A small, gray packet ghosted through the mist, about two miles off their starboard bow. The transport swung to port and the soldiers were ordered to stand clear. The gun crew went to work. They sponged and rammed. The gunner grabbed a big pinch bar and crouched and moved the gun around its track. He adjusted the screw to suit his judgment. When the gun seemed ready the gunner sighted again along the barrel and gave another wrench with the bar. Then he stepped aside and shouted, “Fire!” One of his gun crew jerked the lanyard, and the wooden deck trembled as the cannon thundered and recoiled, straining against the breeching tackle. The ball arched out of sight, and Tim imagined that he saw a fleck of white where it hit the water short of its mark. Before the gunner could fire a second shot the packet had shown them her stern and was lost in the mist. Red squinted into the distance. “She must have been a phantom surely. She could hardly expect to run into Charleston in the afternoon. It must be risky enough at night.” “She was probably due to arrive last night. She must have been delayed somehow. She’s killing time until sundown.” The gunner heard Tim and nodded his head. “And now we’ll be on the lookout for her.” He smiled. “But they’re slippery devils, sure enough.” [Illustration: The South Carolina Coast from Hilton Head to Charleston, 1863] As the transport approached Folly Island, Captain Kautz spread a map on the deck. It showed the coast from Savannah to Charleston. Tim’s eyes traced their course from Hilton Head past St. Helena, Edisto and Kiawa to Folly Island, Lighthouse Inlet and Morris Island, which lay at the entrance to Charleston Harbor. “We bivouac at the southwest end of Folly tonight,” Kautz said, drawing a stubby finger across the map, “and tomorrow at dusk we march the length of the island to the shore of Lighthouse Inlet. We will launch our attack in small boats. Morris Island is a sparsely covered place.” The captain had things figured one, two, three. He straightened up with his hands on his hips and looked toward Morris Island, as if he were going to take a bite out of it with his even white teeth. “It shouldn’t be more than one day’s work to clear the rifle pits and capture the batteries along the shore. By Saturday night we’ll be cleaning our rifles inside the fort.” Tim studied the map. Morris Island was shaped like a big pork chop, the thin part curving north toward Fort Sumter. At the end of the thin part, on Cummings Point, stood Battery Gregg. Guarding this narrow neck of sand from land assault, Fort Wagner stretched from the ocean on the east to a tidal creek on the west. As he and Red turned away from the map Tim said under his breath, “That fort is in a strong position. I wish I shared the captain’s confidence.” Folly was a thin, sandy island stretching northeast like a crooked finger. It was already garrisoned by Union forces.