The Railroad War (37 page)

“Do you really think so?” he asked.

“Yes, my love, I do.”

“Like what?”

“Kiss me.”

“All right.” They kissed.

“There’s one part of you that’s been set free,” she said, smiling brilliantly.

“Wag your tail, Tige,” he said.

“Aahooo!”
Tige said.

“You’re wasting time, Noah,” Lam Kemble said with quickening impatience. It was almost dark, and Lam was eager to move. An
entire squadron of cavalry and a substantial contingent of mechanics and train crews were set to take to the road with him—and
with Noah, if he could be made to budge. They all had to be twenty miles north before daybreak tomorrow.

“I know I’m wasting your time,” Noah said. “But I’m enjoying myself, and it’s a long time since I’ve done that.”

“That’s all very well and good,” Lam answered, exasperated, “but let’s get going. The better part of the regiment that’s guarding
your locomotives has moved out—presumably to march down here to rescue these people. We’ve got a long all-night ride ahead
of us. And we’ve got to get to where we’re going before dawn, or else all this effort will be wasted.”

“I won’t be long, Lam,” Noah promised.

Noah Ballard stood in a shallow trench, peering over a breastwork. Lam was at his right, fidgeting. On Lam’s right was Luther
Jarvis, a colonel. Jarvis was in command of the infantry brigade here in Shannon. And on his right were a sergeant and a couple
of troopers.

Beyond the breastwork, open meadowland spread out for a quarter of a mile. Down in the meadow, fifty yards from the breastwork,
the First Tennessee Cavalry had dug in as best they could around the counterfeit locomotives. It was a damned poor place to
make a stand—which was the reason why Noah chose it. Except for the main-line railway embankment, there was no cover at all
between the breastwork from which Noah watched and its brother 120 yards away.

No shots were currently being fired. The Tennessee Yankees had no desire to expend what little reserves of ammunition they
had left, and the southerners had no desire to destroy them. Neither did they desire to force the Yankees’ surrender. The
First Tennessee Cavalry were just fine where they were—they were bait.

The Yankees were lying low, and they were very quiet.

“Noah!” Lam said, trying again, exasperated. “Would it please you to move?”

“Just a minute, Lam,” Noah said. Noah had every intention of doing what Lam asked, but first he had some pressing business
to settle.

“I’d order you to move,” Lam said, “me being a colonel and you a major. But I have a strange feeling that in all this insane
and jumbled up business you might actually be the man in charge.”

“Colonel?” Noah said, addressing Luther Jarvis, “Would you favor me with something?”

“I don’t see why not,” Colonel Jarvis said.

“What I’d like to do right now is talk to the commander of the First Tennessee Cavalry. He’s a man named Walt Tyler, and he’s
a colonel. Could you send somebody out under a white flag to set that up for me?”

“You don’t need to do that, Noah,” Lam said.

“You go on and I’ll catch up with you,” Noah said.

“Don’t be silly. This is a military operation, not a Sunday ride in the country.”

“I can be through with what I need to do in five minutes. Is that all right, Colonel?” he said to Jarvis. Then added, “Would
you go and send someone to contact Colonel Tyler, please?”

Fifteen minutes later, Noah and Walt Tyler were squared off opposite one another halfway between the southern and the northern
lines.

“What do you have in mind to talk about, Major?” Tyler asked, very proper and correct, after the two men had made their introductions.

“Nothing that’s real earthshakingly significant, Colonel. Don’t get your hopes up. I’m not going to let you surrender.”

“Well, then,” Tyler said, looking more curious than put out, “I’ll ask you what I have in mind.” He made a sweeping gesture
that took in his own positions around the counterfeit locomotives and the Confederate positions before him. “I haven’t the
slightest idea what’s going on, Major. Canvas and papier-mâché locomotives? You’ve got us trapped well and good, but what
for?”

Noah laughed at him. “Don’t you remember me?” he asked suddenly.

“No,” Tyler said slowly, “I can’t say that I do.” He paused awhile, then said, “Should I?”

“We met briefly some weeks ago a few miles south of here. I was on an armed train you and your men ambushed. A locomotive
and a couple of cars south of Okolona.”

