Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to my page. Here you will find the latest information regarding my writings, which are published on the amazon kindle and in paperback.  My author site there, where you will find my most recent publications, is:

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Patrick Cleburne and Irish Confederates

(The following is a presentation I gave to my Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp on July 21, 2021. Those interested in the history of the War Between the States, and my books, may find it interesting.)

Good evening, and Dia Duit! (Jee-ah ghwitch) That is the Irish, or Gaelic, equivalent of ‘Hello’ and translates literally to ‘May God be with you’. Tonight, I thought I would speak on the Irish Americans, some on both sides, that served in the War Between the States; including probably the most famous one, Confederate Major General Patrick Cleburne.

There were people of Irish ancestry in America from the very beginning, particularly the Scots-Irish. And by the 1840’s and the terrible potato blight that struck Ireland, with the famine that followed, there were many more immigrants from Ireland. In fact, one million came to the United States in the late 1840s and early 1850s, 90 percent of those being Irish Catholics. Many settled in the North in New York and Boston. But, also, many came to the South and had significant populations in New Orleans, Savannah and Charleston. And, even at a grand plantation called Tara, owned by the O’Hara family near Jonesboro, Georgia…..just kidding on that one.

 While there was much discrimination, and even violence, against the Irish in the cities of the North (I’m sure you’ve all seen the ‘Irish Need Not Apply’ and ‘Irish Not Wanted’ signs in history books), which lasted though most of the 1800s, that wasn’t the case as much in the South. Just as with the small Jewish population in the South, the Irish were more welcomed. Despite what modern revisionist ‘historians’ would have us believe, the South, in many ways, was a much more tolerant society than the North.

When War came in 1861, Irish-Americans in both the Union and Confederate States volunteered. In the North, there were the Irish brigades, including the famous ‘Fighting 69^th’ Infantry of New York, and the 28^th Massachusetts Regiment. And, later, when the combined events of an unpopular Draft, and anger over Lincoln’s changed stated war objectives, came to a boil, there were the horrific and deadly New York Draft Riots of 1863, in which many Irish were involved.

In the South, it is estimated that 40,000 Irishmen fought for the Confederacy. And while most were integrated into the various military units of where they lived, there was the 10^th Tennessee Infantry Regiment of Volunteers, known as ‘The Bloody Tinth”. The troops were mainly Irish Catholic, with Ulster-Scot Protestants as the elected officers.

Their flag was Kelly green and gold, with a maroon trim; and it was decorated with the Irish golden harp, with their mottoes, ‘Sons of Erin’ and ‘Where glory awaits you’. ‘Erin’ is a poetic spelling of Ireland, in Gaelic.

The 10^th was organized at Fort Henry on the Tennessee River, in May of ’61.  By July their roster included 720 men. They fought at Fort Donelson in February of 1862, where the ones who weren’t killed were captured, and imprisoned for a time at the infamous Camp Douglas. Fortunately for them, they were later exchanged, and returned to action in October 1862.  They were then deployed as sharpshooters at the campaigns in Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and Atlanta. Their last action was at Bentonville, North Carolina in March of 1865. Very few surrendered to Sherman along with Johnston’s Army of the Tennessee at the end of April. “The Bloody Tinth” suffered tremendous losses during the War, only having a troop strength remaining of 100 men out of the original 720 at War’s end.

I should also definitely mention the that in the Confederate Brigade of Thomas Cobb, there served the 24^th Georgia Infantry. It was commanded by Col. Robert McMillan of County Antrim, Northern Ireland, and had many Irish troops. At the Stone Wall at Fredericksburg, they are said to have faced the New York Irishmen of the “Fighting 69^th”, as was depicted in that terribly sad scene in the film ‘Gods and Generals’. Many left the strife of their old country only to be forced to fight each other on the battlefields of their new land.

In addition to these, there were also the Charleston Irish Volunteers, Kelly’s Irish Brigade of Missouri, The Louisiana Tigers contingent of Irishmen, The Davis Guard of Texas, and the famous Company E, Emerald guard, of the Stonewall Brigade. They are said to have made the first ‘Rebel Yell’ at First Manassas, when attacking the 14^th New York guns on Henry Hill.

Undoubtedly, though, the most well-known of those who hailed from Ireland and served the Confederate Cause was Patrick Cleburne. Born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1828, his military career began in 1846 in a Welsh Regiment of the British Army, after failing to make it into Medical School. He immigrated to the United States in 1849 along with his siblings.  He eventually settled in Helena, Arkansas where he was a respected Pharmacist, like someone we all know, and, later, a newspaper owner.

Following a political debate in 1856, he and his business partner were involved in a gunfight against members of the ‘Know-Nothing Party’. Cleburne was shot in the back, and though badly wounded, just before collapsing, he managed to turn around and return fire, killing his attacker.

By 1860, he had become an American Citizen, and a popular lawyer. When war came in 1861, he immediately sided with the Southern States, out of loyalty and love of the people who had welcomed him as an immigrant.

He joined the local militia as a private, and was soon Captain. By March of ’62, he was a Brigadier general in the Arkansas Infantry. Serving under generals Braxton Bragg and Edmund Kirby Smith in the Kentucky Campaign, he suffered a gunshot to the face, when a minie ball smashed through his cheek and exited his mouth, taking several teeth with it. Miraculously recovering in a short time, he rejoined the fight at The Battle of Perryville. He later saw battle at Murfreesboro, where his action of routing the Union right wing and driving it back to the Nashville Pike, earned his promotion to Major General. He went on to fight at Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Ringgold Gap, and Tunnel Hill, Georgia. Cleburne and his men received an official recognition from the Confederate Congress after those campaigns. He even was called the ‘Stonewall of the West’ and was said by Robert E. Lee to be “a meteor shining from a clouded sky”.

During a meeting of the leadership of the Army of the Tennessee, he made the bold proposal to emancipate all Southern slaves though gradual, reasonable stages, to strengthen, and solidify, the loyalty of the black people of the South, and increase manpower in the Confederate Army by allowing black soldiers at an official level.  His plan would also make moot Lincoln’s political posturing and maneuvering in making his War of conquest appear to be a fight for ‘freedom’.

