Lamb to the Slaughter

by Tony Masero

  ‘Old man Pinkerton’s here, by the way,’ Lomas informed them.

  ‘He’s here?’ asked Belle in surprise.

  ‘Yes, he with McClellan and the Army of the Potomac conducting information gathering for the General. But I do hear tell,’ added Lomas slyly. ‘He’s not doing so well.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Kirby defensively.

  ‘Oh yes, McClellan’s getting misleading assessments of the Confederate forces in front of him from your boss. It’s slowing the old boy down, he’s a cautious ass already as it is and he thinks he’s got two hundred thousand men facing him but its nowhere near that number. More like eighty thousand, in truth.’

  ‘So you’re going to put him right?’

  ‘I’m here on a different matter entirely. We’ve got word of an organization supposedly aiding the South, but they’re playing a game against both sides in reality. Using a bounty jumper system to rake in cash whilst the opposing forces are at loggerheads.’

  ‘Bounty jumpers? How does that work?’

  ‘Well,’ said Lomas, leaning forward and unwrapping the food pack. He took out a slice of cooked beef and chewed for a moment before continuing. ‘You probably know that under the draft agreement conscripts can pay off someone else to do their time for them in the army. Down here in the South, Confederates pay from fifty to a hundred dollars bounty for the service. In the northern states, it’s a higher rate, can be up to three hundred dollars, then you add on local government and state bounties and you’re talking somewhere in the region of a thousand dollars per man.’

  Kirby puffed his cheeks and blew out a long breath, ‘Phew! That’s a tidy sum. So how does it work?’

  ‘The jumper’s sign up in a regular way in place of their drafted man then they hang around a while, usually a few weeks, before they desert, shed their uniform and go off to join up again under a different name. And that’s how they do it, going from unit to unit and piling up the cash as they go. We’ve had report of three thousand cases in New York alone.’

  ‘You going to let me have some of that?’ said Belle, pushing Lomas’ eager hand away as she reached for the bread in the steadily diminishing food parcel. ‘That explains the two men I told you about, Kirby. Both of them identical so I could swear they were the same boy but dressed in different uniforms.’

  ‘That would be it,’ agreed Lomas. ‘It’s getting to be a regular business now and we reckon there’s a certain gang behind it all. They operate under a phony sounding name and protest loyalty to the South but its really they’re own selves that benefit. These people have a different agenda, they aim to claim Mexico for themselves once this war is over and the money is the making of a war chest for them.’

  ‘Hey, wait a minute,’ said Lomas. ‘I came across word of such a bunch who claimed exactly that just recent. Some kind of Knights they called themselves.’

  ‘Yep, that’s the group. The Knights of the Golden Circle, and believe me they have fingers in pies on both sides and high up in office too. These boys don’t mess about. Whatever they’re motives they operate in secret, have code word rituals and all that sort of nonsense but when it comes down to it if you stand in their way they’ll cut you down without a prayer.’

  ‘So you’re here trying to winkle them out, is that it?’

  ‘That was my mission until I came across you two. Well,’ he corrected himself. ‘It was Belle really that I first saw.’

  ‘Me?’ said Belle, blue eyes flashing as she chewed hungrily on a hunk of bread. ‘You’ve been watching me?’

  ‘Yes, you and you’re beloved husband, who’s now in disgrace, I believe he’s involved in this business.’

  ‘Courtney! I didn’t think he had enough brain for something of that nature,’ said Belle doubtfully.

  ‘No, probably not but he serves someone higher up in the Confederate military. I want to find out who and trace the lead back to whoever it is who’s organizing it all in the North so we can put a stop to it.’

  ‘Meanwhile we’ve got word of a whole mess of iron-plate works that being developed by the factory here, with that and the numbers of troops you spoke about there’s a whole parcel of information we need to get back but we’re holed up here tight with half the Confederacy out looking for us,’ complained Belle.

