Blue uniforms covered the sand as far as the eye could see. Tim said, “If numbers counted, we could take the place without a fight.”
“That’s a pretty big ‘if,’ Lieutenant,” Fitch said. “Schoolboys with slingshots could hold that fort.”
“If we go in strong we’ll take the place,” Tim said. He turned away.
He found Red by a little stream on the westerly side of the neck of land. Red was stripped to the waist, dousing his hair and scrubbing his beard with a piece of soap.
Tim took him by surprise. “That beard would frighten the devil himself.”
Red straightened up, grinning.
A row of wounded lay on the sandy bank of the stream, waiting to be taken to the rear. Tim noticed three gray blouses at the end of the line. Two mounted officers rode along the crest of the hill above the stream. A ferry service must have been set up to bring the horses and wagons across from Folly.
Red finished his washing and the two men moved up the hill. To their left the tower of Charleston’s St. Michael’s Church was a knife of fire in the light of the setting sun.
When his boys had cleaned their rifles and settled for the night Tim found a place close to the ocean, where he could be alone. A waning moon climbed the dark blue sky, and the phosphor-lighted waves that edged the mass of the open sea lapped gently against the shore below. The black outlines of the ships of the Navy—the monitors and gunboats—were etched against the hazy distance. He thought of a springtime more than two years ago when he and Kate had sat on Lookout Rock high above the river in the warmth and freshness of the sun, letting their eyes wander over the morning haze, finding patches of pine and green-gold willow trees. He remembered the sun striking the river and the trailing smoke from a distant train. When he had seen the train he had touched Kate’s hand. “Do you ever feel you’d like to bust loose and sprout wings and fly to the ends of the earth?”
Kate’s eyes had shone. “You make me feel that way.”