Beloved Enemy (20 page)

Miss Lizzie gave the boy a narrow-eyed look of disapproval. “And you mind your manners, Charlie Garland, or I'll be writing a letter to your mother. See if I don't.”

He lowered his gaze from Julia, and his neck turned a little red under his collar. “You know I'm just funning, Miss Lizzie.”

“Humph!” she replied, as she stomped down the outside steps. “Come along, Miss Chandler. Mind the gutter. And don't you pay any attention to those harlots yonder. What would your mother say if she saw you now? I can't imagine!” She snapped open her green umbrella.

Julia was sure her mother would have fainted quite some time ago.

C
lara Chandler took to her bed on the day that Julia ran away. Besides her husband, she allowed only Payton to visit her. He brought a small nosegay of hothouse violets that cost him a fortune in the dead of winter. He considered the price a small one if he could salvage his bleak financial prospects following Julia's rejection of him.

“Oh, my dear, dear boy!” Clara wailed into her handkerchief. “How sweet you are! Violets! I do declare, you are far too good for that ungrateful girl!” Clara had sworn never to mention Julia's name again and, so far, she stuck to her vow.

Payton assumed an expression of noble suffering, though his vanity seethed at Julia's open repudiation of him. “I am so very sorry that you are still unwell, Auntie.” He glanced at the bottle of opium drops on the bureau. The level was low, a promising sign that his aunt's mind was befuddled by laudanum fumes.

“I fear that I must return to Belmont,” he continued, “but before I go, I wonder if I may have your permission to pay court to your younger daughter, Carolyn?” Carolyn was a hellion, pure and simple, but in five short years, she, too, would inherit a sizable legacy from Grandmother
Lightfoot's estate. By that time, Payton would have molded the chit into a proper lady.

Clara stopped snuffling into her hankie. Sitting up straighter in bed, she gave him a calculating look. “Carolyn?” she mused.

Payton pressed his advantage. “I realize that she is young, Auntie, but she'll be ripe for marriage in another year or so. She's a spirited girl, and I know that she has been difficult for you to manage. As her fiancé, I would be glad to help her learn the etiquette befitting a lady of our social class in Richmond.” He shamelessly played upon the two primary concerns of Clara Chandler: Carolyn's outrageous independence and Clara's goal to be aligned with Virginia's first families.

A spark of interest, or cunning, flashed into his aunt's eye. “How kind you are, Payton! So very gracious to even consider engaging yourself to Carolyn after what her wicked sister did to you. Your offer is indeed intriguing, but I must speak to Dr. Chandler about—”

“Clara! We will do no such thing!” Her husband swept into the bedroom. From the stern expression on his uncle's face, Payton suspected that he had heard their whole conversation.

Payton scrambled to save his financial future. “Sir, I had intended to come to you directly to ask for Miss Carolyn's hand. I only wished to see if her mother thought it a worthwhile idea.”

The doctor frowned. “Save yourself the trouble, Payton. Carolyn is not yours for the plucking, nor will she be any time in the future.” His expression softened a bit when he turned toward his wife, although the resolve in his jawline did not waver. “We have lost one daughter already through this hasty misalliance with Payton, my dear. We shall not make the same mistake a second time.”

Clara's face screwed up into immediate tears. Payton had always admired her ability to command her hysterics at will. “Jonah! Whatever will we do about Carolyn? No one will want to marry her after the shameful conduct of…of—”

“Julia?” her husband asked in a sad tone. “I would not worry about that quite yet, Clara. The war will end long before Carolyn is ready to settle down, and I suspect our lives will have a great many changes in the aftermath. We can only hope that Julia will return soon from Richmond, and our family will be reconciled.”

Payton quivered like a foxhound on a scent. “You have heard from Julia, sir? She is indeed in Richmond?”

Dr. Chandler sighed. “No letter, if that is what you mean, but I have it on good authority that she followed that Federal officer who is now incarcerated in Libby. I am not surprised. She seemed very much in love with the young man.”

“In love with a Yankee?” Clara bleated from the depths of her pillows. “Oh, I could just die!”