To quote Cleburne:

“It is said that slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up, we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely a pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.”

His proposal, while supported by some, was politically controversial, and met with anger by many. It is thought that Cleburne was never promoted further because of it. He was not the only one to propose the idea, and it later gained traction in the last months of the War, when it was too little, too late.

Robert E. Lee officially withheld his opinion on the issue until invited to express it in a January 1865 letter from a Virginia legislator. He removed any doubt by replying that it was a military necessity: “My own opinion is that we should (officially) employ (blacks into military service) without delay.”

Prior to the Franklin, Tennessee Campaign in the Fall of 1864, Cleburne had become engaged to marry Susan Tarleton of Mobile, Alabama. Sadly, their marriage never came to pass. General Cleburne was killed by enemy gunfire at the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864; when, after his horse was shot out from under him, he led an assault on foot against Union fortifications.

He was last seen just before his death with his sword raised against the enemy.

…Now, this is by no means a complete accounting of Irish contributions to the Cause of Confederate Independence, and there are many books and stories on the subject. In fact, my wife is descended from a Mary Murphy Mann of Wexford, Ireland, who came here as a child in the 1850s and later married a Confederate Soldier, Henry Mann, in Atlanta during the War. But that is a story for another time. Thank you, and Erin go Bragh.

Patrick Cleburne

Confederate Immigrants, Expatriates and Western Settlers

(The following is a presentation I gave to my Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp on June 18, 2021. Those interested in the history of the War Between the States, The Old West, and my books, may find it interesting.)

Good evening, compatriots and honored guests.  Tonight, I will be speaking on a subject that you don’t often hear about, but that I have always found to be highly fascinating: The stories of Confederates that left the South after the War. Some temporarily, and some for the rest of their lives.

In the Spring of 1865, after 4 years of noble service in the cause of Independence, most of those who had served the Confederacy in the military or government honorably laid down their arms, and peaceably returned to their former lives in a militarily occupied, conquered homeland. They then steadfastly endured ‘loyalty oaths’, and 12 years of ‘reconstruction’, and all of the miseries that era entailed. Some, however, by choice, left the South. Some were forced to by circumstance.  I’ll be talking about a few of those folks, and a bit on some others who led particularly noteworthy post-war lives, that some of you may not have heard of.

Now, we all know that General Robert E. Lee lived out his years quietly in the education field, leading to his name eventually being added to Washington University in Virginia. President Jefferson Davis was imprisoned for a time, but never convicted of any crime…because the Federal Government knew that he had not committed any crime, and they didn’t want Davis to prove this before the Supreme Court. Vice President Alexander Stephens, after a brief imprisonment, was later known for his post-war memoirs and efforts to have the truth told about secession and the war.

Others, however, couldn’t stand to live under ‘reconstruction’ in a land now dominated by the North. These are a few of those folks…

{The Confederados and the New Virginia Colony}

After the war, it is estimated that some 10 to 20 thousand Southerners emigrated to Brazil. Emperor Dom Pedro II encouraged this, as he wanted to expand the region’s cultivation of cotton, and many of these Southerners were experienced in that field of agriculture. The city of Americana in Brazil was founded by former Alabama State Senator William Hutchinson Norris.

Even today, descendants of these Confederados celebrate an annual festival called the Festa Confederada, where they dress in antebellum clothing and Confederate Uniforms, and proudly fly the flags of the CSA. Interestingly, there is no controversy there about this, as (unfortunately) there would be here in the US in 2021. Former First Lady Rosalyn Carter had a Great Uncle that was a Confederado; and in 1972, she and Jimmy Carter visited the area. One of the pictures being passed around is of that visit of (then–Governor) Carter at a Confederate Monument there.

A lesser number of Confederates briefly settled in Mexico at the invitation of Emperor Maximillian, in a plan conceived by CSA Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury. This was near the Vera Cruz area and to be known as the New Virginia Colony. Well known Confederate officers such as Edmund Kirby Smith and Sterling Price also went there. However, when Mexico’s own Civil War went badly for Maximillian, and in favor of Benito Juarez and the Mexican Republican Army in 1867, this ended, and the former Confederates had to leave Mexico.

{Judah P. Benjamin, John C. Breckinridge and The Bulloch Brothers}

Judah Benjamin had been a U.S. Senator from Louisiana when the war began. He joined the Confederate government and over its four years, served in President Davis’s cabinet as Attorney general, Secretary of war, and Secretary of State.  He was the first American of the Jewish faith to serve at that high a level of Government, as anti-Semitism was less prevalent in the 1860s South than it was in the North. With the fall of the CSA, and the Union forces in pursuit of the CSA Government that had been forced to leave Richmond, he escaped further and further south, eventually making it to Florida, then the Bahamas. From there, he sailed for England, where he lived out his remaining years as a respected Barrister in the United Kingdom.

John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky had been a U.S. Army Officer, Congressman, Senator, and even Vice-President under James Buchanan before the War. In 1860, he was one of the losing candidates to Lincoln for U.S President, but won eleven Southern states. He then served the Confederate States Army in many battles in the Western and Eastern theater, including Shiloh, Chickamauga and Cold Harbor, eventually attaining the rank of Major General. He also served as the final CSA Secretary of War in 1865. At war’s end (after an unsuccessful effort to help Jefferson Davis escape) he fled to Cuba, then the UK, and eventually Canada, where he was reunited with his family. He spent a few years touring several countries in Europe, and even the Holy Land. In 1868, he was able to return to live in the United States under President Johnson’s amnesty plan. He spent his last years as an attorney and in business.

Georgians James Dunwoody Bulloch and Irvine Bulloch, the Uncles of President Theodore Roosevelt on his mother’s side, were both important in the service of the Confederacy. After 15 years’ service in the US navy, James was the CSA’s Chief Intelligence Agent in Great Britain. He ran Blockade Runners, handled banking and financing, and helped acquire armaments for the Confederacy.

Irvine, younger half-brother of James, served in the Confederate Navy, and fired the last shot from the CSS Alabama before it was sunk by the USS Kearsarge in the Battle of Cherbourg, off the French coast, in June 1864.

