Greene’s face was pale. He quivered with rage and fear. He stared transfixed and then, with a convulsive shudder, leaned over the rail and was sick. Tim put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and looked across the water at the stretch of beach that led to the mouth of the creek and the freedom of the Yankee lines. The steamer made straight for Sumter. The fort stood like a block of granite in the harbor’s mouth, the sea dashing against the outer walls. Now the sky was solid lead, washed across with moving clouds. The steamer nudged Fort Sumter’s wharf. The sailors looped the hawsers around the pilings, the sergeant of the guard leaped to the dock and was admitted to the fort. The steamer creaked and groaned against the pilings and Tim leaned on the rail with Greene beside him, looking up at the silent gray walls. The sergeant walked back along the pier with his head down and his arms swinging at his sides. As the steamer moved toward Charleston, leaving the silent gun ports in its wake, Tim noticed a flag at the top of the pole inside the fort. It snapped in the stiffening breeze, its colors sharp against the flat, gray sky. I wonder, he thought, how long that flag will fly? The harbor was dotted with the sails of fishing boats seeking shelter from the coming storm. The city of Charleston was strung across the horizon, her rose-brick and white-walled buildings like spots of color in a child’s painting, her church towers standing high above the piers and parks and the houses that lined the waterfront. Off to the right, masts and spars and a complex of shrouds marked the wharves on the eastern shore of the peninsula. Greene’s voice barely rose above the thump of the paddle wheels. “Where are they taking us, do you suppose?” “There’s a jail in Charleston,” Tim said, “and others scattered throughout the South.” “Are the stories of Rebel prisons true?” “I’ve never been in a Rebel jail,” Tim said. “There’s always hope of being exchanged. The Confederacy can’t afford to have her soldiers wasting away in Northern prisons.” Tim watched Greene’s face. “Promise me something, will you, Greene?” “What would that be, Lieutenant?” “Promise me if you try to escape you’ll pick a time when you have a fair chance.” Greene spoke earnestly. “I wasn’t thinking of escape just yet. I’ll have to see the prison first. I’ll have to think on it a while.” Tim laughed. “I’ll waste no more of my worry on you.” The little steamer swung slowly around as it maneuvered to move toward one of Charleston’s piers. Now in the moment before the storm Tim saw a little island at the mouth of the river. Part of the island was struck by sunlight. On the sandy shore three men struggled to beach a boat, their figures distinct in the slice of light.