by Ed Gorman
“You are mistaken—my name is Phillip Cassidy,” said Usina, the same name he had given Amanda Kelly coming easily to mind.
It was as though Usina had never spoken. “The man sitting on the rail near you when I came on board, he is your man Irvin,” continued the Yankee officer. “He is a slave you own and your leadsman. He is devoted to you.”
“Does wine usually affect you this way?” asked Usina.
“You know that I am giving it to you straight.” The Yankee took care in pronouncing each word.
“You are badly mixed up,” said Usina kindly, pouring the man some more wine.
The Yankee emptied his glass again before replying. “Will you still think I am mixed up when I tell you that the little Frenchman on board is John Sassard, your chief engineer, and that the redheaded fellow is Nelson, your chief officer? Two others are your men also, although I don’t remember their names at the moment. You are Michael Usina, called the Boy Captain, a master of blockade-running, and you are going to Bermuda to take charge of a new ship.”
“Perhaps you had better not have any more wine,” Usina told the Yankee, but the man reached out and poured another glass for himself, then looked around the cabin as though in search of something else to identify. “And that,” he said, pointing at the berth, “is your dog Tinker.” Tinker acknowledged his name with another faint growl. The Yankee then reached into his pocket and produced a photograph of Tinker, Usina, and the lovely Amanda Kelly. “What say you about this, Phillip Cassidy?” the Yankee asked with a sudden grin.
“That is a picture taken with an English missionary returning home—a young woman who was lonely for her brother and the dog she had left behind, a dog that resembled mine,” said Usina, falling somewhat short of his goal of sounding indignant.
“Hah!” said the Yankee, starting to laugh. “That’s rich, the idea of Liz as a missionary—and I can assure you that she’s not missing anyone’s company, The photographer who took this picture has been her partner for quite some time, and I understand that he’s her lover as well.” The officer turned the photograph over on the table right in front of Usina so that he could see his own detailed history written neatly on the back. “Will you acknowledge that I am right, now?”
“What does it matter?” asked Usina. “Even if I am the man you claim me to be, I am under the protection of Her Most Gracious Majesty, and there is nothing you can do about it.”
The Yankee narrowed his eyes. “You may be under the protection of Her Most Gracious Majesty right now, but tomorrow is another day. I have come close to you before, closer than you could ever imagine, and I promise to capture you before long.”
“‘Close’ does not count any more tomorrow than it does today,” replied Usina, bidding a private farewell to the memory of a sweet and innocent English missionary.
“We shall see,” said the Yankee, still going to great pains to speak carefully. “You can be assured that this picture will adorn the rogues’ gallery in Ludlow Street Jail in New York City. There it will stay, until you and the others posted there find yourselves behind bars where you belong.”
“So there are copies of this picture?” asked Usina.
“Of course,” said the Yankee expansively. “You don’t think that we’d go to such pains to get your picture unless we made great use of it, do you? Liz’s services don’t come cheaply, I can tell you, so we have to have a care about who we send her to find. But don’t look so downcast, you are not the first to fall for her schemes. So far, only your Captain Coxetter has resisted her charms and steadfastly refused to have his picture taken.”
Usina had never been particularly fond of Coxetter, whom he thought to be too humorless and authoritarian, but his opinion of the man had just risen considerably. “If you have other copies of this picture,” said Usina, “then I’d like to buy this one from you.”
“Why? Whatever for?” The Yankee looked truly befuddled by Usina’s offer.
“I’d like to have it as a souvenir, just like the photographer said when I paid him to take the picture. I’ll give you a ten-dollar gold piece for it.”
The Yankee seemed to think a moment, then laughed. “I can’t see what harm it would do,” he said. “If you’re thinking to warn your mates about Liz, I can tell you that you’d never recognize her if you saw her again—she’s that good.” He looked down at the picture one more time. “I certainly have others where this one came from,” he said. Usina gave him his gold piece and another glass of wine. They parted on great terms of drunken friendship on the Yankee’s part, with the man swearing to treat Usina well when the day came that he captured him, while Usina swore to himself that day would never come.
Usina remained in his cabin after the Yankee left, contemplating the picture in front of him. “What happened to your gift for warning me when Yankees are about?” he asked Tinker. The dog looked at him silently. “Are you saying that she’s not a Yankee, that she’s a free agent hiring out her services? Or are you saying that you were taken in by that blonde hair and those blue eyes when she picked you up off the street?” Tinker, the soul of discretion, did not deign to reply. Usina lifted his wineglass in a solitary farewell toast to the nonexistent Amanda Kelly.
“One can never be too careful in these troubled times,” Usina told Tinker. “And to remind me of that, this picture is worth a thousand words.”
Tinker gave a mighty sigh in apparent agreement. Then, since there were no longer any Yankees near and no shots were being fired, he closed his eyes and went to sleep, the perfect picture of a loyal companion.
[Note: With the exception of “Amanda Kelly” and her photographer companion, all the characters in this story are historical figures, including Tinker. All the incidents related in the story, with the exception of the meeting with “Amanda Kelly,” are based on real events.]
