1862 (10 page)

Enoch Webster, the
Maryann’s
captain, immediately turned his ship hard towards the Penobscot and put on all available sail. It wasn’t enough. Once, when the wooden ship had been young, she might have given them a run for their money, but not now. She was old and her hull was fouled. Smoke belched from the other ships’ stacks. The great ships had been conserving their fuel by running on sail alone, but now they stoked their furnaces, and their engines sent the mighty warships plowing through the sea at a speed the
Maryann
could only dream of.

The van of the Royal Navy squadron swept past the
Maryann
and ignored her. The old barkentine didn’t interest them. Captain Webster and her crew felt their frightening contempt as seamen looked down on the diminutive vessel that wasn’t even worth their indifference. Hell, Webster thought, they were nothing more than a fly on an elephant’s ass and the elephant wasn’t concerned enough to swat at it.

After the van came another, larger, squadron of warships, and this, too, swept regally by the
Maryann.
Webster ordered sails lowered as flight was useless and this enabled him to watch the parade as it went by. The warships were followed by scores of transports that were flanked by swift frigates. Still another squadron brought up the rear.

When it was over, the
Maryann
tacked and was headed due south. She could make Portland in a day’s sailing and she had news to deliver. The British were invading.

Edwin Stanton had replaced Simon Cameron as secretary of war, and General McClellan was unable to attend; otherwise, the group assembled in Lincoln’s office was unchanged since the start of the war. John Hay thought it amusing that Cameron had accepted the position of ambassador to Russia, but had made no plans to leave for St. Petersburg. It was too dangerous a journey, he’d said. At least, Hay conceded, he was no longer a member of Lincoln’s cabinet and no longer a threat to the Union army.

“Governor Washburn has called out the Maine militia,” Stanton said, “but he has made no move against the British. In point of fact, he has been in communication with their commander, one General Campbell. Another British general, Lord Cardigan, had landed with the British but has moved on towards Canada.”

“Indeed,” said Lincoln. “And what did either of these worthy men give as their reason for attacking our soil?”

“General Campbell told the governor that his force had been sent to reinforce the garrison in Canada,” Stanton replied. “However, they found the St. Lawrence too choked with ice to permit a safe passage, so they have landed at Bangor and will move up the Penobscot and march overland and on to Canada.”

“In winter?” Secretary of State Seward scoffed.

Stanton shrugged. “Not something I’d wish to do, but they are all Scotsmen, so I guess they are used to the rigors of harsh land.”

“How many?” asked Lincoln.

“About ten or eleven thousand,” Stanton responded. “Hardly enough for a conquest of the United States, so it is probably true that they are only passing through.”

“And doing so with utmost contempt,” Welles snarled. “Is there nothing the army can do about this insult to our sovereignty?”

Stanton continued. “As I said, Governor Washburn has called out the Maine militia, and both Vermont and New Hampshire are responding with men. Massachusetts has declined with the reason that they may be the next to be attacked and should keep their militia at home. However, it will take some time for any militia contingents to gather in force. At that time any attempt to dislodge the British could easily become a bloodbath. While we might defeat, even overwhelm, the British by sheer weight of numbers, our militia would suffer badly against their better-disciplined army.”

“What about the regulars?” Welles asked.

Stanton looked chagrined. “General McClellan informed me it would not be wise to divide his forces at this time with such an overwhelming enemy to our south, and with his own plans afoot to attack them. He also mentioned that it would take more than a month to get a sizable force to the Bangor area. By that time the British would have gone, or, if they are lying, would be fortified and reinforced. While I question his logic in the first instance, he is correct in the second. It would take forever to get a sufficient force of regulars to Bangor.”

“So, once again, we do nothing while our poor country is insulted,” Lincoln said sadly. “How are the British behaving?”

“With great discipline, sir.” Stanton answered. “As there has been no resistance on our part, there has been no destruction on theirs. They are even paying for supplies and purchasing barges with gold.”

Lincoln nodded. “Tell Governor Washburn to continue his policy of nonresistance. I will countenance no useless bloodshed. Now, gentlemen, when the British army is gone, what will that fleet of theirs do?”

