The Sea is a Thief (27 page)

Even after months, then years, without a word, she did not yield to despair.   

 

Beau was different after the storm.  While Anna recovered, he stayed very close to his sister, hovering over her in his own way in case she took a sudden turn for the worse.  When he could see beyond any doubt that she was well again, he began to disappear nearly every day between the hours of sunup and sundown.  At the end of two weeks he brought home a good amount of money.  He explained to Mary that he had been out fishing every day with Elijah Bunting and others and intended to continue.  He did, fishing, sometimes oystering or clamming, and earning the trust of the captains of some larger boats.  Anna rejoiced at his new success and the change in his humor, but in her lonelier moments she often sought him out, only to find him away from home, out on the water.  He did not produce so many ducks now that his daytime hours were spoken for, but it felt good to sit beside him in the evenings as he carved.
 
He and Anna did not talk about Sam often.  When they did Beau could not offer encouragement.  It was clear that he did not expect to see the young sailor again.  

The money that Beau and Anna brought into the household allowed Mary Daisey a blessed respite.  For the first time in years, she was unchained from her sewing machine for a small part of the day.  Worry and work had worn deep lines in her face that never truly left her, but when she sat with Anna and drank tea, her careworn mask faded, and the happy young woman who had been courted by Sweet William Daisey came out for a visit.  Those were the times that Anna held most dear.   

She knew her mother too well to bring up the subject of Sam Dreher.  She recalled her advice with perfect accuracy.  
He is a sailor in the Union Navy.  He'll move on to another place, and leave you.  
By an unimaginable turn of events, Mary's counsel had proved correct.  There was little point in giving her an opportunity to point that out.  Anna chose to enjoy their brief unburdened time together without introducing strife.  Of the dreams that had come to her while she lay in her bed, burning with fever, she remembered only bits and flashes.  She recalled the reunion with her father, familiar and safe as if he had never left.  In those same dreams, her mother was distant.  She resolved not to let the distance remain between them.

The sea had taken Sweet William, and, in a different way, it had taken Sam.  That was not Mary Daisey's fault.  Mary had done all that she could.  The sea is a thief; it takes what it wishes.

 

The War Between the States had drawn to a close in early April of that year, 1865, at Appomattox, a pretty little town surrounded in springtime by green fields, far from the islands of the Eastern Shore.  News of General Lee's surrender took time to reach the most far-flung outposts.  Two battles were fought in Georgia a week later, and a few ships at sea, always the last to get information, remained on patrol for some months afterwards.  Chincoteague, the only Virginia town exempt from the Union blockade, heard the story more quickly than most.  Edmund Bagwell was the first to be told.  He sent a man to ring the brass bell at the Atlantic Hotel.  Men, women, and children came running, some in a state of panic, fearing another attack was in progress.  

Beau Daisey was unloading a catch when he heard the unmistakable peal of the bell.  To his clear satisfaction, nearly half of the militia was already there when he arrived, and many showed up soon after, panting for breath.  

A loud cheer went up when Bagwell made the announcement.  A murmur ran through the crowd as each man or woman began to speculate on what the news might mean for him personally.  It was agreed that special services should be organized that very evening at both large churches, and that hymns of thanksgiving should be offered to a generous God.  The island and its oyster trade had survived the conflict that divided the nation, and all would now be well.  The citizens of Chincoteague were most grateful.    

 

Not ten days after Henry Breckenridge left Chincoteague with Anna Daisey's drawings under his arm, another visitor arrived on the island.   He sought out the Daisey household, and found it readily.  When Anna responded to his knock on her door, he greeted her wearing pieces of a United States Navy uniform that had seen better days.  On his head was an oversized straw hat, crisp and new, that shaded his square face and full beard from the midday sun. He carried a sea bag, patched many times.

“Good afternoon, Miss Daisey,” he said.  A few moments passed before Anna recognized him; it had been more than three years since they last met, and his face, dusty from his long journey, was more than a little changed.  

It was Ethan Platt.  

