Point of Honor. Robert N. Macomber

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СКАЧАТЬ forty-five miles away against what little wind there was, then they’d had better luck than most. The Dry Tortugas were surrounded by very dangerous water, filled with bewildering swift currents and uncharted coral reefs. There were many ways for the deserters to die before they made it to the dubious safety of the uninhabited Marquesas Islands. And once they made it there, if they did, there was no fresh water or help. Only mangrove jungle. Those islands were as desolate as the Tortugas.

      Wake tried to puzzle out exactly what had made them try it. Didn’t they know the odds? Had they any maritime experience? He remembered when the 52nd New Jersey had arrived two months ago he heard that they were from some place inland in that state and were angry at being assigned to the bleak and barren Fortress Jefferson. Probably the fugitives had no idea of what they were doing. Probably, in fact, they were dead.

      His patrol station for the ninety-foot-long St. James included the Tortugas, the Marquesas, and the western Florida Keys. He had been assigned this station for three long months, since April. The year 1864 was over half gone, and Wake was sick of this duty. Beyond the mind-numbing routine of patrolling the area for blockade runners, message relaying between Key West’s Fort Taylor and Fort Jefferson, and the occasional special mission to go to Havana for dispatches, there wasn’t much to do in this patrol area.

      Wake sighed and involuntarily touched the scar on the side of his head, a memento from when he had had a much more active station on the coast of the mainland last year. The blast of the cannon during the fight with the Rebs on the river was still absolutely clear in his mind. As was the pain of the wound inflicted that morning. He flinched as he recalled the chaos of the fight and the carnage afterward. Part of that scene of carnage were members of his own crew lying on the deck of the sloop Rosalie, dead or wounded during the battle. It seemed a long time ago and far away. Wake realized there was no such danger from the enemy in these islands. He dragged himself up from the desk in the torpid heat and made his way to the main deck again, where he found himself amidst the bustle of the crew’s laboring at the pinrails around the masts.

      The main and foresail were up and drawing slightly on the zephyrs of wind coming in puffs from the southeast. As the crew set her jibs, the schooner came slowly around the eastern side of the fortress. Wake glanced at the parapets and saw a group of officers standing together talking. He recognized one as the messenger lieutenant, who listened as a man who appeared to be Colonel Grosland, commanding officer of the 52nd New Jersey Artillery, was speaking and waving a hand in the youngster’s face. Then the colonel pointed at the schooner.

      The voice could be vaguely heard across the water but the words were not discernible. Wake could guess at what they were, however. Grosland was a martinet in love with his uniform but never satisfied with his people’s efforts. Wake had met him a month before while at the fortress and not liked his condescending attitude. This war was bringing out men like Grosland in all the services—those with no experience or capability leading other men, much less leading them through difficulty and danger. A place like Jefferson would be even more of an ordeal with a man such as Grosland in charge.

      Fort Jefferson had been built over the last twenty years on an island in a small group of scattered coral islets known as the Dry Tortugas, seventy miles west of Key West. And dry they were. There were no fresh water wells on the islands. The three hundred men of the garrison relied upon huge cisterns on the parade ground and under the walls of the fortress to gather enough water in the rainy season to last for the rest of the year. Surrounded as they were by some of the most beautiful salt water imaginable, the army rationed fresh water among the souls assigned to the fortress.

      Fortress was an appropriate term. Wake had never seen anything like it. Jefferson was huge. It was known as the Gibraltar of the Gulf because of its size and the emplacements for a potential of 450 guns. At the moment, they held only six ten-inch Columbiad cannon, along with a couple of small howitzers by the docks. Wake knew from his reading of the New Era newspaper at Key West that the massive walls designed in the forties were already outdated. Reports of battles pitting naval vessels against forts in Charleston and on the Mississippi had revealed that much. Modern rifled naval artillery such as those very Columbiads would make short work of the faded brickwork of the fortress—a mere façade of strength, like so many façades that Wake had seen thus far in this awful war. Colonel Grosland was its human counterpart.

      Still, Wake had to admire and respect the men who planned and actually built this edifice of war in the middle of a tropical sea. The efforts and expenses made were unparalleled. But there was an ugly side to the fortress as well. Almost two hundred army prisoners were held here, Union Army prisoners who had committed some of the worst military offenses known. Fortress Jefferson was so notorious in the army, Wake had heard from an engineer captain at the island, that soldiers under sentence of death could have it commuted to hard labor at Jefferson as it was considered the same. The labor battalion worked on the never ending project of improving the fortress. They lived in stifling cells under the walls and eked out their lives toiling in the brutal sun under the eyes of a garrison that was under a similar, but shorter sentence. Periodically the regiment on garrison duty would be replaced by another, so that each only served six or eight months at Jefferson. But the prisoners never left.

      Fortunately, Wake had the freedom to leave. As the St. James ghosted away from the immense brown brick walls that rose out of the bright green waters, the crew of the schooner could see the soldiers of the garrison, and a few of the prisoners, watching them sail quietly away. It was the same every time. The men of the fortress always stopped their work and stared at the schooner. It was always eerie.

      It took two days to cover the distance eastward to the Marquesas. The wind was light and from varying directions the whole way. Twice they anchored when the wind died and the current started to sweep them southward. By the time the St. James anchored off the westernmost island of the group, the crew of the schooner had thoroughly cursed the 52nd New Jersey Artillery, their colonel, and their deserters.

      The Marquesas Islands were a uniquely formed group. Unlike the Keys of Florida, which stretched out westward in a string of islets for one hundred fifty miles, the Marquesas were a circle of islands around a central shallow lagoon. The lagoon averaged only about a fathom or less deep, with brown and green grasses covering most of the bottom. Deeper, smooth-bottomed swash channels snaked their way in varying shades of blue all over the lagoon, giving a contrast to the colors of the grassy shoals. When viewed in conjunction with the thin, white sand beaches backed by the tumble of dark green mangrove jungle, the whole effect on a brightly sunny day was one of a dazzling spectrum of colors.

      In addition to the beautiful colors, the Marquesas had some of the most fantastic water Wake had ever seen. In fact, offshore from the islands it appeared that there was no water there at all, for the schooner was apparently sliding through the air over a perfectly seen bottom ten feet down. The shadows from the moving ship and her sails covered the sand and coral below like the shade of a large bird gliding over a meadow. The brilliant creatures of this intriguing world would scamper or flit away from the shadow as it approached them, providing an endless source of fascination for the crew, most of whom had never served in the tropics before. As wonderful as it all was, it was also disconcerting, for the depth perception of most of the men was thrown out of scale upon first seeing this splendor. Many times they yelled for the helmsman to head up and avoid a coral head, only to find they were deceived by the transparency of the liquid underneath them when the suspect reef would pass mockingly beneath the warship.

      Wake knew his men were exhausted from the humid heat and the exertion of working on the baking deck. A soon as the anchor was down and holding, he told Rork to let them swim for a few minutes before taking the ship’s boat through the islands to search for the soldiers. The grateful sailors immediately stripped down, jumped overboard, and were transformed into energetic boys exploring the amazing world below them in the startlingly clear waters. Their shouts and splashes made Rork and Wake smile when the two glanced at each other.

      “Well, Captain, I’d venture a nice swim will do the СКАЧАТЬ