Denied amnesty by the Reconstruction Government in the US, both brothers spent their post-bellum lives in Liverpool, England. Theodore Roosevelt got to know his Uncles in visits through Canada, and later, England, and was a great admirer of them both.

In 1905, as President, Roosevelt visited his ancestral home in Roswell, Georgia, and talked of his Uncles, speaking these words:

“It has been my very great good fortune to have the right to claim my blood is half southern and half northern, and I would deny the right of any man here to feel a greater pride in the deeds of every southerner than I feel. Of all the children, the brothers and sisters of my mother who were born and brought up in that house on the hill there, my two uncles afterward entered the Confederate service and served with the Confederate Navy.”

And:

“Men and women, don’t you think I have the ancestral right to claim a proud kinship with those who showed their devotion to duty as they saw the duty, whether they wore the grey or whether they wore the blue? All Americans who are worthy the name feel an equal pride in the valor of those who fought on one side or the other, provided only that each did with all his strength and soul and mind his duty as it was given to him to see his duty.”

If only more people shared Teddy’s attitude today…

{Cowboys, Joseph O. Shelby, Joseph Wheeler and The Old West}

Lastly, this evening, I’ll be speaking of some Confederate notables that that went Westward after the War, and one who, after his Confederate service, served in another War, with Spain, that helped to reconcile North and South somewhat by the turn of the century.

Many Confederates, unwilling to live in the conquered reconstruction era South, went West in search of a new life. Some, such as many Texans and others of the South and Midwest, were already there; such as cattlemen Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving (who inspired the great Western ‘Lonesome Dove’), served and worked on behalf of the CSA, and led the cattle boom after the War, with the cattle drive trail from Texas to Wyoming named for them.

Many other cowboys, and lawmen of the Old West, were also former Confederates, such as the fictional Tom Fortner that I write about in my own Western books…

And there is also the excellent fictional 1950s Western series ‘The Rebel (Johnny Yuma)’.

One man I didn’t actually learn of until after beginning to write my books was Colonel Joseph O. Shelby. A Kentuckian who moved to Missouri, he was known for leading the longest cavalry raid of the War, with his Missouri Volunteers. He was later promoted and commanded a Brigade, which saw a lot of action in the war in the West. At War’s end, rather than surrender, he and his men marched south of the border to Mexico, and were known as ‘The Undefeated’ (which was the inspiration for the John Wayne movie from 1969, and likely the book and Clint Eastwood movie ‘The Outlaw Josey Wales’). A verse of the anthem ‘The Unreconstructed Rebel’ was also inspired by Shelby and his men, that goes:

I won’t be reconstructed, I’m better now than then.
And for a Carpetbagger I do not give a damn.
So it’s forward to the frontier, soon as I can go.
I’ll fix me up a weapon and start for Mexico.

After a couple of years in the short-lived New Virginia Colony, they returned to the US, and Shelby resumed faming. In 1883, he was a character witness for Frank James in his trial, and in 1893 was made a US Marshal. He was well-liked, but faced harsh criticism from some for appointing a black person to office. Jo Shelby was a marshal until his death in 1897.

Now, I’ll tell the story of Joseph ‘Fighting Joe’ Wheeler. Born in Augusta, Georgia, Wheeler was a West Pointer who served in the US Army in the 1850’s as an Indian Fighter. When the War Between the States came, he received a CSA commission to the Cavalry and saw action as a Colonel and Brigadier General at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, the Atlanta Campaign and many others. He is said to have had 16 horses shot out from under him.

After the War, he served as a Congressman from Alabama; and, when War with Spain began in 1898, at age 61, he volunteered and served the US Army Cavalry again, this time as a Major General in Cuba (of which Teddy Roosevelt’s ‘Rough Riders were a part), and later, the Philippines. If you can find it, there is a great miniseries from 1997 about the Rough Riders. During the heat of battle in Cuba, Wheeler is reported to have yelled, “Let’s go boys! We’ve got the Damn Yankees on the run again!”

‘Fighting Joe’ Wheeler retired in 1900, and passed away in 1906. He is one of the few Confederates to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

There are many more men like these I’ve researched, and I wish I had time to talk about more of them. I hope you found this all to be as interesting as I did. Thank you very much!

Author C.G. Faulkner

Irvine and James Bulloch

John C. Breckinridge

Joseph O. Shelby

“The Green New Deal”

(A Short Story from my upcoming collection; ‘Calum G. Fearing Presents The Unexpected: Tales of Mystery and Suspense’)

amazon.com/author/cgfaulkner

“Visitors from another planet, here to solve our environmental problems…but is the cost too high?”

The Green New Deal

Midnight. Springtime. The meteor shower was beautiful. Best one anybody could recall in years. Greenish-yellow streaks across the night sky, skipping across the atmosphere like stones across a pond. Many bouncing off earth’s natural force field and hurtling on through the void of space. A few disintegrating upon entry.

A select few coming through, and splashing down, inexplicably, in small lakes and ponds in rural areas across the northern hemisphere. Mostly unseen. The shower was in the news, then mostly forgotten, with other events taking over in the 24 hour news cycle.

***

The gray-bearded old man had fished the pond for years, ever since he was a kid. The catfish were always jumping. But that early morning, the sun only just beginning to peek out of the horizon in the east, the spring pollen (greener than usual) swirling around the trees in the cool morning breeze, the fish weren’t active like they typically were. And the side of the pond where the duckweed floated had expanded. In fact, it had gone from covering only 20% of the surface to probably 80%.

He watched it, and the pollen, as he waited for a bite. Listening to his old radio, tuned to the news station, he sipped his coffee. He glanced down, thinking it tasted funny. It had some of that damn pollen in it! He sloshed the rest out into the pond. The duckweed spread away from the splash, and then closed around it, mingling with the coffee, until the pollen particles, and the duckweed blended. All the same shade of green. The old man had never seen anything like it. The breeze picked up. More green pollen blew from the trees, and began to swirl around him. It was like a dirt devil whirling, mesmerizing him, even.

Then a forceful gust of it launched into his nostrils, his open mouth, his eyes…. permeating him. He gagged, tried to cough, only a green foam came up. Then, he couldn’t even cough. His eyes turned green as he dropped the rod and reel and held his throat, and he burned intensely inside, almost as if he was being eaten from the inside out.

