Occupy Savannah Sequel to Coffee Bluff, Page 2
Willard White
street with a bib on, your face half shaved, and in your stocking feet."
I used the tail of the barber's apron to wipe the drying cream off my face. "Let me treat you to a bath, a shave and a haircut, Chester, it will be all on me."
"I came into town to make some deliveries," he said doubtfully.
"Your friend, James, here," I nodded at the barber shop, "can fix you right up. I have some Confederate dollars; I'll pay him in advance."
I stopped to draw in a breath and Chester held up his hand. "OK. You do like to make speeches."
I attempted to shrug, but it's difficult to shrug when you're holding onto a wagon wheel with both hands to keep from falling down.
"I have some rice beer and some rice whiskey to drop off, so if you'll let go of my wheel, I'll be right back," Chester said.
The atmosphere in the barber shop was considerably warmer when I returned. I sat by the wall while the barber finished with his customer. I instructed the barber to put the water on to heat for Chester's bath and paid him for everything.
"How do you happen to be acquainted with Chester?" James inquired.
"It's a long and complicated story," I said. "I knew him slightly before the war."
"He's a bit of a local character. Did you know he was a blockade runner? He got caught trying to get into Darien in the middle of the night. He escaped you Yankees by jumping off the prison ship at Fort Wagner and letting the tide float him into Charleston."
Another customer came in and hung his hat on the tree by the door. I was in the barber's chair when Chester returned; he went directly behind the partition and into his bath. A conversation had developed about the unusually warm winter weather.
"It's the south wind that keeps things warm," Chester said. He could easily participate in the conversation from behind his curtain. "But we'll soon get some rain out of it, just you wait and see."
"Why are you carrying a pair of boots?" James asked.
Chester's laugh was deep and natural.
"I once offered to kill the Captain for these boots," he said as if that explained everything.
"James tells us you were captured running the blockade into Darien," I said. "Want to tell us about it?"
Chester audibly exhaled, inhaled and then began: "The Alma belonged to my Uncle Frank; she's a 71 foot schooner with a crew of four. We had run through several squalls on our way over from Bermuda so the mud we had so carefully put on our sails was pretty much washed away. I believed that the Yanks didn't know that you could get into the Darien River from Doboy sound. There's a barrier island, you see, and if your ship doesn't draw too much water you can go into Doboy sound and then sail southwest down this back river behind the island, I don't think it even has a name, and get into the Darien river. I was convinced that the Yanks would be watching Altamaha Sound and we could get behind them. The Alma has a retractable center board and only draws five and a half feet of water with the board up."
"So what went wrong?" I asked.
"Well, conditions were pretty good, clear sky and just a sliver of a moon. Our sails were way too visible, but I could hear the engine of the blockade ship to the southwest, long before we could see it. Unfortunately the winds, which I expected to be blowing onshore at three in the morning, had not developed. The wind was light and variable at best. The tide was halfway in, this was no accident, we had timed our departure from Bermuda so that the tides would be low around midnight and rising in the wee hours of the morning. We had hung out at 81 degrees west for two days, waiting for just the right conditions.
"The clear night allowed me to get a fairly good star sighting, so I was confident the breaking waves on our starboard bow was the northern extent of Doboy Sound. The blockade ship was perhaps three miles to the southwest of us. It was very exciting to be sailing up that close to them without being detected. We could hear the thump of the engine quite clearly across the water and we could see the superstructure in the moonlight. I had entertained a hope that the Yanks would just drop anchor for the night and let their steam pressure go down.
"We could hear his call very clearly when the mast lookout spotted us. There was nothing for us to do except keep on our northwesterly course in the light winds. We were committed, the only way to get away from them now was to outrun them and get up under the protection of Fort King George's guns before they could catch us.
Our little barbershop group maintained the silence.
"I could hear the rate of the engine increase and occasionally we could even hear the noise of the wheels in the water, but there was nothing for us to do; we were at the mercy of the winds. We couldn't keep ourselves from watching the blockade ship close on us. We could hear the shouts as the bow chaser crew unlimbered their gun. We had a fortune in silk and salt on board. We also had an even dozen barrels of gun powder.
