by Daniel Wyatt
Bishop nodded, as he wrote in shorthand. “I’m sure they do.”
“I know the man who had the guns installed. Colonel William Lamb, a journalist by trade.”
“I say. Really?”
“Lives right at the fort in a cottage with his wife. Nice lady. I’ve dined with them.”
“Why do they call it Cape Fear? Is it as dangerous as it sounds?”
“During different times of year it can be — the storms, the treacherous waters, the shoals—”
“Shoals?” Bishop asked, as he continued to write.
“Shoals are underwater sandbars. They are our enemies to the same degree the Federal gunboats are. Without a good pilot like Homer Cogswell we wouldn’t stand a chance. He knows the Cape Fear waters better than any man I know. He was raised near there. What we have to do now is sneak our way through the outer patrols of Union gunboats to the shore somewhere in the vicinity of either opening. Then we hide and wait until nightfall and high tide to make our final run through the inner line of ships. Hmm, we must be coming into shore now.”
“How can you tell, sir?”
“Thataway.” Denning pointed. “The belt of mist rising up to the northwest. You only get that kind of mist close to shore.”
“Where did that come from so fast?”
“SHIPS AHOY! SHIPS AHOY!”
Denning looked up at the youngest member of his crew, freckle-faced Jimmy Parkens, stationed up the foremast. “What is it, Jimmy?”
Parkens pointed aft of the runner. His eye was to the lens of his strong telescope. “Two ships, sir. To the stern. Both gunboats. One of them is... is a converted runner, sir. She’s a big one. Three stacks. A Union blue, it is.”
Bishop leaped with Denning on top of a row of crates on the bridge. Two black marks dotted the horizon, a long way off.
Balsinger walked up. “Do you think they’ve spotted us?”
“I don’t know with any certainty,” Denning replied. “But my guess would be they have. We’ll have to take precautions and give them the slip.” Denning looked to sea. An important decision had to be made now, and his ship’s survival would depend on it. Which opening would they take? Denning waited for several minutes and finally saw that the two gunboats were heading toward Smith Island to cut off the Silver Sally’s path south. They had made the first move.
“They did spot us,” Denning said calmly to Balsinger. “Let’s take a wide sweep to port and try for one of the beaches south of New Inlet.” He looked back to the rolling mist, now collecting swiftly. “Let’s hope we lose them completely.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Fog quickly consumed the Silver Sally, and visibility shrunk to about two hundred yards. They came out of the gray uncertainty after thirty minutes to see not only land, but also another gunboat, this one patrolling the beach inlets.
Denning cursed his bad luck. The gunboat was blocking the Sally’s path to one of her favorite hideaway beaches. From three-quarters of a mile away, the Union boat fired a shell that struck the water short of its mark. Denning knew that it was getting tougher each trip to split the blockade. There were just too many ships patrolling up and down the North Carolina coast. Denning made up his mind that New Inlet was out of the question. His only hope was Smith Island, as long as the first two blockaders were not ahead of him.
“It has to be Smith Island now, Homer,” Denning said to Cogswell at the pilot house. “We can hide there till nightfall. The Feds are starting to cut off some of our hideouts. Swing around. Head her out to sea. Stay away from the coast until I give the order.”
In their change of course, the fog blanketed the Sally for the second time. Despite the lowered visibility, Denning had seen two Union gunboats appear, then vanish without a trace. Neither enemy ship had shot a shell. As a precaution, Denning called for his sailors to put up the North’s Stars and Stripes flag.
* * * *
The sun burned brightly off starboard. Across the water, the strange fog was keeping pace with the Sally on its southerly course. More than two hours of sunlight remained, too long for Denning’s liking. How could they shake the warships for that length of time?
“Head for shore,” Denning ordered, guided by his instincts.
Denning, Balsinger and Bishop stood on the bridge, perched on gunpowder barrels. Suddenly there was a break in the fog. The men now had a clear view of the Cape, and the lighthouse on low-lying Smith Island, ten miles and several points off the starboard bow.