Anna's gaze darted quickly over his shoulder, hoping that Sam followed close behind him.  Ethan turned, wondering what her eyes were seeking, then suddenly knew. “I've come alone,” he said.    

“Forgive, me Mr. Platt,” she offered quickly. “I have quite forgotten my manners.  We have had so few visitors since...” her voice trailed off, then recovered. “Please, come inside, please, Mr. Platt.”  Anna turned towards her mother's workroom. “Mother!” she called. “We have a guest.”  

Mary Daisey emerged, still clutching a ruffle set with pins.  Her tightly-set brows told Anna that she had been startled in the midst of her work.

“Mr. Platt!” she cried, rushing forward and nearly embracing him before she caught herself. “Thank Heaven you…” Again she stopped herself short. “You've come to be with us again,” she added. Silently she gave thanks to God that Ethan stood before them alive and well; so very many had perished.  “Surely you will take some tea with us, will you not?” She scanned the young man's face beneath its coating of dust, unfamiliar lines framing his eyes and creasing his forehead.  His hunger showed plainly. “And it is time for our meal, Mr. Platt.  You must join us, yes?”  Mary did not wait for his answer, but turned to the kitchen and set to work. “Anna, please keep Mr. Platt company for a short while.”  

Biscuits went into the oven and very speedily came out. The kettle boiled. Mary stirred up ham and gravy on the stovetop and served it with the last of the biscuits, to Ethan's delight.  The young man settled into his chair, the ache in his stomach quickly fading, as the distillation of three years' history passed in conversation. At last, a long silence demanded they broach the subject that all had thus far avoided.  Clearly it fell to Anna.  

“Do you know Sam's whereabouts?” she asked, keeping the urgency from her voice by sheer force of will.

Her heart sank when Ethan admitted that he did not.  More than a year had passed since they last served together: May, 1864, at the second battle of Drewry's Bluff.  

Drewry's Bluff, Virginia had seen two encounters between the rival armies. He and Sam and had fought in the first one as shipmates.  The two left Chincoteague under Navy guard just days after the storm in 1861, exiled from Henry D. Sharpe's command, bound for action somewhere in the Chesapeake.  All winter they toiled at Hampton Roads, repairing and refitting the ships of the Federal navy.  

Within two weeks of their arrival a sealed envelope appeared at the telegraph office, addressed to Sam Dreher.  The messenger who carried it had disappeared by the time Sam was summoned to the office.  The letter inside was written in a strong hand:

 

“Dear Mr. Dreher,

I feel the duty and obligation to inform you that Miss Anna Daisey is alive and well, having survived the grave illness with which she was suffering when you left her.  Despite its gravity the illness appears to have had no lasting effect.  We are grateful and relieved, as no doubt you will be as well.

I will add that I had not anticipated the turn of events that occurred after I shared with your Capt. Sharpe the information given to me by my daughter.  Though the results were perhaps unavoidable, for my own part I found them regrettable.  Our family is in your debt for your many services to us.  We pray for the safety of you and your fellow troops, and for success on the field of battle.
 

 

E. Bagwell

Chincoteague, Va.    

 

Sam ran to Ethan, waving the letter, and his friend knew immediately from his joyful face that Sam's prayers had been answered.  Since leaving the island Sam had suffered mightily with the terrible fear that the few precious final hours he had spent with his Anna might have proved her undoing.  Edmund Bagwell's letter brought an end to the torture of wondering.  Though they were separated, they had cheated the gale.  Sam walked with renewed strength.  Hope lived.

As April drew to a close they were ordered to the
Galena,
an ironclad gunboat fresh from the Mystic shipyard. They would be members of its first crew.  Neither was aware that the handsome new ship would soon play a leading role in the first attempt to capture the rebel capitol at Richmond.  

