As the train left the city by the sea the landscape was flat, dotted with brown-leaved little trees and tall pines with trunks which reached high and bare before they branched into thickly needled clusters. Once when the train slowed down for a moment the face of one of the guards hung upside down from the roof of the car, then disappeared again.
As they rattled through the countryside Tim was the only one in the car who stayed awake. The train swayed and rocked across huge swamps filled with trees with swollen roots, their branches dripping with Spanish moss. The pungent odor of stagnant water and rotting wood mixed with the smell in the cattle cars.
Tim’s senses dimmed. His head dipped and came up again. He pinched himself, stood up and steadied himself against the door frame of the car.
Kautz’s head snapped up. “Have we changed direction?”
Tim sat down. “No,” he said. “I judge by the sun that we’re still going roughly northwest.”
“How long have we been on the road?”
“About half an hour.”
“No chance for Beaufort now,” Kautz said. “They’re taking us to Georgia or Columbia. There’s a place called Branchville just ahead. If we fork right, it will be Columbia. I hope that’s what we do. My maps don’t cover much of Georgia. Then there’s the matter of getting help. We can’t get to our lines without some help. They say there are Unionists in North Carolina and Tennessee.”
“Then we go north, no matter what.”
“It looks that way,” Kautz said. “Get some rest, Lieutenant. I’ve had enough sleep.”