A Light to My Path (41 page)

They waited until after dark to begin the trip upriver so that the plume from the ship’s smokestack wouldn’t give them away. The colonel addressed the volunteers one last time before they cast off, offering anyone who wanted it a chance to change his mind.

“The Rebels have heard all about our regiment,” he told them. “They’ve heard that we have freed slaves fighting against them now, and they’re all in an uproar about it. Before you volunteer for this mission, you need to know that the Rebels will show you no mercy. They won’t be taking any prisoners of war. If you’re captured, they’ll either shoot you outright or return you to slavery.”

The news didn’t deter Grady in the least—or anyone else. He stood beside Joseph at the bow of the ship as the journey began, his rifle loaded, his body tensed and ready to kill. “I ain’t showing them no mercy, either,” he murmured. “The more white men I kill, the better I’ll feel.”

Joseph turned to face him, studying him in the darkness. “Killing in battle is one thing. After all, we’re trying to win a war. But hating people … Hating ain’t good, Grady.”

He remembered Delia trying to preach him the same sermon and it made him angry. “Why don’t you go talk to the white men, then? Seems like they’re hating us as much as I’m hating them.”

“Not all of them hate us, and not all white men are bad. There’s good ones and bad ones, just like us colored folks.”

“Yeah, well I’ve seen more than my fair share of bad ones,” Grady said. “I ain’t no worse than any of them.”

“If you’re comparing yourself to other men, then you’re using the wrong measure. You need to be comparing yourself to God’s standard—”

“Don’t preach to me,” Grady warned.

Joseph paused for a long moment, then asked, “What about Colonel Higginson? And Captain Metcalf and Captain Trowbridge and all the other white officers?”

“What about them?”

“Are you hating them, too, just because their skin’s white?”

Grady didn’t answer. The truth was that he avoided them as much as possible, wishing his race knew enough about warfare to go into battle without any white men. It was only because of the white man’s prejudice that Negroes had never studied to be army officers. And there was no doubt in his mind that with the proper training, a black man could be a four-star general.

“Colonel Higginson and the others could be with a white regiment right now instead of with us,” Joseph continued. “But they’re volunteering to lead us—even though they’re all knowing that they won’t be sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, either, if they’re captured. The truth is, the Rebels plan on killing the white officers right along with us.”

Grady looked at Joseph for the first time. “Why would they do that? They’re white men.”

“That’s their punishment for working with us. The Rebels are saying that any white officer they catch leading a troop of Negroes is gonna be treated just the same as a Negro and killed on the spot.”

“Is that true?” Grady glanced up at the darkened pilothouse where Colonel Higginson stood in the shadows beside Corporal Sutton.

“Yes, sir, I swear it’s true,” Joseph replied. “Not all white men are like our massas, you know. A good many of them are wanting to see us set free—and that includes Colonel Higginson and all the men who’re volunteering to lead us.”

Grady still didn’t understand why they would do that. But he had a new respect for these white officers who willingly shared his race’s scorn and the Rebels’ hatred.

“You know, Jesus done the same thing,” Joseph said softly. And for some reason Grady didn’t interrupt him or walk away. “Jesus was God’s Son. He never had to live on earth or suffer and die.
But He became a man, just like us. He took on our shame and sin and was willing to die for us.”

His words sent a shiver of unease through Grady. “Why?” he asked.

“Same reason,” Joseph said with a shrug. “He wanted to set us free.”

Grady did walk away then, unwilling to allow any disquieting thoughts to disturb his plans for revenge. The moon shone dully off the swiftly flowing water as he stared into the darkness ahead. They rounded each bend in the river never knowing what lay ahead, heightening his sense of danger. He gazed up at the hills and meadows on shore and knew that he was heading deep into Rebel territory for the first time since his escape. He imagined thousands of Confederates waiting in ambush around the next bend in the river, and he felt alert, tense, and fully alive. Every light on the ship had been darkened, every voice whispered like the lapping of waves against the hull. He walked over to a group of soldiers standing beside one of the heavy guns.

“They say the Rebels will let ships go upriver,” he heard one of them say, “but it’s a trap. They’ll build snags so they can attack us from their batteries on the way back.”

“Yeah? Let them try it!” Grady said, his rage building again, along with his tension. “I’ve got plenty of ammunition.”

