Each Other
Page 42
November crept in with a tease. Warm autumn days tangled with cool, damp nights that made sleeping in canvas tents nearly manageable. I had done as I was told and returned north, making my way to Massachusetts, to my father’s home. Warren had relayed the prisoner trade to Katherine who knew well that she had to try to find Sarah and that if she returned she was risking her life.
But it was Sarah who relayed to me what happened that November night in the thick woods around Westerly prison.
Within a mile of the little town’s border five male prisoners and a woman, dressed as a young Confederate private, made their way through patches of bog and forest seeking a man on horseback who would lead them to the line where they could cross and escape. A man in the uniform of Captain of the Confederacy was the guide they sought in the patchy fog that night, a man whom only they would recognize. Word among the prisoners was that he had known the woman spy, Ann Cunningham, and was present at the prisoner trade; the event that some of the prisoners could see from their cells facing the yard. She was the same woman who had visited them with herbs and made salves for their wounds and chest coughs. And she was the same woman who had, several months back, brought a basket of eggs with her on her rounds into the prison and handed the basket to Jess, a tall man, dark and lean, a leader among the men being held in Westerly prison.
“Check the marked one,” she had whispered, looking at him sternly and catching his eyes with her own. The egg, marked by soil, was lighter than the others and had a tiny hole pricked into it at one end. In cracking it open, Jess found a map, rolled long and thin, sketched by her own hand no doubt, that showed a path of sorts that could lead them beyond Westerly, through the woods, over a creek and then skirted Marsh Station. A safe house was depicted farther east and then the path swung north to the border where the group was headed.
The young disguised Private, a female scout if anyone looked closely, was to meet up with the group in the woods, and then turn the group to over to the Captain.
“Jess, are you sure this is the way to go?” asked a thin companion, older in appearance than his twenty-four years.
“Hush, I told you ‘no talking’ or we’d get ourselvfs killt.” Jess whispered hoarsely. “Jus’ ‘cause it sounds quiet don’t mean we’re alone. It’s not like I’ve been here before ‘ya know Pay ‘tention now and watch where ya walk. If ya get sucked into a bog we’re not goin’ ta wait and pull ya out.”
That comment seemed to make all the men more thoughtful about the sounds they made. Eventually they came to a glade and skirted the edges, staying back in the brush as best they could. The night appeared to be clearing slowly, and up ahead, farther away from the path, they could barely see a shadowed figure. Their guide, the Private, had signaled them forward with a single motion of the hand. ‘This way,’ the gesture informed them. Moving along a thin path the soldier led them deeper into the forest until the men could see a dim light up ahead. The lantern light bounced off a patch of fog thereby, seeming bigger than itself. Walking towards it, they could see the figure of a man standing next to his horse in silhouette. As he mounted the horse, he nodded slightly to their soldier-guide in acknowledgement, and then pointed to the left, down a new path, thus distinguishing himself as their new guide. A lantern lit low swayed gently from the perch at the side of his sturdy, leather saddle. Walking the horse, the Captain moved farther away and deeper into the woods. They followed the lantern light, their only visible clue to their path in the hazy fog.
Having accomplished the assigned task, the young soldier stepped back from the trail and found a tree with a few low branches for climbing. As she recalled this part of the story for me later, Sarah was the one dressed as a Confederate Private. She climbed the tree to get a better view of what was ahead. From an owl’s perch in the tree, she saw the line of men moving through the foggy forest like a single strand of a spider’s web, covered with dew at dawn.
Then she saw what followed, even through the mist. She recounted it all for me weeks later when she was able to return to Massachusetts in secret, of course.
“After mounting his horse Warren’s hand reached to his chest pocket and gave it a pat as if assuring himself that something was still secured inside. No sooner had his hand returned to the rein when the bullet struck him. It struck hard in his chest with an explosion that seemed to echo off the fog itself.”
Into and through the black forest the ring of gunfire reverberated and hung in her ears. She described nearly collapsing out of the tree, but quickly steadied herself. At the sound of the bullet, Ches responded with a full gallop and raced deeper into the woods, stopping when she felt the weight of her rider lighten, far enough away from the prison group to allow them to hide as dawn approached. The picket probably never even knew of the prisoners’ presence.