Spring Will Come (4 page)

             
Carrie was grateful she said no more.  There was nothing to be said, anyway.  This same scene was being played thousands of times daily in every town in the country.  There were no words to ease the pain or to take away the questioning and worry in each heart as loved ones left for the battlefield.  It was simply to be endured. 

             
Finally she spoke.  “There seems to be nothing but questions about the people that I love.”  For just a moment, it seemed as if it would overwhelm her.  The pictures swirled through her mind, fighting for first position.  Moses, who had helped save her from the Union soldiers on the plantation, was himself a Union spy.  Where was he?  And what would happen to him if caught by the Confederates?  And what about Rose?  The last Carrie knew she was safe in Philadelphia, but what if slave hunters were still pursuing her?  What if Ike Adams went after her again? 

             
Pictures of Aunt Abby swirled into the collage.  Her special friend, who was so much like a second mother to her, now lived in the foreign country of the North.  There had been no communication, save one smuggled letter through the Underground Railroad, for over a year.  And Matthew - Robert’s close friend from the North who had recently been released from a prison in Richmond.  Would his job as a newspaper war correspondent once again put him in danger? 

             
Overlaying the collage of swirling pictures was the image of a tall, handsome lieutenant mounted on a towering, gray Thoroughbred. 

             
A deafening crack of lightning ripped through the darkening sky.  The sound of an explosion and a flash of light told Carrie a tree had attracted more than its share of the storm’s fury.  As she stared out, the first huge raindrops fell.  Within seconds, the drops had turned into a pounding deluge that made all talk impossible.  Stepping farther back into the shelter of the porch, Carrie allowed the fury of the storm to carry some of her feelings of helplessness and powerlessness away with it.  She had always found strength in storms.  This one was no different. 

             
Tomorrow would come.  There was nothing she could do to stop it.  All she could do was wait to see what the new day would bring.

Carrie tried to look like she was listening as she forced herself to eat the supper May had fixed for the household.  Overcrowding in the city had filled every house to capacity.  Until a month ago, her father had lived by himself with his two house servants.  Now the household totaled twelve.  She and Janie shared a room upstairs.  The other seven were men employed by the government.  All of them were pleasant enough, but Carrie had been busy at the hospital and had had little time to become acquainted with them.

              Thomas Cromwell cleared his throat as he reached for his glass of water.  “I have proof today that all of Richmond is indeed trying to do their part for the war effort.”  He allowed his voice to trail off, inviting questions.

             
Carrie roused herself with an effort.   Her father had been casting anxious looks at her since she’d reached the table.  She had seen Janie talking to him just before they were called to dinner, so she was sure he knew Robert had been called away.  She forced a light note into her voice.  Giving into despair would do no one any good.  “And just what evidence did you acquire today?”

             
Thomas turned to her eagerly, obviously relieved by her show of interest.  “Even the proprietors of our gambling halls have embraced the patriotism of our time.”

             
“And just how, pray tell, have they done that?” Janie asked in an openly skeptical voice.  “Are they opening their doors to Union soldiers as well so that they might make more money?”

             
Thomas laughed but shook his head.  “They have
closed
their doors for a while.”

             
“What?”  That was enough to get even Carrie’s attention.  She had been in town for only short periods during the last year, but she was well aware of the gambling halls’ reputations.

             
Thomas nodded.  “They’ve decided to suspend operations for a while because too many of our officers were being lured from their duties. But that’s not all,” he said and paused dramatically.  “They have also voted to give twenty thousand dollars to our cause.”

             
“Be still my beating heart!”  Janie cried dramatically as laughter rang through the room. 

             
“They have decreed it be used to purchase articles needed to treat the wounded in whatever may be coming.”

             
Carrie felt the now-familiar fear clutching at her throat.

             
Her face must have betrayed her emotions, for her father looked at her regretfully and said, “I’m sorry, Carrie.  That was thoughtless and insensitive of me.”

             
Carrie pushed aside visions of Robert lying wounded on the battlefield and reached forward to take her father’s hand.  “Nonsense.  I am very glad the owners of the gambling halls are finally going to do something constructive with their money.  It will be much needed.  Our soldiers deserve the finest care.”  She searched her mind for a way to change the subject and let her father off the hook, but it took all her mental energy to keep from bursting into tears. 

             
“I understand they took care of another Union spy today.”  The statement was offered by Warren Pucket, a clerk in the War Department.  The slightly built man, in his early forties, had been turned down for the army because of medical reasons, but that had not stopped him from making the trip from Alabama to offer what services he could. 

             
Thomas turned toward him with obvious relief.  “I had heard a little about it but don’t really know the story.   Do tell us.”

             
Warren complied.  “Evidently Timothy Webster was a master spy.  Since last October he has been dispatching letters to the North detailing the Confederate’s military secrets.  From what I have been told, he managed to work himself into Baltimore’s Confederate Underground.  They actually helped sneak him over the lines because they thought they were helping their own cause.”