  ‘I guess that’ll be material for the new ironclad vessel I’ve heard tell about,’ said Lomas. ‘There was a great battle most recent on the river and the Confederate ironclad the CSS Virginia did remarkable well. Sunk two of our ships and grounded another, it wasn’t until our own ironclad the Monitor came on the scene that they were held off. But it proved the worth of the iron ships and now they’re developing a new model. It is some kind of submersible that can deliver explosive beneath a vessel, I reckon that’ll be why they want the iron plate.’

  ‘You mean a cast iron ship that goes underwater?’ asked Belle with a touch of disbelief.

  ‘Sure, that’s what I heard. They plan on using a protected fuse that will burn off under the waves and blow our navy to merry hell. It’s a new technology and the Rebels have got a good handle on it.’

  ‘You’re remarkably well informed,’ said an impressed Kirby. ‘How in the hell you getting all this?’

  Lomas waggled his sleeve and the bold patterns of gold braid, ‘See this? Rank will get you in anywhere. I’ve been frequenting the officer clubs and listening to the whispers.’

  ‘Well, you’ve done better than me,’ confessed Belle. ‘I had no word of any of that.’

  ‘I guess your informants had other things on their mind,’ Lomas smiled wryly.

  ‘We all serve in our own particular way,’ protested Belle airily.

  ‘Or are served,’ muttered Kirby, with a hint of resentment.

  ‘Pass me that pail of beer so I can dunk it over your head,’ snapped Belle.

  ‘Well, why’d you have to do that?’ Kirby came back. ‘Sleeping around with those soldier boys. There’s a word for that, you know.’

  ‘Maybe I like it,’ Belle came back cynically. ‘Maybe I just like it. Has to be that, doesn’t it? I mean there can’t be any other purpose behind it all, can there?’

  ‘I know you got your reasons, Belle,’ grumbled Kirby. ‘I just don’t like it, is all.’

  ‘Well, you certainly aren’t getting it, are you?’ Belle was angry and he voice was rising as she fumed.

  ‘That’s sure is a fact, I ain’t getting a damned thing’ agreed Kirby. ‘And keep your voice down, I don’t want to have to pull you out of another prison.’

  ‘Now, now, children,’ smiled Lomas, waving placating hands. ‘Let’s not do this. I have a suggestion. Instead of each of us doing our own thing and getting all fired up and irritable why don’t we work together on this? Pool our resources and see what we can do as a team.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ mumbled Kirby, his mood disturbed by the airing of Belle’s behavior.

  ‘I like that,’ said Belle, quickly overriding Kirby’s doubt. ‘It makes sense, we’ll do far better the three of us working together.’

  ‘Not much we can do out of an old coal shed,’ grumbled Kirby.

  ‘That’ll be the first thing,’ said Lomas. ‘We have to get you both new disguises and a place to stay. I can arrange that, I’m not under suspicion and can still move around freely.’

  ‘I guess,’ agreed Kirby, finally coming around to the notion. ‘Anything to be on the move again, this hiding out is beginning to rile me no end.’

  But it wasn’t so much the idleness that was disturbing Kirby but more the presence of Belle and his jealous resentment of her indifferent displays of immorality. He loved her and it was hard for him to think of her giving herself to other men whilst he ached to be just as close himself.

  ‘I think I can get by as a widow woman,’ said Belle. ‘I’ll wear a hat and a dark veil, say I’ve lost my husband at the front.’

  ‘Good thinking, Belle. That way you can hide your face and those golden curls of yours,’ agreed Lomas. ‘Wha
t about you, Kirby?’

  ‘Depends on how we divide up the labor.’

  ‘Okay, let’s talk on that. Right now, I’m about to be elected as a fully paid-up member of the Knights of the Golden Circle, which will mean a damned good front seat at all their activities. This is too good to let go, so I’ll have to stay in Richmond. I could use some help on the bounty jumping front though, so how about this. Kirby, do you think you can break through and carry word of what we’ve discovered to the Union lines?’

  Kirby shrugged, ‘I reckon.’

  Lomas nodded, ‘Belle, maybe you can do some work around the Knights and see what you can turn up there?’

  Belle agreed then asked, ‘Do you have a contact there I can work on?’