The ships finally halted just below their destination of Township Landing, and Corporal Sutton went ashore with a small advance force. By the time Grady’s ship rounded the point and docked at the landing, Sutton’s men had silently surrounded the sleeping inhabitants’ homes.

“Ain’t nobody running off to tell the Rebels we’re here, Colonel,” Sutton reported to Higginson with a proud grin. “We can take them by surprise. They’re camping about five miles from here, down a logging road through them woods.”

It was after midnight by the time Grady and the others started down the path behind a small advance guard. The sense of wariness and danger he’d felt on board ship was heightened tenfold as he crept through the silent forest. His rifle was loaded and ready, his bayonet fixed. They would catch these white boys by surprise and kill them while they slept.

The pine woods were damp and fragrant, the bed of needles soft beneath his feet. The only sounds were the quiet tramp of feet, the
glug
of frogs in a nearby marsh, the distant yelp of a dog on some small farm hidden deep in the woods. The moon barely penetrated the thick forest, and Grady squinted into the darkness as his eyes tried to adjust to the scant light. They marched for more than two miles, hearing nothing, seeing nothing.

Suddenly the advance guard halted. They motioned for Grady and the others not to make a sound as they came to a halt behind them. Grady strained to see into the blackness, every nerve stretched tightly. Then he heard it—the distant sound of galloping horses. He remembered hearing those thudding hooves on the darkened road the night the white paddyrollers had caught him. He’d been defenseless against them back then. They’d captured him and tied him up and flogged all the flesh off his back, simply because they could. But tonight Grady had a gun. Tonight he would have his revenge.

Before he and the others could react, a rider on a white horse appeared out of the gloom on the shadowy path, leading a pack of cavalry. The two forces saw each other at the same moment, and the surprised Rebel in the lead reined his horse to a halt. He drew his pistol and fired just as the advance guard raised their rifles and fired. A volley of shots echoed through the silent woods like thunder as Grady and the others quickly took cover in the bushes. His heart pounded wildly, but he knew exactly what to do. Kneeling behind a bush, Grady calmly lifted his rifle and aimed at a target he couldn’t see. He heard the whiz of bullets overhead, the deafening roar of hundreds of rifles all around him, but he waited until he spotted a burst of fire in the darkness from a Rebel rifle. Then he carefully took aim where he’d seen the flash—and fired. His ears rang from the discharge.

Grady ducked his head and quickly reloaded, cursing his fumbling fingers, wishing he could reload and fire faster. Voices cried out as bullets struck their mark on both sides, but Grady aimed, fired, reloaded—over and over again, his hearing deadened by the noise.

How long had they been fighting? He lost all track of time. In a way it seemed as if he’d been marching through the silent woods only a moment ago, yet it also seemed as if he’d been firing into the night for an eternity. Gradually, the enemy fire slackened, then stopped. He heard Colonel Higginson call, “Cease fire!”

Grady lowered his rifle and glanced around. Every man was in an offensive position, bravely standing up to the enemy. Not a single one of them cowered in the bushes. But the Confederates were gone. They were the ones who’d turned tail and run. Grady’s company had experienced their first fight and they’d been victorious. He wanted to cheer.

“Let’s keep going and finish this,” Corporal Sutton said. Grady and the others agreed. But Colonel Higginson shook his head.

“All hope of surprise is lost. We won this round. The Rebels are the ones who fled in defeat. Let’s fix some stretchers and attend to the wounded.”

One of Grady’s fellow soldiers had been killed. Seven others lay wounded and bleeding—some of them dying. The first sight of these casualties left Grady shaken. He had come to kill white men, not to be wounded or killed by them. Grady had taken an oath to help free his fellow slaves or die trying, but until this moment he hadn’t truly faced what that meant. He didn’t want to die. Death wasn’t in his plans. But as he looked at his dead and wounded comrades, he realized that it hadn’t been in their plans, either.

“It’s okay, Colonel,” he heard one of the wounded men say, when Higginson knelt to console him. “Freedom is sweeter than life.”

Grady felt a moment of stomach-churning fear as he glanced around for Joseph and couldn’t find him. Then his gangly tentmate stood from where he’d been kneeling in prayer beside the dead man. Grady exhaled in relief. As skinny as Joseph was, those Rebels probably couldn’t hit him on a clear day with the sun shining.

