“You say they’ve been gone for three days? Why didn’t your people go after them right away? Well, they’re probably dead by now.”
“Colonel said that he didn’t want nobody else goin’ off in a little boat and gettin’ killed themselves, sir. All we’ve got are the garrison’s small boats. Colonel’s pretty mad about all of this. Said to ask the navy to go over to the Marquesas Islands and see if the boys made it over to there. He really wants those men back, Captain.”
“Very well. Tell him I’ll check those islands for his men. If I find them, we’ll bring them back here for the colonel to deal with as he sees fit. Tell the colonel I don’t think we’ll find his men alive though.”
With that said Wake dismissed the lieutenant, turned and walked aft toward his cabin ladder, glancing at the tall square-framed bosun.
“Rork, get her under way for the Marquesas. The ebb should carry us out of the anchorage a bit. Have the anchor ready in case we need it in a hurry to keep off a reef. I’ll be below for a minute.”
Descending the ladder to the cabin, he listened as Rork roared out to the crew in his deep voice with the Irish brogue.
“Aye aye, sir. All right now, lads, you heard the captain. Turn to and lay on the halyards. With a will, boys! Let’s send ’em up an see what she’ll do.”
In his airless cabin Wake sat at his desk studying the chart of the islands in the Marquesas group. If those men had made it to that archipelago, over 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