  ‘I’m tracking your ex and I think he’ll lead us to the main man in the higher command, once we’ve identified who he is maybe you can make a play then? Try a bit of weeping and needing of consolation, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  Kirby shook his head and looked away in disgust.

  ‘What?’ asked Belle.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Kirby, with a look that meant everything.

  ‘We’re supposed to be agents,’ Belle explained with strained patience. ‘This is what we do, if you want to try your winning ways in widow’s weeds then you can have a go.’

  Kirby rubbed his jaw and said nothing.

  ‘Okay,’ cut in Lomas. ‘If you can manage it without biting each other’s heads off then stay here, I’ll arrange rooms and a closed carriage to come get you. Stay out of sight until then. Are we agreed?’

  The other two nodded sourly.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Major General Herbert Lamb was a stern-faced individual; mostly this was due to the livid scar that ran down in a jagged line from his temple to the bushy jaw-length side-whiskers of his left cheek. The saber wound received some sixteen years before in the earlier Mexican conflict had severed facial nerves and frozen that portion of his pale features. Nowadays, whilst one side of his face flexed and moved normally, the other remained as still as stone and the tilted eyelid that half covered a glass eye held all the unmoving apprehension such lifeless things encourage.

  He had once been a virile man, broad-shouldered and tall. The very picture of what was expected from a stalwart army officer. But since the savage wound and subsequent rise through the ranks the years had not been kind and his continual station behind a desk along with many committee dinners and copious consumption of alcoholic beverages had bloated the once classically heroic figure into a lounging heavyweight.

  But he had achieved high station in the war office of the Confederacy and was a trusted and well-considered officer. Ostensibly he was fulfilling the role of Chief of Conscription but was also affiliated with the Signal Bureau and answered directly to the Secretary of War, Judah Benjamin in certain matters of intelligence gathering.

  He sat, spread across a high, straight-backed chair in his neat and well-lit office, a handkerchief always in his hand for the leakage that often seeped down from his damaged eye. His good eye studied Courtney Monette standing at attention before him with as much chill as the glass one.

  ‘How blows the wind, Courtney?’ he asked, in a clipped military tone.

  This was the signal opening for a Knight of the Order and advised Monette that the meeting was to be approached with that as its main concern rather than any other more mundane military affairs.

  ‘From the south, sir, as ever it does,’ Monette replied promptly.

  ‘Take a seat Courtney, relax.’

  Monette visibly eased himself, he had by now become so used to the criticism encountered for his errant wife that he had fully been expecting another dressing down from his superior. He pulled up a chair before the desk and sat down, he kept himself rigid though as if appearing before the head master at his old school.

  ‘Report,’ snapped Lamb.

  ‘Yes sir, I have recruited two more likely personnel. They are both deserters from the other side but come with full information of the enemy and protest love of our cause. The brighter of the two seems to be a suitable body to carry out our mission.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Joseph Bellows, sir. The other is one Obie Tallant.’

  ‘Would that be Obadiah?’

  ‘I should imagine so, General.’

  ‘Then pray use the full title. We need our records kept straight in all matters and although it may appear of small mien, every detail can be of major importance at some future time. One never knows, Courtney.’

  ‘Of course, sir. I’m sorry, sir.’

  ‘Proceed.’

  ‘It is my intention to send them out shortly, Bellows here in Richmond and the other one into the north.’

  ‘Very well,’ Lamb approved. ‘How many do you have in the field now?’

  ‘Twenty-five, sir.’

  ‘And they are doing well?’

  ‘Indeed so, we are netting a handsome sum in bounty money all of which finds its way into the approved bank vaults as instructed.’

  ‘I need the figures, Courtney. Written accounts and receipts. You will present these to my adjutant, who is a loyal servant of the Circle and to be trusted.’

  ‘They are with him already, General. I delivered as I came in.’

  ‘Well done,’ smiled Lamb, one side of his face lifting whilst the other remained set. His tone was unctuous and superficially gratified but in reality he thought Monette a fool and would see to it he occupied his lowly station in the City Hall backroom until the war was over, after that he did not care what became of the man. Probably, Lamb considered, he would best serve at some distant frontier army station surrounded by dust, disease and wild savages. The thought pleased Lamb no end.

