an inmate surrounded by spies and political prisoners at Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C.
Gazing about the deck, Beau now wondered what had happened during the second trial. Try as he might, all he could remember was the judge’s ominous drone and the strike of his gavel.
“How much longer?” C.C. asked quietly.
Lost in thought, Beau only now realized C.C. had come above. “Are the rough seas upsetting your constitution?” he whispered back.
“A bit.”
“Stormy weather, rough seas and thick cloud cover are favorable, my dear.” A surge rocked the ship, throwing C.C. against him. As he looped his hand about her waist, her warmth made him crave more of her. “It’s safer for you to wait below,” he said in low tones.
“I know, but I want to see what I’m paying for.”
He could hear the smile in her voice and couldn’t resist curling his other arm around her in a full embrace. “It should be dark soon.” She shivered in his arms. “You’re cold,” he whispered against her ear and was tempted to nuzzle her neck as he breathed in her familiar scent. He ran a hand up and down her back to warm her. “We’ve made good time. If the Yanks oblige we should be there in a few more hours.”
C.C. leaned into him. “Then I will pray Hypnos feeds them his poppies.”
He gave a quiet chuckle and kissed her forehead. “Now why didn’t I think of that?” He hugged her again. “My dear, please go below and rest. In a few hours things might get more exciting. It could require all your strength.”
Two hours later Beau stood in his oilskins with George and watched Oley, their leadsman, as he balanced on the sponson and hurled the lead weight into the sea. Mariners had little to go by when approaching Cape Fear. Few physical markings existed above the low, nearly flat coastline. Lighthouses and fires from salt works had been doused long ago. This was where a good pilot earned his keep taking careful depth measurements and guiding a ship by reading the bottom of the ocean.
Now off the Carolina coast, the dangers beneath the water could be more hazardous than those on top. To the south, shipwrecks littered Frying Pan Shoals—a long arm of sandbars extending some twenty-five miles out into the Atlantic. Equally as treacherous was the maze of shallow bars filling the approach and entry into the Cape Fear River, un-navigable for deep draft vessels.
Fortunately, the Redemption had a shallow eight-foot draft designed to easily pass over the bar into the Cape Fear. But if they didn’t carefully read the underwater topography, they could still get lost in the dark and end up beached.
“Perfectly miserable weather,” George whispered as they both watched Oley heave in the lead line. After he inspected the contents, George passed it to Beau and said in a soft voice, “I’d say we’re about forty miles north of New Inlet.”
Though not a pilot, Beau had served under a captain who’d made geologic surveys of the Carolina Coast. Nearly fifty runs in and out of Wilmington had given him a good understanding of these waters. Beau ran his fingers through the sample and gave it a sniff. He recognized the unique smell of the ocean’s floor. “I agree.”
A large wave washed ac
ross the deck. Under the fizz another sound gurgled.
George turned in the darkness and tapped Beau’s shoulder twice—the signal that the enemy was near.
Beau searched the surrounding murk. He’d heard it too—the distinctive burble of a ship’s engine letting off steam. Somewhere, not far from them, a vessel hid in the fog. Another sound followed: a low screech, like metal hinges. The mist swirled revealing a dark shape not fifty yards in front of them. They were going to ram it.
Beau ran to the pilothouse, took the helm and turned the ship west toward the coastline. The densely wooded shore would hide them, but sailing too close was risky. The ever-shifting sands could be relentless and unforgiving.
Beau kept watch for the Yankee ship they’d almost hit and when he was satisfied they’d not been followed, gave the helmsman instructions to take the Redemption down the coast.
Several hours later, George pointed to a small mound on shore. Beau gestured to the signalman to flash their message: “Alert Fort Fisher. Cover us. We are coming in.”
Tension began to build. Though the moon was not at its fullest, when the mists thinned, it confirmed what he already knew. They should have waited for the dark of the moon. George handed Beau the contents of another lead. In the murky darkness, he could feel his pilot’s heavy gaze as he whispered, “Five miles to New Inlet.”
Beau examined the contents and whispered, “Aye.” He gazed over to the pilothouse where C.C. sat, and motioned to Ethan. When the youth approached, he said quietly, “See Miss Collins to her cabin.”
They continued on with George and Oley carefully guiding them through the darkness. Now high tide, the seas rolled heavily.
Ghostly bells clanged through the mist, startling Beau. His neck and shoulders stiffened. Off the port bow, the almost imperceptible contours of three large cruisers rolled into view. The shore’s shallows lay starboard. Hemmed in on both sides they could only go forward or back.
Beau shivered even as sweat rolled down his back.
The Trouble With Misbehaving Page 14