“A beheaded chicken. You don’t look as bad as all that.”
“Come on, dear,” Molly said, and Wendy woke to find herself still sitting on the rock, Molly’s protective arm around her shoulders to keep her from falling onto the beach. “Do you think you can stand? Lieutenant Batchelor is here to help us find some transportation back to Norfolk.”
Wendy looked around. In the fading light of sunset she could see Lieutenant Batchelor standing a few feet away, pristine in his frock coat. “Lieutenant… how good to see you! How…?”
“The Yankees let me go, just as they said they would. Spent a fair amount of time questioning me, but they got nothing that I didn’t tell them when we first pulled alongside. To hear me, you would have thought I was the most ignorant man in the Confederacy.”
Wendy smiled, genuinely pleased. “I am so happy to see you safe, sir. I would not have you hurt, or a prisoner, for our sake.”
Batchelor gave a shallow bow. “I thank you for your concern, but it is duty, ma’am.”
Molly slipped her arm under Wendy’s and helped her to her feet. Her muscles ached and she had some difficulty in standing straight.
They walked toward the fort, and as Wendy’s muscles warmed and stretched she was able to walk more easily, until finally the limp and cautious step were gone and she moved like herself again. They entered the fort through the small door from which they had exited that morning, stepping into a place very different from the one where they had spent the night.
Wendy remembered the garrison as a small band of generally bored soldiers. They were a small band still, but they were not bored. Men were rushing in and out of the casemates, carrying loads of whatever they could-boxes of fuses, shells, small arms- and loading them into the backs of wagons, while restless horses, tapped into the frantic mood of the place, shifted in their traces and snorted their displeasure.
“They are abandoning the fort,” Batchelor explained, leading the women past the batteries and hastily built barracks. “Yankees were shelling them again today. You must have seen them. No one has any doubt they’ll be coming ashore soon.” He stopped and looked at Molly. “I hope you know where.”
Molly smiled. “I do.”
“Good,” said Batchelor. “Let’s get you to someone who can use that information.”
The carriage in which they had come from Norfolk had, by Batchelor’s orders, remained there, waiting on them. They climbed in and the coachman cracked his whip and they rattled and shook their way out of the fort and down the moonlit road. Soon Wendy was asleep again. She dreamed strange dreams of her mother and Samuel Bowater and Abraham Lincoln, of ships sinking under her and guns firing. Molly shook her awake as they rolled through the gates of the Gosport Naval Shipyard. Night was fully on them, the blackness through the carriage windows broken only by certain points of light, lanterns and larger fires. Wendy did not feel particularly refreshed.
They stepped out of the carriage into a scene much like that at the fort at Sewell’s Point, but on a considerably grander scale. More wagons, hundreds more men shifting every conceivable article that might be found in a shipyard and moved by hand and by wagon. Barrels of powder, barrels of shot, round and conical shells, metalworking machinery, coils of rope, brass deck howitzers, boxes and boxes of paperwork, it was all being hustled across the yard, loaded in wagons, bound for Richmond by train or wagon or foot. For the past year the Confederate Navy had enjoyed the considerable windfall of Yankee resources that had come to them with the taking of the naval shipyard. Now all that could be moved was being moved, before it became Yankee property once more.
“They’re taking everything,” Molly observed as she crossed the cobbled yard to Tucker’s office. “Will you take the buildings too?”
“Don’t need buildings, ma’am,” Batchelor said. “Wish to hell we could take the dry dock, though. I’d trade all of it for the dry dock.”
They found Captain John Tucker in his office, which was considerably more empty than it had been twenty-four hours before. The desk and chairs were there, the file cabinets as well, but the piles of papers were gone, the crates half stuffed with documents all absent. There was an orderly look about the place, the kind of orderliness you can only get in an unoccupied room.
Handsome Jack sat at his desk, a few charts scattered around, the only paperwork left.
“I’m pleased to see you have tidied up a bit,” Molly announced as she swept into the room. “I was going to suggest that you need a woman around the place.”
Tucker looked up, gave as much of a smile as his weary face would allow. “Do you know one who is available?”
“Available women? I know plenty of available women. I just don’t know any ladies. Save for my dear Wendy, but you can’t have her. Her heart belongs to another sailor.”
“Ah, well…” Tucker stood, gestured to the chairs, and Wendy sat, gratefully. “What have you found out?”
“The Yankees will land at Ocean View near Willoughby ’s Point. Tomorrow, I reckon,” Molly said.
“Tomorrow?” Tucker said. He pulled out a watch and snapped it open in a gesture so reminiscent of Newcomb that it made Wendy flinch. “It is twelve forty-eight now. May tenth. Do you mean they will land on the eleventh?”
“No,” Molly said. “I did not know it was past midnight. They will come today.”
Tucker nodded. He seemed neither surprised nor alarmed. “Ocean View? You have it on good authority?”
“Quite good.” Molly told him the story, from the tug’s intercepting them on the way to the flagship, through the shock of Lincoln’s presence, to their being allowed to join him on the boat deck for the bulk of his scouting expedition. Batchelor nodded his confirmation of their story. There was nothing for him to add. Molly’s recollection was flawless.
She went to great lengths to describe what a gentleman the President was, how well-mannered and droll and quick-witted, and Wendy was sure her aunt was needling Tucker, trying to get some rise out of him, but in that she failed. Tucker simply listened, did not react.
“The Norwegians were very kind to bring us back to Sewell’s Point,” Molly finished. “I don’t think they wished to have a dog in our fight.” She did not mention Newcomb or the incident in the cabin.
Tucker leaned back, tossed the dividers he was holding on to the chart. “Good work, Molly. As ever. Excellent. There had been some concern that the Yankees would push down the Elizabeth River, bottle us in.”
“I would be very surprised,” Molly said. “They are deathly afraid of the
“They should be. So, if they are coming overland, we have half a day at least to complete our evacuation. After they get their troops ashore. By noon today, we must be gone.”
“And Wendy and I with you?” Molly prompted. “I do believe we have fulfilled our half of the bargain.”
“Admirably, my dear Molly, most admirably. I will be aboard the last boat out of here, and you and Wendy will be with me. I will certainly be up for the remainder of the night making preparations, but there is no cause for you to be as well. Your house is not too far from here?”
“No, and my bed calls with an irresistible siren’s song,” Molly said. Wendy, though she thought herself acclimated to her aunt’s outrageous proclamations, still was mortified to hear Molly mention her bed to this man.
“You must go to it, then. I will have the good Lieutenant Batchelor take you home and collect you in the morning, say, nine o’clock?”
Molly stood. “Two bells in the forenoon watch,” she said. “And if the lieutenant is even ten minutes late, we will come hunting for him. And you.”
“I understand,” said Tucker, also standing. “It is why I have chosen my most punctual officer.”
The carriage in which they had arrived had already gone off on some other duty, but after some time Batchelor managed to locate a buckboard, half loaded with galley fixtures, that he commandeered for the time it would take to drive the women home. He climbed up onto the seat and took the reins, and Molly and Wendy shuffled in beside