  ‘Now what of this business with your wife? I have never met the woman but they tell me she is something of a beauty.’

  ‘The very factor that led me astray,’ Monette admitted dolefully. ‘I am having the creature put aside, sir. She is at present imprisoned and awaiting court-martial.’

  ‘I fear not,’ said Lamb in a bored tone and, turning his head, he looked out of one of the two tall windows behind his chair. ‘You are misinformed.’

  ‘Indeed? How so?’ Monette asked in bemusement.

  ‘There has been escape. The woman made off with an accomplice. A city wide search is in progress as we speak.’

  ‘Really?’ frowned Monette. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘It seems some buckaroo played the drunk to gain access to the prison and then succeeded in releasing her. I believe we lost some of our men in the process. Captain Meriwether is most upset as they killed his pet dog as well, so I am told.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ muttered an abashed Monette. ‘The woman is the very devil.’

  ‘You are too easily led, Courtney. I fear your brain, small as it is, is placed well below the waistline,’ he turned to fix his grim stare meaningfully on Monette’s potbelly. ‘Ample as that is.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ rumbled Monette in angry embarrassment.

  ‘We need able men amongst the ranks of the Knights, Courtney. Fit and able warriors for the struggle ahead. You hear those guns outside as the Union army approaches, this is nothing to what will be coming.’ For once the General’s face showed some sign of enervation and a flush came to his pale cheeks. ‘The Golden Circle is the future for this nation and even if we are driven from the South we shall rise again following a wholesome cause of true liberty in Mexico. It is there we must direct our energies. Here we are blockaded and starved of supply. The Confederacy cannot win this war, even though I shall do my utmost to make it so but we must plan for the future of our people. That is why the bounty funds are so important. They are the seed bed for the last true redoubt of the Confederacy.’

  He sat back, wiping at the glistening stream running down from his ruined eye socket.

  ‘You must do your very best, Courtney. No philandering, or wasting your efforts in congress with some juicy Jezebel, no ma
tter how fine she looks. Take on the mantle of a bold servant of the South, rise up from your sloth and behave as a genuine Knight of the Golden Circle and do battle for the good of your own kind.’

  Duly chastised, Monette sat up straight at the rallying cry and felt a wave of duty-filled jingoism running through his florid form.

  ‘I shall, sir. On my oath, I shall.’

  ‘Good, Courtney. I’m sure you will. Now, get along and be about your business. See we are well supplied with cash for our needs.’

  As Monette left his commander, Kirby was making his way on foot towards the sound of the guns.

  He was dressed as a Confederate infantry sergeant thanks to Lomas, who had also managed to find them a small house to rent on the Shockoe Creek side of town. It was one of the better areas of the city and Lomas believed that amongst the fine houses their presence was less likely to arouse interest as many of the wealthier residents had already fled in anticipation of the town being overrun and falling under Federal control.

  They had a clearer idea of the form of the campaign now and Kirby knew that the Union forces were being forced back from their original almost overwhelming position. This was the result of the commander General McClellan’s dithering, partly thanks to his own over cautious attitude and also some bad intelligence. The main thrust of the advance, Kirby had been told, was based on the northern side of the peninsular. Yet still, close as they were, the General had no plans ready for a final assault on the capital and in the interim the Confederate army under its new commander, Robert E. Lee had moved in and were making successful advances along the Shenandoah Valley. As Kirby struggled to reach the Union troops alongside the banks of the York River he did not know that the indecisive McClellan was already considering moving his base south.

  The first signs of conflict for Kirby were when he stumbled into a Confederate field hospital situated in a thick grove of trees behind the lines. It was an awesome scene of carnage that Kirby came across. A blood streaked surgeon stood before him in an open sided tent, his unfortunate victim lying screaming on a table before him and held down by four sturdy men. The exhausted doctor looked up unseeing at Kirby for a long moment as he wiped his stained surgical saw across the bloody apron around his middle and then he bent again to begin his work.