“Enemy gunboat at one thousand yards!” Parkens called out. “Two points off the starboard stern!”
Denning saw the converted runner and two other ships in close proximity, close enough to shoot. Denning had to make a choice. The only sensible thing to do was to turn and head back farther out to sea, outrun the gunboats in neutral waters, hope to slip back into the fog, and wait until nightfall.
“Hard a-port!” he shouted, his voice echoing off the deck.
The crew responded to his frantic order. During the swift maneuver, Denning clung to the edge of a gunpowder barrel to steady himself. He raised his brass telescope to focus on the nearest ship, the converted runner. She was heavily armed with a Dahlgren smoothbore, eleven-inch pivot gun, and at least six twenty-pound howitzers. She was bearing down on him, but still hadn’t fired. The skipper had to be lining up for a perfect shot. It couldn’t be anything else.
At first, Denning smiled ruefully at what he saw through the strong lens. A man limped to the rail. But it wasn’t just any man. The bow-legged gait had given him away. At six hundred yards Denning could tell it was his old adversary. That bastard Carlisle! He didn’t give up easily. So it was him who had the converted runner, the big ship with three stacks, and she was turning to cut the Sally off. The two other warships saw what was happening and swung around to form a triangle about the runner. All the Union ships had to do was send up a dense column of black smoke as a signal to all the other cruisers, then proceed to tighten the grip about him, to wedge him.
Bolstered by the sight of Carlisle, Denning had an idea. With such an opportunity, he would revise his plan of attack. He ran for the pilot house before the turn finished. Partway, he stopped to rethink. Yes, the opportunity was there, but it had never been tried before, that he knew of. The ship was in good trim. She could do it. He broke into a run the rest of the way before he could talk himself out of it.
In the pilot house, Cogswell had his weathered hands on the helm, his warm pipe clenched between his teeth. He looked over at Woodson. They were in a pickle.
Denning flew into the cabin. “Homer! Head for shore.”
“What?”
“We’re going in! Old Inlet. Now!”
“Are you sure?”
“Never more sure in my life.”
“But captain!” Woodson said, his cool, dark eyes on Denning.
“You’re not at the helm, Ben. You heard me, Homer! Turn her to starboard! My old friend Carlisle is out there. And I know he won’t leave me alone.”
“But in daylight?”
“Yes, in daylight.” Denning couldn’t believe he was saying it. “You have to hit the channel dead-on, Homer. You can do it. What do you say?”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Cogswell said. No matter how bizarre the order, he would give his all. “Yeah, we can do it. I think.”
“Good man,” said Denning.
Cogswell shot the wheel around in his calloused hands. Beneath the deck the ship’s engines and rudder beat in unison, causing the ship to vibrate for a moment.
“You’re both crazy!” said Woodson, shaking his head.
“You don’t have to do anything,” Denning laughed. “Get down on the floor. We’ll let you know when it’s over.”
Balsinger ran up, his face glistening with sweat. “What are you doing, skipper?”
“What does it look like?”
“You’re heading into shore!”
“Talk him out of it,” Woodson urged Balsinger.
“You’re not?�
� said Balsinger, astonished. “Don’t!”
“Carlisle is commanding one of those ships,” Denning snapped, his eyes heavy on the pursuing Federal ships. “He won’t give up. We’re going in, Matt.”
“I don’t believe this is happening.”
“Believe it,” Denning said gruffly. “I told you we’d meet up with Carlisle again.”
“But skipper,” Balsinger argued. “This is only the outer line of ships. It’s going to get hotter than this at the mouth of the Cape!”
“Not necessarily. They’ll never suspect it. The inner line will be at anchor this time of day.”
“Supposing they aren’t at anchor?”
“If we make our move now, no one has time to alert anybody. Besides, it takes a number of minutes for them to get up a head of steam.” Denning checked his pocket watch. Coming on to eight. About an hour of sunlight remained. He was losing patience with his first officer. “With high tide in fifteen minutes, we have the advantage. Don’t you get the picture? Hell, a blind man can see it!”