He fell out of the boat into the water, no fight left in him. He sunk to the bottom of the deep pond, his body finally settling in the typically brown, but now green, muck. Dead, green catfish lined the entire bottom of the pond, along with frogs, turtles and birds. Even dragonflies and worms.

And they were all green. But nothing was as green as the cracked open meteor on the pond floor that emitted the endless stream of phosphorescent green slime. Slime that combined with the duckweed in the water, the pollen in the air, the blades of grass, the moss on the rocks, and the leaves of the trees. Every plant became a part of it.

Before the man’s radio was totally covered, the last words broadcast from it was a special bulletin from the emergency broadcast system warning everyone that the problem seemed to be occurring worldwide now…it was carried through the air. They warned to especially avoid ponds and lakes. They advised staying indoors, sheltering in place, and wearing filter masks if at all possible. Top scientists were working on theories that the alien organism was likely binding at the molecular level with the chlorophyll of the plants all over the planet. The plants were then seemingly developing minds of their own, working in concert to attack all forms of ambulatory life, animal, insect, fish, everything.

The invasion was already being praised by some of the more radical environmental groups as a fitting end for the polluters of the planet; and that the event was being hailed as the ultimate manifestation of ‘The Green New Deal’.

Acknowledgements and Dedication for ‘Operation Shatteraxis-A World War Two Thriller’ by C.G. Faulkner

I originally wrote this, my tenth published book, for my own enjoyment, and that of my family. I hope now that all that read it will enjoy it as well. Fans of history, and adventure, are whom it should especially appeal to. I couldn’t have written it without my wife, Shelby, to read it to. Hearing the story out loud helped me to catch a mistake or two. I couldn’t have done the cover graphics (or book trailer, or castle map) without my daughter’s help. My son has assisted in many ways, as well. My parents proofread the manuscript for me. I thank you all.

I’d also like to thank my friends at the Spybrary Discussion Group on Facebook, where I have been able to share my interest in this genre with like-minded individuals, and was even able to participate in my first real interview at Spycon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Z1a-htVpE

https://spybrary.com/spybrary-panel-at-spycon-2018/

I dedicate this book to my late Grandfather, Lucius Weaver Allen, World War Two veteran of the U.S. Army Air Forces, my family, and to the heroes of the Office of Strategic Services…and to all of the veterans that served honorably in this most epic chapter in world history, that will, hopefully, never be repeated.

Author’s Note for ‘Operation Shatteraxis-A World War Two Thriller’ by C.G. Faulkner

amazon.com/author/cgfaulkner

In writing the Jeff Fortner Trilogy, I knew that I would be going back, one day, to tell the story of his father, Ethan Fortner. In addition to his roles in Jeff’s books, I have already written four tales from his 1930s Great Depression era childhood in Georgia. Now, with OPERATION SHATTERAXIS, I begin the Trilogy of his own adventures as a new soldier in the espionage wars with the Nazis and the Soviets.

Ethan is, by design, a more tragic and flawed character than his son. While Jeff had to grow up without his mother, Ethan had to endure a life without the girl he had loved since childhood. So, he turned to hard drinking, chain smoking, and the rage of combat to bury his sorrows and guilt at having to face life without Jane, and, maintained a conflicted emotional distance from his son, who reminded him of his greatest loss.

I was inspired by several books and films in writing this Second World War adventure, particularly the works of Alistair MacLean, and the movies based on them; ‘Where Eagles Dare’ and ‘The Guns of Navarone’. Those type of ‘secret mission to infiltrate an Axis base’ stories have always been some of my favorites.

There is no record of an actual summit involving all of the Axis Powers during the War. Though Germany, Italy and Japan were allied, the Japanese Pacific Theater of the War was far removed from Europe and Hitler’s focus on domination of that continent.

Except for Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the German Armed Forces High Command (and to whom justice was eventually served, at the end of a rope, after the Nuremburg Trails in 1946), the other main characters in the story are all of my own creation.

The distrust amongst the Allied Forces of their Soviet Allies was real, though in this story, taken beyond any events of recorded history. Josef Stalin was a ruthless dictator in the class of Hitler, but the alliance of necessity was required at the time to defeat the Nazi threat. Of course, once Germany was defeated, the West and East turned on each other, and the Cold War began. The prelude to that certainly began during the War, partially over German technology, and who would possess it.

Winston Churchill had contingencies for dealing with a possible conflict with post-War Russia; read about ‘Operation Unthinkable’ for more on that.

Among many of his statements about the Soviet issue, General George S. Patton famously said in 1945: “I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them… the Russian has no regard for human life and they are all out sons-of-bitches, barbarians, and chronic drunks.”

So, there is an argument to be made that the Cold War really began before the Second World War ended.

This story is from my imagination, and any (unintentional) historical inaccuracies in it, are, I hope, few…but they are the occasional bane of the Historical Adventure Author.

Ethan Fortner will return in the 1950s after the OSS transitions into the CIA, and during the peak of the Red Scare; when there sometimes were communists under every bed…

…and perhaps will cross paths again with a certain KGB Officer, and his ‘Puppetmaster’.

Follow the links below for more reading, including the inspirations from which the underground tunnel system, castle location, and other plot elements were derived …

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1943

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMERSH

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-tunnel-odd/tunnels-show-hitlers-megalomaniac-vision-idUSLM63579720080825

https://www.heritagedaily.com/2017/12/10-nazi-bunkers-subterranean-bases/115561

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Riese

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czocha_Castle

https://www.rbth.com/history/328489-german-scientists-who-helped-to-create-soviet-bomb

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/history-lesson-the-final-days-general-patton-26305

 

 

‘Operation Shatteraxis- A World War Two Thriller’ by C.G. Faulkner Book Trailer

Please enjoy the trailer for my latest book…

The Christmas Runaways- A Home for Supper Kids Adventure

(Please enjoy this Fortner Family Saga for Youngsters short story, that I have written as a Christmas ‘Thank You’ to my readers.)