Grady helped load the wounded onto stretchers and carry them back through the woods to the landing. They marched with their weapons loaded, their eyes and ears alert, fully expecting a counter-attack at any moment. When it didn’t happen, Colonel Higginson assured them that it meant complete victory. “We must have hit them pretty hard,” he said. “No decent cavalry would let a small infantry force like ours march through their territory without a fight.”

Grady volunteered to stay onshore with the colonel and a small squadron to guard the settlement until morning. He remained alert all night, waiting for another fight, eager for it, but the attack never came. Filled with unspent fury, he watched his fellow soldiers load a piano from the plantation house onto the ship the next morning to deliver to the Negro children’s school in Fernandina. Then at the colonel’s signal, Grady helped set the house on fire to prevent the Rebels from using it again.

On the return journey down river, Grady’s ship docked at another small town to retrieve a much-needed load of lumber. Three white-haired Southern ladies waited to greet them, waving white handkerchiefs.

“They gonna tell you they’s on our side,” Corporal Sutton warned the colonel, “but they’s really Rebel spies. You wait and see—as soon as we’re on our way again, their menfolk will be waiting round the first bend to ambush us.”

Colonel Higginson greeted the women politely—too politely, Grady thought. He knew the women were lying when they insisted that they weren’t Rebel sympathizers or spies. He gritted his teeth when he saw how they addressed only the colonel and the other white officers, casting cold, disdainful glances at any Negroes who ventured near them. Grady easily recognized their racism for what it was, having experienced it all his life. He worried that the colonel had fallen for their flattery until he overheard him say, “If our ships are ambushed as we’re leaving, I can promise you ladies that we will return and torch your town.”

Higginson ordered some of the soldiers to spread out and guard the town from a surprise attack while the rest of the men quickly loaded the lumber onboard. Grady and two others climbed up the cupola of one of the houses to stand watch. It was still early morning, and the feathery mist rising from the river and the distant fields looked like fairy smoke. He thought of Anna and wished he could share the view with her. Then, as he scanned the woods for signs of Rebels, he wondered how long it would take to forget her.

When the colonel finally signaled to reboard the ship, Grady felt bitterly disappointed that there hadn’t been a fight. He was ready for one after his first taste of combat last night. But shortly after the vessels got underway, a sudden volley of explosions rocked the ship. Everyone dove for cover, dodging a rain of shrapnel and splintering wood and bullets. The gunners ran to their weapons to return fire, but the attack ended as quickly as it began.

Grady’s heart thudded with excitement and readiness as the colonel made good on his threat and returned to shore to set the town on fire. Something deep inside him found immense satisfaction as he listened to those white ladies begging for mercy … and he watched their pleas go unheeded.

The ships returned safely to Fernandina with no further Rebel attacks. But rather than soothing Grady’s need for action, the night’s work left him feeling very unsatisfied. He’d savored only one tantalizing taste of combat, and he hungered for more. Enemy troops still roamed the woods along that river, and he longed to hunt them down and kill them all. Even after staying up all night, he felt much too edgy to sleep. So when the colonel announced a second nightlong mission, Grady quickly volunteered again. They would venture further upriver this time, to the town of Woodstock, deep in Rebel-held territory, to acquire a supply of new bricks to repair Fort Clinch.

The expedition sailed up the St. Mary’s River after dark, just as they had the night before, with Corporal Sutton piloting the ship by moonlight. The river was calm as Grady stood watching from the bow, the tide flowing with them. Conversation onboard was subdued as everyone prepared for action, wondering if they’d be attacked from the shore batteries again. They sailed past the old ladies’ town that they had burned the previous night, then past Township Landing, where they’d fought the Rebel cavalry. But there was no sign of the enemy.

The riverbanks loomed steeply on either side of them as they steamed farther upstream, and the current grew swifter and more treacherous. Branches and snags littered their path, and the ship grounded eight times as the captain tried to navigate the river’s sharp bends. When they lay stranded on one sandbar for half an hour, the colonel put everyone on alert, fearing a Rebel attack. Grady knew that one well-placed cannonball would sink the ship and doom them all. But the enemy seemed not to be expecting a second foray into their territory so soon after the first, and Grady’s ship finally reached the sleeping town of Woodstock just before daybreak.