             
“Rather ingenious,” Thomas muttered angrily. 

             
“It gets worse,” Warren replied.  “Webster posed as an Englishman here in town and made friends with officials on every level.  He hung around the newspapers and the War Department.  Why, both General Winder and Secretary Benjamin used him as a dispatcher.”

             
“He was used by the Secretary of the War Department?  Judas Benjamin was taken in by him?”  Thomas exclaimed. 

             
Warren shrugged.  “He was evidently very good at what he did.”

             
“How did they catch him?”  Janie asked.

             
“The story I heard said Webster fell ill with extremely painful rheumatism.  He went so long without reporting to Washington, they got worried about him and sent two men down to check on him.  Someone recognized the two men as northern detectives.  They hadn’t been here long before they found themselves in jail.”

             
“But what about Webster?”  Carrie asked.  She found the story fascinating even though she was appalled to think these were all American citizens spying on each other. 

             
Warren smirked.  “The two men in jail didn’t take too kindly to the idea they were going to hang for being spies.  With a little persuasion and promises of mercy, they broke and told all about Webster and his mission.  He was really the big fish in the whole operation.  Until yesterday he has occupied one of our prisons.”

             
“What happened yesterday?”  Carrie asked.

             
“They hanged him,” Warren stated flatly.

             
Carrie turned white and stared at him.  “They hanged him?” she repeated. 

             
Warren’s face hardened with anger.  “You don’t get away with spying in the capital.  There is no telling how many of our men died needlessly because of the information he passed out.”

             
Carrie saw her father open his mouth to break into the conversation, but Warren hurried on, reveling in the story.

             
“There weren’t many people out there to watch the hanging.  A whole crowd of folks showed up for the hanging of his two buddies but were disappointed when it didn’t actually happen. I guess they decided this one wouldn’t really happen either.  They missed a great show!”

             
“You were there?” Thomas asked.

             
“Yes.  I was asked to record it for the War Department.  Anyway, the first time the trap was sprung, the rope was too long.  He fell straight to the ground.  It busted him up a little, but it certainly didn’t kill him.”

             
Carrie shuddered as the picture sprang into her mind.  She listened in horrified silence. 

             
Oblivious to the fact that not everyone was enjoying his story, Warren hurried on.  “They picked him up, helped him up the stairs, fixed the ropes, and sprung it again.”  He paused.  “He hung for thirty minutes before he was cut down.  Then the detectives sliced up the rope for souvenirs.”

             
Carrie could control herself no longer.  “How can you find anything good in such a horrible thing!  These are Americans who are killing Americans!”

             
Warren’s voice was flat and emotionless when he turned to her.  “I’m sorry if the reality of the war is disturbing to you, Miss Cromwell.  It is disturbing to all of us.  I freely admit I find satisfaction in knowing another threat to our way of life has been destroyed.  Timothy Webster knew the risk when he decided to come down and betray the people who put trust in him.  We are at war, Miss Cromwell.  A war we intend to win.  We will do whatever it takes to win it.”

             
Carrie stared at him as his chilling words sank into her heart.  Suddenly she was tired.  Very, very tired.  “Excuse me.  I think I will retire now.”  She slipped from her place at the table and climbed slowly up the stairs to her room.   When she heard her father’s chair scrape back, she managed to turn and smile at him.  “I’ll be all right, Father.  I just need some time alone.” 

             
In her room, she curled up on the window seat and stared out at the rain still pounding the city. She heard the echo of words spoken by a Richmonder earlier in the week.
“I have begun to feel like the prisoners of the Inquisition in Edgar Allen Poe’s story - cast into a dungeon of slowly contracting walls.” 

             
The walls were closing in. 

CHAPTER TWO

             
When Carrie woke the next morning, she lay still and watched as a slight breeze ruffled the curtains.  A quick glance told her Janie had already departed for the hospital.  Carrie stretched and allowed the bed’s softness to envelop her body for a few more moments.  This was her first day off in a week.  She hadn’t realized how tired she was.  The light outside told her it was mid-morning.

             
Several long minutes passed while she listened to the sounds of birds outside her window.  To be sure, they were competing with the sound of a noisy city, but if she pretended really hard, she could almost imagine she was still on the plantation.  Funny, she had been in such a hurry to leave the plantation, to follow her dreams of becoming a doctor.  Her decision to grow crops had been her own, and it had been easy to throw her whole heart into it, but she had yearned for the day she could begin to follow her dream in earnest. 

             
Well, here she was.  Only her dream hadn’t included thousands of men needlessly killed and wounded from battles pitting Americans against Americans.  It hadn’t included countless amputations and infection that sapped the life of vibrant young men.   It hadn’t included infectious diseases that spread like wildfire, claiming countless lives, as they swept through the camps that bred them.