The Christmas Runaways-

A Home for Supper Kids Adventure

By C.G. Faulkner

Copyright 2019  Falcons’ Rest Farm Publishing

 

It was two days until Christmas, 1930. The small town of Smith Mill, Georgia was bracing for an unusually early and severe Winter storm, and the wind outside was battering the screen door of the farmhouse where the Fortner family had gathered to decorate the fir tree that father Andrew had felled that morning.

“Ethan, son… would you please latch that door before it comes off of the hinges?” Clarissa Fortner asked.

“Yes, Mama,” eleven-year-old Ethan replied, walking toward the front door.

He was met there by his best friend, Jane Noble.

“Jane? What are you doing out in this weather?” Ethan asked, surprised, but happy as always, to see his closest friend since diaper days. She looked sad, and worried.

“Don’t just stand there with the door open, son. Come on in out of the cold, Jane,” Andrew said, getting up from his chair, with the help of his cane.

“Oh, sorry…come in!” Ethan said, gently leading her in, and grabbing his mother’s shawl off of the coat rack to put over her trembling shoulders. “What’s wrong? Why did you come all the way over here in this storm?”

Jane looked at Ethan, and her eyes welled with tears. “Daddy’s job…they are closing his office, and,” she sniffed, and Ethan handed her a tissue. “And, we have to move away… to Atlanta after Christmas!”

Ethan felt like he might just cry, himself.

 

***

 

Ethan, his younger brother Shane, youngest siblings, the twin girls Frances and Margaret, and their parents had all sat down in the parlor, gathered around the crackling fire as Jane told them what had happened. Her father, who had been a banker for most of his years until the Stock Market Crash and the closing of his bank, had been working for the ‘Southern Colonel Accident and Travel’ insurance company for the past 6 months or so. Now, due to the worsening Depression, they were closing his local branch, but had offered him a job (for reduced pay) at their Atlanta regional office. With job prospects few and far between in Smith Mill, like most places, he had little choice but to accept the offer.

“But there has to be another way!” Ethan protested, unable to imagine life without seeing Jane practically every day. Her family had owned the land on the other side of the woods from the Fortner property for generations. She had been right next door his whole life.

“Ethan, you know how hard times are now. A man has to do what he can to provide for his family…and sometimes that means hard choices.” Andrew thought to himself how fortunate they were to have held on to their family farm this long, though it had been much more difficult to pay the taxes over the past year. His farming, sawmill, occasional detective work (Andrew had been an Agent of the Bureau of Investigation in the 20’s, until his leg injury) and now the small income from recently being elected County Sheriff helped out enough to get by, for the time being.

“Yeah, but maybe you could hire Mr. Noble as a Deputy?” Ethan asked. Jane and Ethan looked at Andrew, hope in their eyes.

“I’m sorry, you know the county doesn’t have the budget to hire a Deputy now. They wouldn’t even replace Deputy Fowler when he moved back to Tennessee… If you’ll remember, I asked about that right after I was elected.”

“Yes, sir…I remember,” Ethan replied, out of ideas…except one. “C’mon, Jane. I’ll walk you home.”

“Mr. Fortner can drive you, Jane,” Mrs. Fortner offered.

“It’s OK, Mama, it’s quicker just to cut through the woods.”

“Alright, but bundle up and hurry back for supper. It’ll be dark in an hour, and the snow is supposed to start tonight. We are so sorry, Jane. This is terrible news. Please tell your Mother if she needs anything…”

“Yes, if there’s anything we can do…I wish there was more…” Andrew looked at his wife and the children, and knew they were feeling what he was. The Nobles had been like family to the Fortners for a long time. He especially knew what Jane meant to Ethan. Ethan had decided as a small boy that he would marry Jane, one day, when they were grown-ups.

But if they moved away…

 

***

 

“If it hadn’t been for that d—n thief Sheriff Cadbury, we’d all be rich now!” Ethan blurted out as soon as they left the yard. Ethan had a bit of a temper, and it was at the boiling point now.

He was referring to the cache of lost Confederate gold coins they had found that summer, only to have the previous County Sheriff steal them and leave town, never to be seen again.

“Ethan Thomas Fortner!” Jane exclaimed, “Don’t use that kind of language! What would your Mama say?”

“I said ‘darn’…didn’t I?” Ethan replied, not realizing he hadn’t just said the worse word in his mind.

“No, you didn’t…. but I feel the same way.” Jane managed to giggle a little, then shivered, pulling Mrs. Fortner’s shawl more tightly around her.

The chickens, cozy in their henhouse, clucked softly as they walked by, and the rooster let out a small, warning crow.

“But…” Ethan began, “We do have those two coins, still.” He thought out loud, about their secret souvenir of the adventure, two solid gold French Francs that could be pretty valuable, themselves. Maybe enough to keep Jane from moving away.

“No, we can’t give those up,” Jane replied. “They mean too much to me, don’t they to you?”

“Well, yes…” Ethan replied. But you mean a lot more…he thought.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, little seven-year olds Frances and Margaret had gone to their room to play, while Shane and their parents had continued decorating the tree, and listening to a Christmas Phonograph, called the ‘Savoy Christmas Medley’.

“Frances,” Margaret said, changing the dress on her doll, Sally. “Do you remember what Jill Dalton was saying that she overheard her parents arguing about?”

“That with this Depression, they hardly knew how they were going to feed her anymore?” Frances replied, tucking her doll, Susie, into her shoebox bed.

“Well, what if our Mama and Daddy worry like that, about us?”

“Are we big enough now to take care of ourselves?”

“I don’t know…maybe.”

Just then, they heard a tapping at their frosted windowpane.

 

***

 

It was Jill Dalton at the window. Jill was the twins’ best friend at school, and was from a poor family that had struggled even before the Depression had begun. Their father had been laid off at the cotton mill that fall, and their mother took in laundry to help, but they just barely got by. Mr. Dalton was too proud to take any help from Rev. Thomas at the Church, and the Daltons sometimes argued about money. This upset Jill very much, and that night was one of those times.

“I ran away,” Jill told the twins, once they had quietly helped her in the window.

“Ran away?” Frances said. “You can’t do that, where will you go?”

“Your Mama and Daddy will miss you,” Margaret added.

“No, they have enough to worry about…and taking care of me just makes things worse.”

