We settled on this: Tomorrow afternoon we would drive to that sporting goods store, leave the rental in the east parking lot, go in and buy three sleeping bags, then exit the opposite door, where a cab would be waiting to take us to the marina. There we would buy our tickets and after that it was a crapshoot. We’d have to wait in the open line, where anybody could see us, until we were inside the boat and under way. As a plan this did not rank with the wooden horse that defeated the Trojans, but it was what we had, what we would do.
We had Pizza Hut send in supper for two. I paid at the door and scanned the lot and what I could see of the street. Nothing. Erin and I ate the pizza while Koko feasted on nuts and seeds and scoops of yummy-looking gray stuff from a plastic bag. We watched the depressing TV fare and later the ladies played more cards. They both left at nine, and for a long time I stood at the window of my room watching the courtyard and saw nothing suspicious.
None of us slept well. When I saw them in the morning they looked haggard and weary.
Another long morning waiting. Gradually we took our suitcases out to the car, watching everything around us. At noon I called a cab company and left an order for a taxi in the south parking lot of the sporting goods place for exactly one-fifteen. I gave them a credit card number and told the dispatcher that the cabbie must be on time and I would pay him double, including time spent waiting, with an extra fifty bucks when we were delivered to the marina at two o’clock.
We didn’t bother to check out: the motel had my credit card number and I’d call them later and have them bill me. We were out of the room and in the car in ten seconds flat. I eased into Meeting Street and turned right toward North Charleston.
It all went like clockwork. I kept an eye peeled, watching my mirrors constantly, and nowhere behind me did I see anything that even hinted of a watcher, a tailgater, or a spook. If Dante or any of his elves were back there, they were mighty good at this.
At the store I watched the crowd while Erin bought the three bags; at the last minute I bought a flashlight and some batteries, and we hustled out the opposite door. The cab was there with its meter running. Koko and Erin got in the back and I rode up front. We drove into town the way we had come up, and the cabbie deposited us at the fort sumter tours sign with time to spare. “Just wait with us,” I told him, and we all sat there for fifteen minutes. I paid him, gave him the half-C, and told him he was a gentleman and a scholar. We scrambled up the dock with only a few minutes to spare.
The boat eased away and the pilot began telling us about the sights we were seeing. Erin came close and took my hand. “Looks like we beat him,” she said. But as I watched the receding buildings, one man in the crowd caught my eye. I saw him for just a second before he disappeared beyond the ticket shack. From that distance I couldn’t quite make him out. But he did remind me of someone, and I wasn’t so sure we beat him after all.
This time Libby was waiting on the dock to greet us. A brilliant smile lit up her face, as if she’d been waiting there for three days doubting our return. Now we had come as budding friends. The ice had been broken and it didn’t seem to matter that we had known each other less than half an hour; we had a common cause. Libby made light of Erin’s unexpected arrival. They were roughly the same age and they chatted easily as we walked up the long pier and turned into the fort. “Luke’s giving the tour again,” she said. “We usually alternate. I do it every other day when time permits, but he’s catching double-duty now that my studies are piling up. Let’s stash your bags and I’ll show you around.”
She gave us a private mini-tour in a low voice as we walked into the shadows under the wall. “This is the sally port. For you laymen, that means the passage in and out. The name comes from the military term sally, to attack and repel invaders. The old sally port was over there.” She pointed to a low place in the wall to our right. “That’s the gorge wall. This is the left flank we just came through. Straight across the fort, on the other side of the battery, is the right flank. The other two walls are the right face and the left face. I will quiz you later, so take notes. You don’t get any supper unless you get a passing grade.”
“In case the enemy attacks us tonight,” Erin said.
“Exactly,” she said, deadpan. “It wouldn’t do if I yelled, ‘Reinforcements to the left flank!’ and all of you fell into the harbor looking for it.”
Erin laughed. “I can see we’re going to get along fine.”
“Speaking of supper,” Libby said. “I hope you’re not finicky eaters. The menu here is not our strong point.”
We stared at each other, somewhat shamefaced. None of us had given food a thought.
“Don’t worry about it. All I’m hoping is that you’re not too put off by TV dinners.”
“We can eat anything,” I said. “Right, Koko?”
“Absolutely,” said Koko. “I’m ready to tear into a raw shark.”
“Can’t help you there,” Libby said. “Maybe I can scare up some canned squid.”
She made a shhh motion as we went past Luke, who stood above a crowd giving the same speech we had heard on Saturday. She moved us down under the left flank wall and continued her lecture in a low monotone.
“Imagine this whole structure two and three levels high. Above us was another tier of casemates—gun rooms—and the enlisted men’s barracks were three stories high on both flanks, with guns on top of each wall.”
We skirted the left face. “This was a formidable fort then,” she said. “That’s all gone, pounded to smithereens in the Union siege. After they shelled that little band of Yankees out, the Confederates held this rock for almost four years, living in rubble much of that time. For two years they were battered by gunboats and by big guns from Morris Island, which we’ll see in a minute. Historians say seven million pounds of iron were fired in here. The Yanks thought they could take anything if they shelled the bejesus out of it long enough. But this old baby was tough, and the more they reduced it, the tougher it became. In the end there was nothing here but piles of bricks and whatever was buried under them—these walls you see and those ruins over there, the remains of a proud old fort. By then the Confederates had replaced their artillery forces with infantry, and the Union still couldn’t take it.”
She gestured at the guns as we walked past. “Some of these cannons were used against the fort by Union forces on Morris Island— moved over here years later.”
We went up to her little apartment in the battery. “Just throw your stuff down anywhere,” she said, and we went out again. She led us along the right flank and we stood facing the sea. “So anyway,” she said, “this is what I call home.”
Koko asked how long they had been here.
“A year. They’ll rotate us; they say it keeps us from going stir crazy, but I’m going to miss this terribly when I leave. I think about it even now, how quickly we move past things, sometimes without ever seeing them. There’s so much here that’s of the past, and soon it will all be part of my own past. Maybe Luke and I will come back years from now as tourists and I’ll think of these days. But I’ll never again be part of it, so I make the most of every day I do have.”