Tyler looked at Noah quizzically. “Yeah, sure, I remember that. What about it? We let you go, didn’t we?”

“That’s right. You sent us running, and I guess I ought to be grateful for that. But before you did that, you toyed with us,
enjoying yourself at our expense, and I want you to know that it burned my ass.”

Tyler shrugged. “So?” he said. Then he smiled grimly. “You know, Major, I’m kind of glad I made an impression on you. I intended
to do that.”

“Fine. I understand,” Noah said slowly, almost casually, but with acid in his voice. “And I know that fighting men like to
have their good times and all. But I want you to know that I’ve put you in a worse position now than you had me in then. And
I want you to know that I’m thinking about you all the time, and that pretty damn soon I’m going to make you endure a lot
more powerful hell than you made me feel.”

“What do you have in mind?” Tyler asked, stone-faced.

“Consider the possibilities,” Noah said. He wanted the man to feel he was dangling helplessly on Noah’s hook. “You have some
time. Imagine to yourself what you’d be doing to me if our places were switched. Then tremble a little, because what I have
in mind is a lot worse.”

Tyler stepped back and swept his eyes up and down Noah, as though taking his measure. “You know something, Major Ballard?
I think you must be a madman.”

“Good evening, Colonel,” Noah said. “Just consider the possibilities.” With that, Noah turned on his heel and rejoined Lam
behind the breastworks.

“You ready to go now, Noah?” Lam asked.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

“Magnificent!” Lam said. And in the same breath he turned to Colonel Jarvis, “Luther, we’re off. Good luck.”

“Good luck to you,” Colonel Jarvis said.

Lam and Noah set off from the field positions to the place where their horses were waiting.

Ashbel Kemble’s blockade runner
Miranda
was as sleek, fast, and elegant as a leaping dolphin. She was 252 feet long, with a beam of 31 feet, and a depth of 11 feet.
To make the barest of silhouettes against the sky, she was low to the water and painted dull gray, and save for her two lower
masts and her funnels, everything aloft had been taken down. She carried a crew of forty-nine hands, and her maximum speed
was seventeen knots, unusually fast for those days.
Miranda
was bound from Liverpool to Charleston, South Carolina, with a load of percussion caps, cartridge bags, shellac, and saltpeter,
as well as eight chests of medicines kept separately in the owner’s cabin.

On the night of September 9 and 10,
Miranda
was forty-five nautical miles due south of Savannah, Georgia, which put her just over a hundred nautical miles from Charleston,
South Carolina, her intended destination. She would make neither port, and both her captain, whose name was Anthony Meyer,
and her owner, who was a passenger on that voyage, knew it.

It was past midnight on the tenth as
Miranda
labored slowly and painfully south. She was sorely wounded.

The previous day she had had a run-in with the nemesis of blockade runners, the United States cruiser
Niphon.
Though
Miranda
was faster than
Niphon
by two or three knots, she had not been able to take advantage of her greater speed. When she encountered
Niphon, Miranda
had been south and east of Charleston, proceeding in a blanketing fog at a cautious six knots. The fog lifted, and there
stood
Niphon
at two cable lengths, as astonished as
Miranda
but eager to pounce.
Miranda
was a long-sought prize.
Niphon’s
crew and officers relished the chance to grab their personal splits from the sale of her cargo.

Miranda
poured on steam and ran south, racing for the shore. With her shallow draft, she could hug much closer to land than
Niphon.
Yet it wasn’t her shallow draft that saved her; it was a sudden squall. The sheets of rain made her invisible to her pursuer.
During her flight,
Miranda
took a terrible beating. Her hull was damaged and she was shipping water. One of her two boilers was useless, and her port
paddle wheel was no better than halfway up to par.

The squall had long since passed, and
Miranda
was now laboring slowly along at four knots. Shipping water as she was, Captain Meyer estimated that she was safe for perhaps
another twelve hours. And that meant that Charleston was out of the question—even if the Federal naval patrols had not been
out in such force. Savannah, which was nearer, was also out of the question, but for other reasons. In April 1862 Federal
forces had captured Fort Pulaski, whose guns commanded the long, narrow channel of the Savannah River. After that, few Confederate
blockade runners attempted to reach Savannah.