Bill Crider is the author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series, the first book of which won the Anthony Award in 1987. Crider’s short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, including Holmes for the Holidays and all the books in the celebrated Cat Crimes mystery anthology series.
Here he takes a humorous look at how the exploits of one of the Confederacy’s most famous and successful spies, Belle Boyd, might have been immortalized on film.
BELLE BOYD, THE REBEL SPY (A PROPOSAL FOR A REPUBLIC SERIAL)
Bill Crider
EDITOR’S NOTE: I am an inveterate buyer of movie memorabilia at online auction houses. When I had a chance to bid on an “uninspected box of movie-related material, c. 1940s,” I couldn’t resist. The previous bids were low, and there was always the chance of getting a real treasure, a Casablanca lobby card, say, or an autographed wedding photo of Carole Lombard and Clark Gable. I won the box, but it turned out to be a disappointment, containing nothing of much interest other than the yellowing typescript reproduced below, a proposal for a Republic serial that appears to be very loosely based on the no-doubt considerably sensationalized memoirs of Belle Boyd, a notorious Confederate spy during the Civil War. I checked numerous reference books in the hope of finding that the serial had actually been produced, thus increasing the paltry value of the anonymous manuscript, but I could find no record of it. I offer it here, then, for whatever historical interest it may have for readers who recall Hollywood’s younger days.
—BILL CRIDER
SUGGESTED CAST OF CHARACTERS:
Belle Boyd: Linda Stirling
Stonewall Jackson: Robert Livingston
General Beauregard: Jack Holt
Major Huckabee: Lionel Atwill
Rogan: Roy Barcroft
The Rattler: ??
ONE
The Siren of the Shenandoah
ESTABLISHING SHOT: A brick building in Washington, D.C. The Capitol is in the distant background. The date 1861 is superimposed on the screen.
CUT TO: The interior of the building.
The men in the blue uniforms of the Union army paid little or no attention to the homely servant woman who was
using her mop and pail to clean the room in which they sat smoking their black cheroots and discussing their plans to drive the Confederates out of Virginia.
“I believe,” said one, smoke wreathing his head, “that we must begin to march on to Richmond at once. The secessionist army is weak at Bull Run, and we can easily rout them.”
“But General McDowell,” said another, a younger man with curling black hair, “we hadn’t planned to begin our advance quite so soon.”
“All the more reason to begin now,” McDowell said decisively, gesturing emphatically with his cheroot. “The Confederates will be unprepared, and there will be no rime for them to bring up reinforcements.”
“I see,” the other man replied. “So we will march on July sixteenth, then.”
McDowell nodded, and other heads nodded in wise agreement. No one took any notice when the serving woman set her pail down in a corner and stood the mop beside it. They were so engrossed in their conversation and their grandiose plans that they hardly heard the opening and closing of the door as she left the room.
CUT TO: A woman galloping on horseback along a trail through the woods. The horse’s hooves pound hollowly on the trail. A close-up of the rider reveals that it is the serving woman.
She did not see the Union pickets sitting under the tall tree until she was almost upon them.
“Halt!” one of the soldiers cried, leaping to his feet. He was so surprised by the rider’s sudden appearance that he failed to pick up his rifle.
The woman didn’t stop. Instead she ignored his warnings and put the spurs to her horse’s sides, urging it forward at even greater speed.
The soldier scrambled aboard his horse, shouting to his companion, “It’s Belle Boyd, the Siren of the Shenandoah! No other woman could ride like that! You must go and tell the general!”
With that, he was away in pursuit of the swiftly vanishing rider. Drawing his Dragoon Colt, he began to fire, with never a thought that it was a woman under his gun. Had he considered her sex at all, he would have dismissed any thoughts of gallantry. From the point of view of the Union, Belle Boyd was the most dangerous woman alive, a spy who, though the war was hardly begun, had already begun to make a reputation for foiling the Union’s plans.
The second soldier mounted his horse and rode in the opposite direction, back toward Washington to warn the general that the Siren was on the run. What good that would do, he had no idea, but he knew his duty.
* * *
Belle Boyd smiled fiercely as she rode. Once more she was engaged in the kind of action that thrilled her to her marrow. She never felt so alive as when she was pitting herself against the Northern enemy.
A bullet whistled over her head, tearing a branch from a tree.
Belle was only momentarily shocked. She should have known the Yankees would shoot a woman without compunction. They had no sense of chivalry. She, too, had a pistol, but she would not raise it unless she was desperate. That was not likely to happen, she thought.
Just at that moment, however, another soldier appeared, not more than a hundred yards in front of her. There were others with him, though Belle could not tell how many. At least three, she thought. It was not entirely unexpected. She had known the dangers; she knew that she was circling the flank of McDowell’s army, so it was likely there would be pickets set.
She yanked the reins and turned off the trail and into the trees, a dangerous tactic. She gave the mare its head and hoped that it would not run into a tree trunk. She could hear behind her the hammering of hooves as her pursuers followed her into the woods.
All of them must have had pistols, for the bullets fairly filled the air around and above her. The gunshots soon drowned out the sound of hooves, and it was a wonder that she remained untouched. The firing was continuous. It was almost as if the pistols never had to be reloaded.
