INVESTIGATION OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT, CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA
Wendy let Molly lead the way to the train station. More than lead, Molly seemed to tow her along, like a tug with a ship on the hawser. It was not the first time Wendy had felt that way, like an awkward, wind-bound ship to Molly’s nimble, powerful towboat. That was how frenetic Molly could be. Even when her aunt was not physically pulling her by the arm, Wendy felt dragged along by the vortex of her energy.
They walked to the train depot. It was pointless to try to get transportation. That much was clear once they maneuvered through the smaller side streets in which Molly’s house was hidden and came out on Water Street. Streetcars stood abandoned, their traces lying empty before them as if in surrender. Wagons heavy loaded with furniture and children, entire households, rattled for the roads north to Richmond. The waterfront was crowded with steamboats and sailing vessels, fishing smacks, coasting schooners, all scrambling to get under way. It was the Exodus, minus Moses, minus the hope of a Promised Land.
“I am not optimistic, dear, about what we will find at the train depot,” Molly said, but her lack of optimism did not slow her down. They walked down the dark street, the river to their east, brick buildings like a wall beside them. Wendy felt the weight and steady thump of the gun on her thigh and she liked the sensation. She remembered Samuel’s hand running over that same spot of skin.
They were still a block distant from the train station when they were forced to slow down by the wide stream of people all flooding in the same direction. People hustled forward with hands straining to grip bulging bags, packages held under arms. Carts were chockablock in the road, and all the drivers could do was yell and curse at one another because there was no place for any of them to go. On the sidings, which Wendy could occasionally glimpse between the brick and wooden buildings, train cars jerked and stopped, rolled and stopped, to the hiss of steam and the rumble of iron wheels on tracks.
The crowd grew denser as they approached the station, the center of the universe of flight, and progress slowed until it was near a standstill, a mere shuffling toward the steps of the clapboard-sided building.
“Molly, this is hopeless,” Wendy said, speaking loudly to be heard over the mass of sound from the crowd, the carts, and the trains.
“Perhaps,” Molly said. “Let’s get inside and see. I know some people. They might help.”
“But how will we ever…” It did not seem possible that they could even get into the station, but before she could finish her question, Molly advanced, moving like a fox through the undergrowth, slipping sideways through gaps in the throng, exploiting every tiny opening in the pack of refugees. Her elbows flailed like offensive weapons, her carpetbag a battering ram, opening the way with just enough subtlety that the people she pushed past could dismiss the assault as an accident, if they were feeling charitable. Most of them, of course, were not feeling charitable, but by the time the curse left their lips, Molly was well past them.
Wendy could do nothing but follow close behind, keeping in Molly’s wake, stepping along before the parted waters closed up again.
For all of Molly’s aggression, it still took them fifteen minutes to cover the hundred yards from the edge of the crowd to the platform of the station, where the real chaos was taking place. The bedlam in the streets did not compare to the insanity on the platform, with men pushing and shoving for trains, packing aboard until the number of people jammed into each car was laughable, and then a few more shoving in.
They were soldiers mostly, gray-clad, carrying packs and rifles. Officers in frock coats with swirls of gold on sleeves, sergeants shouting in hoarse voices. If there was some order to it all, Wendy could not see it.
Molly stopped at an office door, a nondescript door that would pass unnoticed if one were not looking for it. She knocked, hard, waited, knocked again. They waited. Molly let out a breath of exasperation.
“Who are we looking for?” Wendy asked. The night was growing more bizarre, with her slightly eccentric but generally harmless aunt now displaying resources and a determination that Wendy had never seen before.
“Alvan Reid. The stationmaster. But he seems to be-”
The door opened and a man in his mid-forties or so, a very haggard-looking man in shirtsleeves and unbuttoned vest, his thick brown hair wild, his moustache slightly askew, peered out uncertainly, like an animal peeking out of its hole to see if it is safe to come out, if the dogs are gone. He saw Molly and his face brightened a bit, or at least for an instant looked less miserable, and he opened the door wider and waved them in.
It was quieter in the office, the din of the platform muted a bit by the thin walls. “Molly, it is grand to see you, but you can forget it.”
“Forget it? Alvan, dear, you do not even know why I am here.”
“Certainly I do. You’re looking for a seat on a train out of here. It has been the same all day. But I fear the army has taken over all the trains. There are only soldiers riding tonight, and those who have managed to associate themselves with the army in some way.”
Wendy spoke at last. “But why are the soldiers leaving? If the Yankees are coming, shouldn’t the soldiers stay?”
Alvan looked at Wendy as if he was surprised she could speak. “Soldiers are going to Richmond. The Union Army is on the Peninsula and marching for Richmond, and all the troops around are being sent there to defend it. Leave us to the Yankees, we don’t matter, they need every man to protect the damned politicians in Richmond.”
“Now, Alvan,” Molly continued, her tone soft and persuasive, “I know these soldiers are taking up a lot of room, but surely there’s-”
“I said forget it, Molly, I meant forget it. It’s out of my hands. The damn army’s taken over the platform and they’re deciding who goes and who doesn’t. I’m just trying to keep the trains running, and even that’s more than I can handle.”
He reached out a hand, laid it on Molly’s shoulder, and when he spoke again his tone was different. Kinder. “You know I’d help you if I could, Molly. You before any of the others come see me today, and there’s been a power of ’em. But there’s nothing I can do.”
Molly nodded, resigned. “Very well. Thank you, Alvan, I know you’d help if you could. Godspeed.” She turned to Wendy. “Let’s go, dear, we’ll have to find some other way out of town.”
They pushed their way off the platform and out of the station, and the going was a bit easier moving against the crowd than pushing through it. They didn’t even try to speak until the station was two blocks behind them and the mob sparse enough for them to walk side by side.
“Well, that was a lot of effort for nothing,” Molly said. “I’m sorry, dear.” She was still walking with purpose.
“It’s quite all right, Molly. How do you happen to know the stationmaster?”
“Oh, you know how it is, one meets people…”
“I see,” Wendy said, though she didn’t. Wendy had never had that capacity. Too abrasive, too forward, she rejected people before they rejected her. She had somehow always thought her aunt the same way. They were, were they not, the closest in temperament of all the family?
Perhaps not.
There seemed to be so many truths that Wendy was now finding were not true at all.
They walked back the way they had come, past the side road that led to Molly’s house, and continued on. “There are other ways out of town,” Molly was explaining. “But not by road. We can’t very well walk, and I suspect the roads are completely jammed with wagons and such and they’ll all just sit there until the Yankees come and shoo them all home.”
“Yes,” Wendy said. What else could she say?
They walked in silence for a while, and soon they were walking by the ten-foot-high brick wall that separated the town of Portsmouth from the shipyard. The shipyard was generally called the Norfolk Navy Yard, though it was not in Norfolk. Its official name was the Gosport Naval Shipyard, though it was not in Gosport either, but rather Portsmouth.
They came at last to the wide wrought-iron gate that marked the entrance to the shipyard. They were accustomed to seeing guards there, bored-looking teenagers in butternut, leaning on their rifles or on the wall. But not tonight. Now there was a detail of a dozen soldiers and a lieutenant in charge of them, and they looked as if they were taking their duty very seriously.