Captain Meyer and
Miranda’s
owner, Ashbel Kemble, had few options. And these few choices were complicated by the fear that they would run into the
U.S.S. Florida,
which patrolled these parts.

Captain Meyer, First Officer Muller, Ashbel Kemble, and Fanny Shaw, who was a nonparticipating observer, discussed this situation
in the wardroom.

Meyer and Muller believed their best chance was to make a dash up Ossabaw Sound, below Savannah, and then land the ship. Most
of the land around there was under Confederate control, and this was not the case with the sea islands from Saint Catherines
on south. These were occupied either by Yankee garrisons or renegade slaves. Even if the ship could be safely landed on one
of those islands, her valuable cargo would surely be lost.

Ashbel Kemble remained silent during most of Meyer and Muller’s deliberations. Though he offered occasional observations and
suggestions, his policy was to leave the practical running of his ships to the officers he had entrusted with the job—even
in grave circumstances such as they were in.

The captain, for his part, was glad to have his owner’s confidence, but he also wanted to make completely certain that the
owner approved of the next move he intended. That move was going to be the last act of
Miranda’s
final voyage, and Meyer did not want any blame for it to fall on himself.

“I take it by your silence, Mr. Kemble,” he said, “that you approve our new course?”

“Yes, Captain,” Ash said.
“Qui tacet consentire.
Go ahead with you.” And then a smile flickered across his face. “But you
are
aware, are you not, how close we are to Kemble lands?”

“Yes, sir,” Meyer said. “I’ve not forgotten that.” The mouth of the Altamaha River was twenty-five miles to the southwest.
Several of the small islands along that waterway belonged to the Kemble family. “I’m also aware, sir, that there’s a Federal
naval squadron based at Saint Simon’s Island.”

“I haven’t forgotten that either, Mr. Meyer,” Ash said, lifting his hand in acknowledgment. “Go ahead with you,” he repeated.
“And let’s see if we can reach shore before we all get very wet.”

“Mr. Muller?” Captain Meyer said, turning to his first officer. “Would you see to our new bearings?”

“Right away, sir,” Muller said.

The mate bowed, then left the room.

After he had departed, Ash looked at Fanny. “Any regrets, my dear?” There was an amused twinkle in his eye. The man was irrepressible,
Fanny thought. Neither the danger they were in nor the imminent loss of his ship, and possibly of his cargo, seemed to disturb
him. He’d laugh on his deathbed, then slap Satan on his back and offer him a Havana cigar when he reached his likely final
destination.

“Regrets, Ash?” she asked. “About this voyage and its dangers? No. No regrets. I’ve been far too long apart from my children.
It’s time I see them again, even if it’s risky to do so.”

“Actually,” Ash said, grinning, “I was wondering how much you’ve missed Kemble Island. We’re close to it now, and you spent
pretty close to ten years of your life there.
Miranda
can’t make the island—she draws too deep for that—but we could certainly reach Little Saint Simon’s. That’s only a short
pull to the big house.”

“I hate that place, Ash Kemble. I never want to see it again. You know that. You know I don’t even want to talk about it.”

“The years haven’t dulled your anger?”

“Not at all,” she said. “Those were the nine worst years of my life, and I’m distressed to be even this close. I can feel
its noxious presence. Evil rays emanate from it.”

“As you can see, Captain,” Ash said by way of explanation, “Mrs. Shaw has strong opinions about the Kemble plantations.”

Captain Meyer nodded coolly. The wise thing for him to do was to stay well out of the game these two were playing.

“All the more reason to head north,” Ash continued. “We can’t let the good lady be overcome by noxious rays.”

“You
are
a devil, Ash Kemble,” she said, teasing him back. “If I didn’t know better, I’d have guessed you arranged our recent misfortunes
simply to bring me this close to Kemble Island. The last time I was there, I left it in the dead of night, alone, on a boat
which I myself rowed to Darien. That escape will forever be for me the final chapter in my life at Kemble Island—at least,”
she added, “if I have any say in the matter.”

Captain Meyer, after these words, gave a questioning look. He was curious to fill in this piece in the scandalous tale of
Fanny Shaw and her former husband, the late Pierce Kemble. Much of the tale was public knowledge, but the juiciest parts had
eluded the press.