She leaned close to the mare’s neck and whispered endearments into the horse’s ear. But the great-hearted animal could go no faster and had already run far. The soldiers were gaining.
Belle raised up and looked over her shoulder. The trees were momentarily screening her from the soldiers’ sight, and just ahead of her a thick, low branch hung out over the trail.
With amazing agility, she stood in the saddle. Arriving at the branch, she reached up and grasped it in both hands, holding rightly to it as the mare continued to gallop ahead. With the lithe dexterity of a circus performer, Belle pulled herself up onto the branch and hid herself among the thick leaves just as the soldiers came into sight. They passed rapidly beneath her perch without an upward glance.
Belle sat on the limb with a smile on her face as the horsemen thundered on through the woods. When the sound of their horses had faded into the distance, she gave a whistle, and her mare came walking out of the trees. Belle dropped lightly onto the horse’s back and rode calmly back toward the trail she had been following before her journey was so rudely interrupted.
But her calm ride was not to last for long. The Union soldiers had left a man behind them to guard the trail. When Belle emerged from the trees, he kicked his horse into motion and charged after her.
Belle implored the mare to run, and the horse responded. Horse and rider soared over the ground, clods of earth flying up from the mare’s hooves.
CUT TO: The bridge over Bull Run. General Beauregard has destroyed most of the bridge; only fragments of it remain, though to anyone approaching rapidly, the balustrades at either end might appear to be intact.
CUT TO: Belle Boyd, riding at full gallop toward the demolished bridge.
Belle knew that if she could get to the other side of the river the Union soldier would be thwarted, unless he wanted to be taken prisoner by the Confederates camped in wait on the other side. She looked back over her shoulder and realized that she had enough of a lead on him to accomplish her goal. Knowing that victory was hers, she smiled.
Her smile changed to a grimace of shock and dismay when she turned and saw the remains of what had once been a fine wooden structure. She thought briefly of hauling back on the reins and trying to stop the racing mare, but if she did, the soldier would have her.
And then it was too late to do anything at all. Her smile returned as she and the horse sailed out into the void.
TWO
A Watery Grave!
Belle’s smile turned to a grimace of shock and dismay when she saw the remains of what had once been a fine wooden bridge across the Bull Run. It was too late to stop the racing mare, and after only a few more hurtling strides, the two of them plunged over the bank and fell through the rushing air.
When she struck the water, Belle sank straight down like a stone. Her dark hair came undone and swirled in the rushing current as she began to fight her way to the surface.
When she broke through, gasping for air, the Union soldier atop the bank began to fire at her. The noise of his rifle gave notice to the Confederate troops that something was amiss, and they ran from their tents to see. It was only a matter of time before they brought their own rifles to bear on their enemy, whose bravery was unquestioned. He stood calmly in the face of their bullets, trying to end the career of Belle Boyd before she betrayed the Union’s secrets to secessionist ears yet again.
But his efforts were in vain. Struck by a minié ball, he dropped his rifle, clutched his breast, and pitched over the edge of the chasm and into the waters below.
Belle saw little of this, as she was swimming strongly to the opposite bank. She had hardly reached it before eager hands reached for her and drew her dripping from the fast-flowing stream.
“General Beauregard,” Belle said. “I must see him at once.”
“Right away, ma’am,” a private said.
Belle smiled at him, and he blushed shyly. He could hardly have been more than sixteen.
“Follow me, ma’am,” he said, and led the way through the gaping soldiers, as a whisper went through the troops, letting everyone know that they were in the presence of the Siren of the Shenandoah.
“Hello, General,” she said.
General Beauregard and another officer that Belle didn’t recognize stood to greet her.
“Hello, Miss Boyd,” the courtly Beauregard said. “Allow me to introduce my aide-de-camp, Major Huckabee.”
“A pleasure,” Huckabee said suavely, bowing over Belle’s hand.
In spite of his charming manner, there was something Belle disliked about the major, though he was handsome enough, with a thin mustache and dark eyes.
“You appear to have had a bit of a hard time of it,” General Beauregard said.
“Not as hard a time as the Yankees will have on July sixteenth.”
The general smiled, knowing that once again Belle had information that would prove useful to him.
“Why that day?” he asked.
“Because that’s the day they will march on Manassas.”
Huckabee frowned, but the general’s smile grew wider.
“Are you certain of that?”
“I’m certain, all right. I heard it from the mouth of General McDowell himself.”
“My dear, you are a wonder,” Beauregard said. “I know you put your life in great danger, but the information is worth its weight in gold. I’ll send for reinforcements right away, and we’ll drive the Yankees from the field. They’ll never expect us to be prepared for them. The South owes you a great debt, and its sons and daughters should laud you from the rooftops.”
Belle smiled. “Fame and fortune mean nothing to me, General. I expect no payment, and I certainly don’t need lauding. The Yankees know far too much about me already.”
“That part, at least, is true.” Beauregard said. “Your exploits have put you at risk even when you aren’t engaged in spying. What do you plan to do now?”
Belle looked thoughtful. “I would like to spend a little time with my family, if possible. I want to lull the North into believing that I’ve retired from the spying trade.”