"To shorten the story; the steamer was only a half mile or so behind us when they fired their first shot. It fell abeam to starb'd about a hundred feet or so. Pretty poor shooting, but they would adjust and the next round would be more accurate. We had arrived at the spit which divides Doboy from the back river. The twelve kegs of gun powder in the hold and the pending next round from the bow chaser might have influenced my decision to turn into the back river a bit early.
"Raise the center board," I ordered, but it was too late. The sudden deceleration and the grinding noise from beneath the hull was my worst nightmare. We were aground.
"What did you do then?" I asked.
"When we got the centerboard cranked up the Alma began to move again, but we'd lost momentum, that is to say, we didn't have enough speed for the rudder to work properly. And with the centerboard retracted we just sort of drifted for'd and to port until we grounded again.
By this time the entire barbershop was silent as we all waited for the next installment.
"The tide was coming in and the off shore wind would soon be rising, we would have been able to get off the sand bar in a few minutes. Unfortunately we didn't have a few minutes. The Yank was so close that I could plainly see the crew illuminated as the gun fired. The shot fell right ahead of the bow; it likely would have fallen on us if we hadn't run aground.
"The next ball might well have set off a fire that would have blown us into history. I ordered the crew to drop the sails."
We were silent for a while; each of us, I suppose, wondering what that must have been like.
My curiosity soon surfaced. "But you escaped," I said.
"After a couple of days in the brig, we were transferred to a prison ship, bound I think, for a prison up the Hudson River from New York City. That would be in your territory, Luke."
I nodded my head. I didn't want to interrupt the story.
"I don't know where they got the crew," Chester continued, "but it was the most inept crew you could imagine. Maybe it was a punishment ship for those Yanks who are too incompetent to crew a normal ship. It was a side wheeler with a schooner rig on top - ugly as sin - I forget the name. It doesn't matter. We were in the brig beneath the fore deck, but I could tell we were sailing downwind, the fat old pig was moving about and creaking something terrible. One reason the wallowing ride was so bad was that they had the sails up, which caused the tub to roll badly as it went down the front side of each wave.
"I couldn't hear the command to the helm, but we could feel the ship turning and then we heard the crash, and then the shouts.
"When I was brought up on deck later, the source of all the consternation was obvious. The Yanks had managed to jibe!"
What was obvious to Chester wasn't nearly so obvious to the rest of us. The confusion on James' face said it for all of us.
"Jibe?" I said.
"Don't you get it?" Chester asked impatiently, "They managed to jibe a steamship! Well you lubbers probably don't get it, so I'll explain: No sailor makes a downwind turn in any but the lightest wind, you see the boom swings across the deck with great speed and energy; it can injure people, knock them overboard and even damage the rigging.
"When I came on deck the wheels had been stopped and the ship was wallowing crosswise between the waves," Chester continued. "The aft mains'l with the boom still attached was flogging around on the port side - the boom was repeatedly crashing into the side of the ship. The port side standing rigging straps had torn loose also and were flailing the port side wheel with a large piece of frame with a six foot square section of the hull still attached. Some Yank sailors were attending to a prone sailor on the deck; others were trying to capture the flailing sail and boom. Pandemonium, I think, is the word.
"The Captain followed my advice to drop the sails and throw the anchor over the bow with the full rode to head us up into the wind and waves. Once we were somewhat stabilized we were able to capture the standing rigging and fish the main boom back on board. The hole in the hull was impressively large, but it was above the waterline under most conditions.
"The swinging hull planks had come out of the side of the Officer's quarters, and since we were abeam Charleston the Captain decided to put in to Fort Wagner for repairs. I managed to sister in some frames before we got into port. In the afternoon, after we tied starb'd to the dock, I had to go over the side to attach the new hull planks and bore through-holes for the standing rigging. Rifled