“Where will you go?” Margaret asked.

“I have a place, but it’s a secret…do you promise not to tell?”

“Cross our hearts,” the twins replied.

 

***

 

Ethan had just returned from seeing Jane safely home when dinner was being served. Piping hot vegetable stew, but with beef broth instead of beef. Ethan had offered to shoot some squirrels for the stew that morning, but his mother had replied that things weren’t that bad, yet.

“Call the girls to supper, please, Shane.” Andrew said, tapping out his pipe into an ashtray, and putting down the newspaper. Eleven more banks had closed that week in North Carolina.

“Margaret! Frances! Come and get it!” Shane yelled.

“How many times have I told you about yelling in the…” Mrs. Fortner began.

The telephone rang.

Andrew answered. “Hello. This is Sheriff Fortner.”

They could all hear a frantic voice on the line, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Andrew looked concerned. “OK, Mr. Dalton. Don’t worry, I’m sure she didn’t go far. Yes, meet me at the Sheriff’s Office and we’ll organize a search party…”

Shane had gone to get the girls from their room when they hadn’t answered, and had just come running back in the room, trying to say something, but his parents were signaling for him to hush.

Finally, Andrew placed the telephone back on the hook. “Jill Dalton is missing.”

Shane yelled, “So are the girls!”

Ethan and Mrs. Fortner abruptly stopped setting the table, and Ethan dropped a plate.

 

***

 

The twins knew that it was wrong, and dangerous, to run away from home. But their friend was in trouble, and wouldn’t be talked out of doing it…she was convinced that she was a burden on her family, and that things would be easier for them without her.

With all the talk about hard times, losing jobs, and money that Frances and Margaret had overheard lately, they had begun to wonder the same thing.

So, they had packed knapsacks, put on their warmest coats from their closet, and climbed out the window to join Jill Dalton…

…at least for a little while.

They had trekked through the increasing snow and cold northeast, walking along Lamar’s Creek, until they reached the old mill pond, which served as a swimming and fishing hole for the kids during the warmer months. The ancient, rotting mill house was covered with snow, and the water wheel and pond had already frozen over.

“Our Daddy said to never go in that building…” Frances warned.

“Yeah, he said it was diplapipated…” Margaret added.

“You mean dilapidated,” Frances corrected.

“Something like that.”

“No, I have a place much better,” Jill told them. “Follow me.”

They continued on into the forest north of the mill pond, nearing the Madison Road. There, deep in the woods, hidden by lots of now-icy privet hedge and kudzu, was the entrance to a cave.

 

***

 

The search party had met at the Courthouse: Andrew Fortner, Lucas Noble, Bill Dalton, and a few other local men from the Thornton, Wilkinson and Greene families. They were all that Andrew could contact before the phone lines went down. The roads had iced over so badly, they couldn’t reach many others at their homes, and were all on foot. Mr. Noble had brought along his prized coon dogs, Mutt and Jeff. They had been given a scent of the twins’ and Jill’s clothing to follow, but the snow was expected to likely cover any scent. They all went back to the Fortner place to begin. Following footprints wouldn’t help, as they’d all been covered over by the rapidly falling snow.

Clarissa Fortner had gone to the root cellar and the pantry, to get more food cooking. The wives and kids were all at the Fortner place, where they kept the coffee and hot chocolate warm, and stayed by the telephone, in case the lines were repaired and someone called.

All of the kids, except Ethan and Jane. They had insisted, and convinced, their fathers that they were old enough, and could join the search party. Ethan led his dog, Rosie (named after Teddy Roosevelt), on a leash. She was more of a herding dog than a tracker, but he thought maybe she could help.

“Alright, folks. It’s only been an hour…they can’t have gone far. We’ll all head out now in the grid pattern that we discussed. We’ll rendezvous back here at 2300 hours, I mean, 11 o’clock,” (Andrew’s training from his time flying in the Great War and working for the Bureau of Investigation never went away). “Ethan, you’ll come with me.”

“And you with me, Jane,” Mr. Noble said. Mutt and Jeff tugged at their leads.

“Daddy, would you mind if I went with Ethan and Mr. Fortner?” she asked.

He thought about how they’d soon have to move away, and how much his beloved daughter would miss that boy. “Oh, OK.”

“We’ll keep a good eye on her, Lucas,” Andrew assured him.

“I know.” His dogs began baying, and he followed them westward.

They all headed out in different directions, to cover the two-mile perimeter that Andrew figured they would still be in. He, Ethan and Jane, with Rosie, went Northeast.

“Frances! Margaret! Jill!” they called, the names echoing though the frigid night.

 

***

 

The girls had gathered around a pile of sticks inside the mouth of the cave. Despite the falling snow, the full moon had managed to peek out and illuminate things for them a bit. Jill brought a pack of matches and some scraps of paper out of her knapsack.

“My Mama said not to play with matches…” Margaret looked worried.

“So did mine…but we aren’t playing with them, I’m using them to start a campfire!” Jill replied, striking the match and carefully touching it to the dry wads of paper under the twigs. “See? It works…just like my Daddy told me.”

The fire started to crackle and flame as Jill carefully blew on it.

“Jill…you know your Mama and Daddy must be missing you,” Frances said.

She shrugged, trying to look like she wasn’t worried. “Maybe…but things will be easier without having to take care of me.”

“But what are we going to eat?” Margaret wondered out loud. “We’re going to miss Christmas Dinner….and presents, if we stay out here!”

“I know how to set traps for rabbits, and squirrels…and, anyway…my parents can’t afford any presents this year…” Jill said.

“But Santa…” Frances began. Then she thought about how they’d have to prepare rabbits and squirrels for eating, and got a little queasy.

“Santa couldn’t find my house last year…he probably won’t this year, either.”

Frances and Margaret couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so they just joined Jill in holding their hands around the fire to try to warm up.

Outside in the forest, an owl hooted…

…a coyote howled at the full moon…

…and the snow began to pile high outside the cave entrance.

 

***

 

Eventually, the girls fell asleep, huddled against each other for warmth. The fire burned down, and it became more and more quiet as the night went by, and the snowdrift over the mouth of the cave increased.