Payton ground his teeth behind a thin, plastered smile. He itched to know who had given the doctor this information, but he realized that his uncle would never tell. It did not matter. Julia had made the mistake of fleeing to the city that Payton knew like the back of his hand. Even if she had gone to ground in Richmond, he would find her. Once he had her in hand, he would marry her within twenty-four hours, bound and gagged if necessary. Afterward, it would be a pleasure to make her pay for his humiliation.

To his uncle, he said, “Very well, Doctor, thank you for your hospitality. I will return south in the morning. I have ignored my affairs long enough.”

A week from now, he would have Julia under his con
trol. A month from now, he would possess her inheritance and would finally be able to pay off his debts!

 

Major Scott Claypole folded the secret dispatches that had flowed into Lawrence's office from the various Union commands in the western states—Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and the Army of the Potomac. Also on his desk lay other secret reports from Pinkerton's agents who worked undercover throughout the Confederacy. Taken altogether, the continuance of the war looked particularly gloomy for the South. The Confederacy's scanty food supplies had been commandeered for the Rebel army by the executive order of President Jefferson Davis. This unpopular move only heightened the dissatisfaction among the civilian population. The desire for peace simmered underground throughout the embattled Confederacy. In addition, Davis planned to conscript seventeen-year-olds to fill the ranks depleted by battle, sickness and desertion. Dixie's land was literally bleeding dry.

Clearly, the Southerners were willing to consider a truce and get on with the business of living—before there would be nothing left to live for. The Union blockade had the Confederacy in a slow stranglehold. The South's fortunes were slipping away as bales of cotton destined for the European market rotted on the wharves. The North could win this war by attrition alone. It would be simply a matter of time before the Rebels sued for peace.

Sitting back in his office chair, Claypole steepled his fingers while he pondered his options. The time had come for him to disengage himself from his Confederate interests as soon as possible. The profits he had made from the black market sales of the U.S. Sanitary Commission's supplies for Union prisoners had come to an end. Like a good poker player, Scott knew when it was time to fold
his cards and pocket his winnings. For him, the lucrative game was over.

He consulted his desk calendar. Today was Thursday. Tomorrow, he would take a long weekend furlough, then speed south to Richmond in his guise as a Confederate Brigadier General. He could wrap up his affairs on Sunday, when most of the law-abiding population would be on their knees praying in the city's many churches.

Claypole chuckled to himself as he tied up the reports with red tape. He, too, would be on his knees during his visit to the Southern capital, but it would hardly be in a church. Richmond justifiably enjoyed the reputation of being the “wickedest city in the world.” The bordellos reputedly housed more prostitutes than New Orleans and Paris combined. He licked his lips. Since this would be his last time in Richmond until after the war, he would pay farewell visits to all his favorite sporting ladies, especially the ones who inhabited the plush cribs in Locust Alley, a few blocks west of Libby Prison.

 

Three weeks inside Libby's walls seemed like a lifetime to Rob. How did the veteran inmates stand it? The prisoners fell roughly into three categories: the seriously ill who were housed in two infirmaries on the first floor; the shufflers, by far the majority, whom hunger, cold and a variety of lesser ailments had turned into scarecrows; and the firebrands who often found themselves in solitary confinement in one of the basement's rat-infested cells. As the days rolled by, Rob gave his particular attention to the third group, most of whom lived in the Chickamauga Suite.

Sleeping through part of the day, Rob spent the nighttime hours observing the comings and goings of his fellow
prisoners. A remarkable amount of activity took place once the candles were extinguished at seven o'clock. The twin scourges of diarrhea and dysentery forced some of the men to make a continual parade to the slop buckets. Many others couldn't sleep because of the cold winds blowing through the open windows or the lice bites. A secretive few had undisclosed missions in other parts of the old warehouse.

Every evening shortly after the sentry outside called “Eight o'clock and all's well,” five men from the Suite disappeared down the stairs to the prisoners' kitchen on the floor below. Yet, Rob could not hear any noise through the floorboards until just after the sentry's call at four in the morning. Then the same five returned to the second floor looking exhausted and smelling strongly of the fetid canal that ran between the prison and the river.

The following night, five different men slipped downstairs after eight and returned at four, again looking haggard. The third night, a different squad of five repeated the same mysterious exit. This time Rob ventured down to the kitchen after them, only to find the room completely empty. Intrigued, he returned upstairs to his bit of floor where he huddled under his thin blanket and mulled over the implications.