“Some advantage.” Balsinger’s voice rose. “Remember what we’re hauling. Gunpowder. Five hundred barrels of it. Carlisle and his Bluebellies will blow us clear out of the water!”
Denning held Balsinger’s stare for a moment, long enough that Balsinger thought he had persuaded the captain to reconsider. The sight of the gunboats ahead convinced him that Denning was wrong. But for Denning it was too late for either the danger of the volatile gunpowder or the daylight to make a difference. His sense of adventure was stronger than his fear of getting caught and being sent to a Yankee prison. “All the more reason to go like hell to shore. We have to stand and fight with what we have at our disposal.”
“But, skipper, you call this a fight? It’s more like suicide.”
“Never mind!” Denning yelled, with finality. “Hop to it. Call the engine room. Tell Jackson I want all the steam he can muster up. And I want the sails up for more speed. Go!” Balsinger was too stricken to move. He acknowledged what was demanded of him, but balked. “Carry out my orders, Mr. Balsinger, or you will be replaced on the next run!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Balsinger complied, his voice shaky. He reached for the tube in the pilot house. He held it to his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. The chief engineer answered. “Jackson!” Balsinger thundered into the voice tube. “The captain wants full steam!”
“What!”
Balsinger looked back at Denning conferring with Cogswell. “I said full steam! We’re going in!”
“Now?”
“Yeah, dammit! Give her all she’s got!”
Balsinger caught the attention of two sailors outside the house. “Get those sails up, on the double! Move!”
Denning patted Cogswell on the shoulder. “That’s it, steady,” Denning said, guiding his pilot through the starboard shift. “Straighten her out and cut the seam through the two of them. Right... there.” He pointed through the opening in front of Cogswell. “Get us through, Homer.”
“Aye, sir,” Cogswell replied, making a determined sign of the cross, his fist thumping his chest. At least in the early evening hours he would be able to tell exactly where the Frying Pan Shoals were off Smith Island. And there would still be enough of the high tide left to be an advantage to the runner.
Denning withdrew, then came back. He was out of breath. “One more thing. Make an extra sign of the cross for me.”
Cogswell smiled. “I will, sir.”
Denning flew out of the pilot house, nearly knocking Bishop down. “Bishop,” he said, his eyes full of mischief. “You are going to be a party to history in the making. You are going to write the greatest story The Times has ever seen. You are about to see the first daylight cotton run of the war. What do you say to that, boy?”
“Good grief. I hope I live to tell of it.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
* * * *
On the bridge of the USS Annapolis, Commander Farley lowered his telescope and smiled at Captain Carlisle. He wasn’t fooled by the Stars and Stripes of the escaping runner. The size and the three stacks gave her away. Only one other runner was that big — theirs.
“Sir, it’s the Silver Sally.”
“I’ll be a horned devil,” Carlisle said swiftly. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir. A couple of clear shots, sir, will do ’er.”
“The crazy fool thinks he can get away. Well, he’s not going to make it. You’re right, Farley. Order the Big Bear gunners to fire at will. This is a job for them.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“I... want... Denning,” Carlisle said slowly, his fist pounding into his open hand. He looked upon the Sally with venomous contempt. He could see a promotion. “May God have mercy on your soul, Denning.”
Carlisle waddled to the engineer’s hatchway in the deck, only fifteen feet away. “I want maximum pressure,” he yelled down to the sooty faces in the hot one-hundred-degree-plus depths. “This ship better be doing sixteen knots or more!”
* * * *
“HIT THE DECK!” Denning shouted, as he heard the first heavy shell fired from Carlisle’s runner.
Denning reached across to Bishop and pulled him down. The ball whistled over the starboard paddle-box. So far, his ship seemed to be outrunning the three gunboats, but he was still well in range of their guns. The walls of Fort Caswell, at the base of Oak Island, were coming into view. So were four inner-line warships, directly in his path. The fort needed to be alerted to the Sally’s predicament before the inner line of Fed boats could move. But, how could he do that?