Soon after sunup, Frances awoke and was frightened at how dark it was in the cave, and cold. She nudged Margaret and Jill. “Wake up…is it still night time?”

“Feels like morning…look!” Jill pointed at the cave entrance. There was a small crack of daylight at the top, but they were almost entirely sealed in behind several feet of snow.

“We’re trapped!” Margaret said, and began to cry a little.

 

***

 

By first morning’s light Christmas Eve, the snow had stopped, but there was over a foot and a half of it was on the ground. The temperature hovered around freezing, but the sun had melted a bit of the snow that would refreeze soon when another nor’easter was expected. The search parties had met back a few times at the courthouse, to go over maps of the areas that they had covered. Most of the perimeter had been searched, with no luck. Clarissa Fortner had continued to check the telephone, and by morning, the lines were back up, and she had the operator busy connecting her to neighbors that could join the search.

“I just can’t believe that we haven’t come across them…we’ve covered nearly everywhere, as far as they could’ve gone. Mr. Dalton, are you sure there aren’t any other places that Jill liked to go play, or hideouts? Anything?”

“No, sir, Sheriff. I can’t think of anything.” Bill Dalton held his beat-up old hat in his hands, twisting it around, on the verge of tears.

“Don’t worry, Bill,” Andrew put a hand on his shoulder. “They are smart girls. They had their heavy coats, and I’m sure they found shelter somewhere overnight. There may be a few barns that we missed.” Andrew was trying not to show it, but, it was obvious he was very worried, as well.

Ethan and Jane had led Andrew to every place they had ever played in the area, and there had been no sign.

“Well, folks. The only thing I can think to do is expand the search area by another mile,” Andrew pointed at the map, and drew a larger circle around the previous search limits. “They must’ve covered more ground than we thought. So, refill your coffee thermoses, grab some doughnuts and biscuits over at the café, and we’ll head back out in the same directions.”

Everyone nodded in agreement; and, after a quick breakfast, the search continued.

 

***

 

All of Christmas Eve day, they searched high and low, near and far. Later in the day, Andrew decided to change their strategy, and concentrate on a closer area, with more people to search it. It was the area just north of town, where there were more small farms, more buildings they could be in, and more places to hide…if they were being foolish and actually hiding from their parents. He’d even begun to worry that they might have been kidnapped. He had worked a few abduction cases with the FBI, but had tried to convince himself that there was no one around Smith Mill that could do a horrible thing like that, but it had to be considered.

Those dark possibilities were shaken from the lawman’s mind when, just as the sun was setting, Rosie began to bark and tug, pulling Ethan towards the Old Mill Pond.

“Whoa, Rosie, calm down!” Ethan shouted, trying to restrain her, with Jane’s help. Then they saw what she was barking at. It was a big jackrabbit hopping through the snow. It stopped for a moment and stared at Rosie, almost daring her to chase it; and then it took off through the forest. Overcome by her instinct to chase things, she broke loose of Ethan’s grip, and the pursuit was on.

Andrew, Ethan and Jane followed along behind the dog, ducking under branches and around icy Cherokee Rose thorns as best as they could. Eventually, they reached a small clearing, and the rabbit dove into a snow bank, burrowing a tunnel to escape. Rosie, barking and yelping, began to dig in after the hare.

 

***

 

Frances, Margaret and Jill, cold and hungry, had spent most of the day huddled up together, regretting ever running away. Their few attempts to dig out had ended quickly, as more snow had slid over what they had dug; and they had given up.

Then, a rabbit poked his head through the wall of snow. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing as it twitched its whiskers, and then bolted across the cave past them. Then, they heard a familiar bark.

“Rosie!” Margaret and Frances shouted, just as their beloved dog burst through. Seeing them sitting there, the dog forgot about the rabbit, and ran to them, licking and pawing at them. “Jill, we’re saved…by Rosie!”

Outside the cave, Ethan could hear them through the tunnel. “Jane! Daddy! I hear them inside!” He began to climb through the narrow opening the dog had made.

“Ethan! Be careful, you might cave it in on your…” Andrew warned. Too late, the snow bank did just that, totally collapsing on top of Ethan, burying him completely.

 

***

 

Andrew and Jane started digging, and calling out to him. Within a few minutes, others from the search party had found them, drawn by the barking and shouting from half a mile away. Lucas Noble and his dogs, and Bill Dalton, joined in the digging, raking the snow away, until finally…

“I see a boot!” Andrew shouted.

 

From the other side, hearing what had happened, the three girls had been digging from their own side, and had reached Ethan’s face. It was blue. Jill raked the snow away from his face and shook it gently. “Ethan Fortner! Wake up!”

With that, his eyes popped open, and he coughed up a bit of snow. Just as he was about to say something, he was pulled away from them, his father dragging him from the snow drift.

“Are you OK, son?” Andrew asked, as he and Jane hugged him.

“Yes, I think…”

“Ethan Thomas Fortner! I’ve told you to stop leaping before you look!” Jane scolded.

By then, the girls were coming through the now-safe opening in the snow into the evening air.

“Frances! Margaret!” Andrew cried, as they joined in the embrace with Jane and Ethan.

“Jill! Oh, Jill…you had me so worried…” Bill Dalton’s tears flowed freely as he held his daughter.

“Oh, Daddy….I think running away was a bad idea. I’m so sorry,” Jill replied.

“It sure was!” Frances said.

“And how!” Margaret added.

Mutt, Jeff and Rosie all barked in agreement.

 

***

 

Within an hour, everyone was crowded into the Fortner Farmhouse. In addition to the Fortner family, were the Nobles, the Daltons, and most of the other families that had helped in the search. The kids had all changed into dry clothes and had warmed themselves by the fire.

Clarissa Fortner, with the help of Mrs. Noble and Mrs. Dalton, had cooked up pots and pots more of stew, and dozens and dozens of biscuits. They’d even made scores of cookies to go with the gallons and gallons of coffee for the grown-ups and hot chocolate for the kids. People were sitting everywhere: around the tree, on the chairs and settee, at the table, on the steps, and all around. Christmas Carols were being sung and folks were laughing.

Andrew had been on the phone, thanking the others that weren’t there for their help, and getting the word around that all was now well in Smith Mill for Christmas Eve.