Welles pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. “The British fleet consists of eight battleships of the line, including the
Warrior,
twenty frigates, and a number of sloops and schooners. Our admirals are of the opinion that the British can go anywhere they wish, but that they will head south in a show of strength, perhaps bombard some forts or cities, and then break our blockade of the James River and of Charleston. There is nothing we can do to prevent them from doing any of that.”

Lincoln tilted his head back and looked upward. “We are so strong and yet so helpless. Is nothing going right?”

“Fremont’s gone,” Stanton answered with a wry smile.

John Charles Fremont had been the Union commander at St. Louis, where the man known as the Pathfinder had proven to be bullheaded and incompetent, even to the point of being oblivious to the corruption occurring in his name. He had further offended Lincoln by a unilateral, if limited, emancipation proclamation for the state of Missouri. An embarrassed Lincoln had found it necessary to repudiate it, and Fremont had been fired.

“Gone to California,” Stanton chuckled. “He and a couple hundred fellow idiots are heading west. They left word that they will raise an army and drive the British from Vancouver Island.” Lincoln could not keep from smiling. “Imagine that. Pity the poor British.”

Nathan Hunter’s leg was a torrent of agony. He could feel the broken bones grate as he slid along the sun-baked ground. He bit his lip until blood flowed. He had to remain silent. Any sound would announce to the Apaches that he was alive and uncaptured. As of now, they didn’t even suspect his existence. There had been five men on four horses because one horse had broken its leg the day before, and not four men on four horses.

The Apache ambush had been swift and deadly. One moment the cavalry patrol had been riding through the twilight towards their camp, and the next they were being tossed about by bullets from a dozen hidden rifles.

Nathan had been flung from his horse, which had then rolled over him, smashing his leg. The horse had gotten up while Nathan’s body slid down into a ravine, where he passed out.

Now he was conscious and it was broad daylight. He must have been out the entire night. What had happened to his men? He’d heard screams when the bullets hit, so someone must have been hit. But had they gotten away? And where were the Apaches? Were they waiting and watching him, grinning and laughing, as he crawled around like a crippled insect?

Nathan climbed with agonizing slowness over the edge of the ravine and onto flatter ground. A dead and bloated horse stared at him. Its wide nostrils were full of flies. Behind the horse lay something pink and horrible. It was Bellows, the corporal who:d accompanied them. He’d been shot several times and scalped. He was naked. Boots and uniforms were valuable to the Apaches.

He crawled past Bellows’s cadaver and found the body of Private Cullen. He, too, had died in the ambush, and had been stripped and scalped. Perhaps they all had? Maybe Nathan was the only one alive, and he wouldn’t last much longer. The pain in his leg surged through his brain and he couldn’t stifle a moan. At least it looked like the Apaches weren’t around to hear it.

Nathan caught the scent of something burned. He gagged as he realized what it was. A few yards away lay the body of Private Fulk. He was naked and spread-eagled face up on the ground. He had not been killed in the ambush. Fulk had been captured and had taken a long time to die. His eyes had been gouged out, but what had killed him was a campfire that had been lit on his stomach. It had slowly burned through to his spine and still smoldered. His feet and fingers were also charred ruins. The Apaches liked to use fire.

“I did this,” Nathan groaned. “It’s my fault.”

He crawled farther. There was a head laying on the ground. How strange. No, it was sticking out of it. It was Downes, the last member of the patrol. The Apaches had buried him up to his neck and facing the dawn. They had cut off his eyelids so the sun had blinded him and reduced his eyes to lumps of charcoal. Nathan couldn’t tell if he was dead; he could only hope so.

Nathan crawled on. He sensed something behind him and turned. An Apache stood a few feet away. Nathan tried to scream but nothing would come out. Then he tried to move, but his wounded leg wouldn’t let him. The Indian was laughing and he had a large bowie knife in his hand.

And then Nathan was awake and lying in a pool of his own sweat. Nathan breathed heavily and checked his surroundings. He was in his own room and not under an Apache knife. He swore. The damned dream had returned.