Denning looked up at his two men exposed on the masts. They didn’t flinch. Brave men they were, disciplined. “Bishop. Get up. Do you remember where the crates of Paris dresses are?”
“Dresses? At a time like this?”
“I need the red dresses! Help me find them. You watched them being loaded, remember. The lids weren’t hammered down. Yank them all up if you have to.” Then he heard another shell. “Get down!”
The next shell splashed so close that Denning and Bishop felt the turbulence from the projectile. It struck the water off the ship’s bow, and the spray that shot up rocked the boat. Another missile followed, this one from a different ship. It missed by fifty feet. One of the other ships had closed to less than five hundred yards, trying to catch the Sally in a cross fire.
“Be quick about it, Bishop. Help me find those dresses.”
The two men worked frantically, pulling the tops off crates.
“Here, captain,” Bishop said, propping open his sixth crate. “Here they are!”
Denning stumbled over to Bishop. He removed three of the red garments and plunked two of them into the young man’s trembling arms.
“What am I to do with these?”
“Take one up to Jimmy aloft, on the foremast. Give the other to the man on the other mast. Tell them to wave the things like madmen. They’ll know why. Got it?”
“I suppose so.”
“Now, up the mast with you!”
Denning hurried down a row of crates and scrambled to the port paddle-box. He waved the gaudy red dress over his head, thanking his maker for the good fortune to purchase the merchandise when he did. The inner line of gunboats still looked to be at anchor. But for how much longer? “Pour on the coal! We need more steam!” he cried to a sailor who relayed the order to the engineer’s hatch.
“You heard the captain! More steam!”
* * * *
Marie and Mae Keating were out on a buggy ride that early evening. Near the beach, they heard the distant echo of cannon bursts on the water and out of curiosity decided to follow the sounds. Marie took the covered carriage along a dirt trail to the tip of Oak Island, more than a hundred feet across from Fort Caswell. They looked over at the closest battery to them, draped over the stone wall. One of the soldiers slumped against the long smoothbore waved to her. Marie waved back.
Mae jerked Marie’s hand down. “Now, remember your condition.” She s
poke rapidly, her chin high. “You’re a widow. If you’re not going to dress like one, then kindly act like one.”
Marie didn’t reply. In spite of her aunt’s constant badgering during the stay, Marie had steadfastly refused to wear black. For one thing, she hadn’t brought any such attire with her to Smithville, giving the excuse that she had left in too great haste to even think of purchasing mourning clothes. On the beach, Mae brought up the subject of proper mourning procedures for the third time that day until the boom of more cannon and howitzer fire in the distance drew their attention away.
Marie dropped the reins and studied the line of dark Union gunboats with their bright white sails on the ocean horizon. Suddenly, to her disbelief, she saw a vessel off Smith Island. It was a different ship than the others. She was long, sleek, slate gray in color, not Union dark. Was Marie seeing things? It was a blockade runner! She shot a glance at Luke’s aunt. Aunt Mae saw it too. The ship was under full steam in a race for port. No Reb runner had ever tried to take on the Union gunboats in daylight before. They had to be out of their minds!
Marie was fascinated. “They’re trying to make a run for it!”
“No!” Mae’s mouth dropped open.
“Oh, yes. Where are those field glasses?”
Mae found them under the seat and handed them to Marie.
“They’ll never make it. They’ll just never make it.” Mae touched her hand to her breast. “Oh, my. Oh, my! Those dear brave men. What would make them do such a foolhardy thing?”
Marie slung the leather connecting strap of the heavy binoculars around her neck, as her gloved hands played with the focuser. Through the strong lenses, she caught a better look at what was unfolding before her. More than ten ships were converging on the fleeing, defenseless runner. She saw a figure on the paddle-box nearest her waving what looked like a large red flag. It seemed to be waving in her direction. That was strange. Two other figures on the two masts were doing the same thing. Three red flags? Why? It had to be a signal of some sort.