Not a week after they came aboard,
Galena
set sail up the James River.  Richmond was her goal.  She was a thing of fearsome beauty: a thousand tons altogether, steam-driven, her stout wooden hull shielded by two layers of thick iron plate.  Her designers pledged that she was shot-proof.  For offensive purposes she carried four of the newest Dahlgren guns, wickedly accurate, and two monstrous Parrott rifles that could lob a shell as heavy as a man four miles on level ground.  On the 13
th
of May, 1862, she set her course for the heart of the Confederacy, meaning to break it quickly.  
Galena
was not alone; she was the flagship of a fleet that included four additional gunboats, among them the indestructible ironclad
Monitor.  
Each of the ships posed a threat.  Collectively, the five were a force to be reckoned with.  

The five vessels proceeded up the James with the purposeful slowness of a family of bears.  Sam and Ethan, their services unneeded for the time being, watched from the relative safety of an armored gun port as their gunners fired occasionally at snipers hidden in the brush on the banks.  Like the rest of the crew, their spirits were high; they were spoiling for a good fight.

There was, alas, an obstacle. Those who had drawn the battle plan had taken notice of it, but minimized its importance, as battle planners often do.  It was known as Drewry's Bluff, named after an army Captain, Augustus Drewry, and it was nothing more than an earthen cliff that rose a hundred feet above the water.  Its location was what mattered: the bluff stood at a sharp bend in the James River just seven miles from Richmond.  Artillery placed strategically on the bluff could dominate the river for miles in both directions.  What the Union strategists did not know was that the Confederate Navy commander in charge had already constructed fortifications on the bluff and fixed eight cannon in them.  Unable to do much more on land, he had called in a gunship of his own, anchoring it just upriver from the bluff to toss shells over the defenses onto the attackers downstream.  

The James ran shallow at that point, just deep enough for heavy warships to navigate.  All manner of debris had been ferried to the spot: boulders, pilings, rock-filled corncribs, and the hulks of old sailing vessels.  The whole assortment was linked with heavy chain and sunk mid-river to block further passage by the attacking fleet.  If the Union was to take Richmond that day, it would have to be on foot—and no infantry had been sent.

Early in the morning, the five vessels anchored just a quarter-mile from the bluffs and commenced shelling.  From their elevated and protected position, the Confederates shelled back.  Within three minutes a cannonball had penetrated
Galena's
armor; within five, a ball had gone through one side of the hull and out the other.  As Sam and Ethan labored frantically to patch the damage, her captain signaled
Monitor
to come forward and take the offensive.  She made a startling discovery: her guns, positioned for the close-quarters hammering of ship-to-ship sea battles, could not be elevated far enough to fire upon the fort.  At sea
Monitor
was invincible.  At Drewry's Bluff, she was useless.  Undamaged by the cannon fire directed at her, she retreated downstream to search for a better angle, firing over the heads of
Galena's
crew, but by the time she did so the men on the bluffs held the upper hand.  

The Parrott Rifle on one of the gunboats exploded, killing the gunner and blinding his mate.  Fourteen of
Galena's
crew lay dead, victims of cannot shot and gunfire.  Progress was impossible, and persistence promised only further losses.  Three hours after the fleet dropped anchor, they retreated towards the mouth of the James.  For the time being, Richmond was safe.   

Taking stock of the damage, Ship's Carpenter Dreher listed forty-five places where enemy fire had pierced
Galena's
hull.  He could not begin to calculate how long it would take to repair her.

She was not, it turned out, shot-proof.

 

Two years passed, almost to the day, before the Navy set its sights on Drewry's Bluff again. A desire for vengeance helped choose the target.  The first encounter was an embarrassment for more than one high officer, and a victory at that particular bend in the James River would set things right. The commanders of the Union forces learned a valuable lesson during the defeat of
Galena
and its sister ships. Drewry's Bluff was a tough target by water, but a vulnerable one by land.  If enough troops could be ferried up the James, they might be able to fight their way past the bluff by an overland route.  If they could, they would find themselves just seven miles from Richmond.  The city was very lightly defended.  By 1864 more than one Union general had expressed the thought, privately or publicly, that it was high time to get the war over with.  The capture of the Confederate capitol would contribute greatly to that end. So it was written, and so the ships went forth up the James.