On the fourth night, the first group of five again went down the stairs. This time Rob's night vision was good enough to recognize his card-playing friend, Stu Cramer, as one of them. Their leader was A. G. Hamilton.

These must be the men planning to escape that Lawrence told him to find. They're tunneling, for sure. But where do they intend to come out?

After they had been gone for an hour, Rob rose and tiptoed around the bodies of the sleeping men. Braving the icy wind, Rob looked out onto Cary Street that ran past
Libby's main entrance. By day, Richmond's prostitutes paraded on the sidewalk across from the prison in their efforts to demoralize the men inside, but at night, the street was quiet.

The moon gave Rob enough light to determine possible escape routes. Just below the window, several sentries marched back and forth, passing each other every few minutes. Across Cary Street and behind the harlots' sidewalk, a wide vacant lot ran the length of the long city block. Every stick and bit of trash on it cast black shadows against the pale white of the frosted ground. An animal, either a cat or rat, scurried across the open area. Even from the distance of his window, Rob could see it clearly. Any tunnel on this side would have to extend over two hundred feet before it could reach the safety of buildings a block away.

Rob slipped into the far room that faced west, overlooking Twentieth Street. More sentinels below the prison and another vacant lot facing Libby. A half dozen tents were pitched on the waste ground. This was home for the prison guards. Rob worked his way back to his room and looked out to see the James River flowing silently past the sleeping city. Between the sentry-guarded warehouse and the river was the half-frozen canal. River's too deep, he concluded, and the ground too wet. The tunnelers would have to dig too far down before going across under the water. The possibility of cave-ins and drowning were too high. That left only the east side of the building.

Once again, there was a vacant lot next to Libby's wall but—Rob craned his neck to see better. Two small office buildings with an enclosed yard between them lay on the far side of the lot. Only fifty or sixty feet separated the prison from the—

“What are you doing, friend?” asked a low voice in his ear. A heavy hand fell on Rob's shoulder.

Rob tensed, but his training kept him from calling out his surprise. Studying Libby's surroundings, he had failed to hear the man come up behind him. “Taking the night air,” he replied softly.

“You must need a lot of it,” the other observed, not letting go of Rob. “You've been sniffing in all directions.”

Though Rob could not see his face, he suspected his interrogator was one of the fifteen men he had watched over the past week. He decided to chance revealing his identity. He prayed that Lawrence's underground network had succeeded in smuggling his recognition password and countersign into the prison.

“I miss seeing the dancing girls at the Canterbury,” he said slowly, naming one of Washington's more bawdy music halls.

The other man chuckled in the back of his throat. “And I miss eating oysters at Harvey's saloon,” he responded, giving the correct answer. “I surely do, and that's the truth.” He released Rob's shoulder.

Rob turned slowly to face the other. The man was shorter and slimmer than he, with bright eyes above a full dark beard.

“Colonel Thomas Rose, at your service, sir,” he whispered, “Commander of the 77th Pennsylvania, captured at Chickamauga.”

“Major Robert Montgomery, Rhinebeck Legion, New York.”

“And wounded at Little Roundtop,” Rose added. “Rumors of your exploits have preceded you, Major.”

“I see that you have excellent intelligence here,” Rob answered, secretly flattered by the tone of respect in Rose's voice.

Rose put his finger to his lips. “Rumor, Major, we get only rumors in here, like knowing about the oysters at Harvey's.”

Rob looked around at the hundreds of sleeping prisoners that packed the room, and nodded. Any one of them could be a spy for the Confederates, planted among the Federal officers for the express purpose of ferreting out escape operations.

“Go back to bed, Major,” Rose whispered. “We'll speak in the morning over a game of poker. I understand you're very good. It's a fortunate thing Stu Cramer only plays for chicken bones, or he would have lost his shirt to you by now.”

Rob grinned in the dark. Here he thought he was the one getting information out of Stu!

The following evening, six men went down to the first-floor kitchen, where Tom Rose gave Rob a tour of their work-in-progress. Once in the kitchen, the men loosened the fire bricks behind one of the cast-iron stoves that used the flue of the warehouse's original open fireplace. A man-sized hole gaped behind the wall, though where it went, Rob could not see.