Of course, the events hadn’t occurred quite like the dream, which was a small source of comfort to him. For one thing, no one with a shattered leg could have crawled around like he did. He hadn’t actually seen the bodies until after a patrol had rescued him from the ravine. But the horrors that the Apaches had inflicted on the soldiers were accurate. Poor, blinded Downes had lived for a couple of hours before finally, mercifully, dying. He sometimes wondered if one of the other soldiers had helped him along. God bless him if he had. Downes had been castrated as well as blinded, and his tongue had been ripped out.

Nathan had later been exonerated by a board of inquiry. It wasn’t his fault, they said. The Apaches had been stalking the main column for days and his little patrol’s search for a couple of lost horses had simply been a target of opportunity for an enemy that had been patient skilled, and greater in numbers.

For Nathan, however, it wasn’t quite that simple. He had led four men to horrible deaths, and he himself had been maimed. He could never erase the ghastly sight of their remains and the way that two of them had died. It had led to a crisis of doubt: Could he ever lead men into harm’s way again?

It had been almost a year before he was able to walk, and only then with the help of a cane. His body was much better now, but he still wondered if there was something— anything—that he could have done to save his men.

Nathan rose and peeled off his sodden clothing. He sponged his body with cold water left overnight in a pitcher, and then dressed. It was very early, but there would be no more sleep for him this night. It had been awhile since he’d last had the dream, and he’d hoped it had gone forever. It hadn’t and it remained a presence, albeit a receding one, that he’d have to deal with.

Nathan dressed and walked quietly down the hallway to the kitchen. Perhaps he could manage to make himself some coffee. As he walked, he noticed motion outside, in the wing where the servants lived. A disheveled and partially dressed Attila Flynn clambered out a first-floor window and looked around cautiously. He then reached into the window and pulled a plump and very naked Bridget Conlin halfway out to him. They kissed and embraced tenderly.

“I think I should fire her,” said General Scott. He’d come up on Nathan quietly. Fromm was beside him and the former sergeant’s eyes were black with anger. It occurred to Nathan that Attila Flynn wasn’t the only person the comely young Bridget had been sleeping with.

“How long have you known about this?” Nathan asked.

“A bit,” Scott answered. “Obviously she’s telling that Flynn person everything she hears us say. Who knows, maybe she’s even reading our correspondence.”

In which case, she would know that Rebecca Devon and he were having lunch this day, and would she care? Nathan made a quick decision.

“Then don’t let on that we know,” Nathan said. “That will shift the advantage back to us. We’ll just be more circumspect in what we do, although we might think of planting some information that we want Flynn to have. Flynn’s just using Bridget and will drop her when she’s no longer of any use to him.” He noted a softening in Fromm’s expression. He’d just given the man some hope. “Besides,” Nathan grinned, “she’s a damned fine cook, and those are hard to find.”

As he spoke, he felt the dream receding further into the background of his consciousness. Perhaps he had been inactive for too long. Captain John Knollys and former British consul at Charleston James Bunch were physically unalike and vastly different in temperament.

Bunch was short, plump, in his mid-forties, and of great and unfeigned geniality. He had served England in Charleston for a number of years and considered himself an expert in matters regarding the American South and the new Confederacy. As a result of the time spent in the South, he was also an ardent supporter of the Confederate cause, and was delighted at the turn of events that had resulted in a de facto alliance between Great Britain and the Confederacy.

Captain John Knollys, on the other hand, was a tall, slight, balding man in his mid-thirties who looked more like an underfed scholar than a professional soldier who had seen combat in the Crimea and in India. Quiet and thoughtful, he had the healthy skepticism of a man who had spent almost twenty years in the British army as a junior officer and who had very little hope of further advancement. His family, although ancient and honorable, was not wealthy, and his branch of it had little influence. It was frustrating. He’d seen utter fools promoted because they were going to grow up to be Lord Something or Other, while he languished as a captain.

Despite their differences, Bunch and Knollys had formed a quick and easy friendship. That it was born of the reality that they could serve and help each other didn’t matter.