Andrew had then taken Mr. Dalton aside. “Bill, I want you to know that I just spoke with Jack over in county works. He said that they have a new paved road project going in south of town in January. He has work for you…a pretty good paying job on the crew.”

Dalton didn’t know what to say. Jill had overheard, and came up and hugged her father. He looked at her, and then at Andrew. Shaking his hand, he whispered, “Thanks. Thank you so much.”

Andrew smiled and walked over to where his sons were playing checkers. Shane was winning, and teasing Ethan about it. Ethan turned to Jane for support. She laughed, too; calling him the ‘heroic snowman’. They all laughed when Rosie knocked over the checkerboard.

He was looking around for Lucas Noble, to give him some news. Mrs. Noble said that he was putting up his dogs, but would be along in a moment.

Suddenly, the front door opened, and in with a few flurries came Santa Claus, himself.

“Ho, ho, ho!” the jolly man bellowed. The children, especially the younger ones, giggled with delight. “Children, I can only stay a minute or two…you know tonight’s the big night!”

He sat a bag on the floor, pulling out a few small wrapped presents for the kids. “Mrs. Claus and I…and the elves, wanted you all to have a little something.” He handed out the gifts to the children, saying “And to remember, this Christmas, and every Christmas…that this special time of year is about the birth of the Baby Jesus, and the love we should all have for each other…all year long!”

“Thank you, Santa!” the kids yelled.

“Ho! Ho! You’re welcome, children! Well, I must be going…”and he turned for the door.

Andrew caught him on the porch. “Hey, Santa. If you see Mr. Lucas Noble on your way out…please let him know that I found out this evening that Mr. Odell is retiring as county bookkeeper, and the commissioners believe Mr. Noble would be the ideal candidate for the job, if he wants it.”

Santa was quiet for a moment, and then a big smile appeared behind his beard and glasses. “I will tell him, Andrew. I am confident that this news will make him and his family very, very happy!” He shook Andrew’s hand enthusiastically and took his leave, disappearing into the woods, bells jingling. Ethan and Jane joined Andrew on the porch in time to hear Santa call from the forest, “Merry Christmas to all!”

“Merry Christmas, Santa!” they called back, smiling.

A few minutes later, everyone began to sing ‘Silent Night’. Lucas Noble returned from seeing to his dogs just in time to join them. He whispered something to his wife and daughter, and they started crying tears of joy.

Ethan came over, and asked Jane, “Is something wrong?”

“No, Ethan! Everything is right!” she told him the news.

“Whoopee!” Ethan Fortner hollered in the middle of ‘Silent Night’.

His father looked over at him and smiled, and then they all went back to singing.

“…Sleep in Heavenly Peace…Sleep in Heavenly Peace.”

Merry Christmas to All.

THE END

 

To read more stories from The Fortner Family Saga,

Please visit amazon.com/author/cgfaulkner

The William Holland Thomas Legion of Western North Carolina

(The following is a presentation I gave to my Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp on March 21, 2019. Those interested in genealogy, the history of the War Between the States, and my books may find it interesting.)

Good evening, tonight I’ll be speaking a bit about Thomas’ Legion of Cherokee Indians and Highlanders, my ancestry, and a few other relevant matters.

Now, of my thirteen Confederate Ancestors, and I am equally proud of all of them; the one I know the most about is my mother’s father’s Grandfather. His name was Lucius Wilburn Allen. He was born August the 22^nd, 1842 in Haywood County, North Carolina, son to Joseph Birchfield Allen and Mary Tilithia Bryson (as an aside, Mary’s brother Thaddeus Bryson served in the General Assembly, the State Militia and Guard, and later, was a Colonel in the Confederate Army in the 20^th North Carolina Infantry. Bryson City, North Carolina was named for him).

My Grandfather, Lucius Weaver Allen (whom some of you may have known) was from Sylva, North Carolina. He, and his ancestors before him, were farmers. As a young man, my Grandfather attended West Point Military Academy, worked on the Panama Canal, and served in the Army Air Forces in World War Two. He instilled in all of us in the family an interest in history, and genealogy….so I knew about his Grandfather and Confederate ancestor pretty early on in life. And the fact that we had a copy of a photo of him certainly helped. The photo is from his 1905 reunion, he’s the one in the bottom left, holding the corner of the flag. Also notice the hound dog on the porch that can be seen clearly through the threadbare Battle Flag. I’ll be passing that photo, and the one of Col. Thaddeus Bryson, and this one of William Holland Thomas around now, as I continue…

My great-great Grandfather Lucius Wilburn Allen, along with several cousins in the Buchanan and Fisher families, joined the Thomas Legion soon after the War began in the Spring of 1861. The Legion was formed by Colonel William Holland Thomas, who was born near Mount Prospect, North Carolina, in 1805. Thomas was orphaned at a young age, and adopted by the Cherokee Chief Yonaguska, and bestowed the Indian name Will-usdi, or, Little Will. Also during this time, Thomas worked as a clerk in Quallah-Town for US Congressman Felix Walker, and learned law. Thomas eventually opened a trading post and represented the Cherokee in legal matters. When the forced removals of the Cherokee began in the 1830’s, Thomas negotiated on the part of the Quallah-Town Indians, and was able to convince the Government to allow some of them to stay; sparing them what would become the ‘Trail of Tears’.

The Cherokee that stayed in the Smokies later became known as the Eastern Band, and continue today as a Federally-recognized Tribe.

In 1839, just before his death, Chief Yonaguska persuaded the tribe to make Thomas their new Chief, the first white man to become Chief. He continued in that capacity, working on behalf of the Cherokee, and in politics as a State Senator. Thomas also married Sarah Love during those years, and they had three children.

When the war came, Thomas helped to organize the Cherokee to support the Confederacy against the Union Army aggression. They were North Carolina’s only Legion, and they were comprised of two Cherokee Companies, and Six Companies of white settlers, who were mostly Scots-Irish. My ancestor was one of them, serving as a Private for the duration of the War. They were mainly in the Mountains of Western Carolina and Eastern Tennessee during the War, but were also deployed to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia for a time.

The Legion saw action at the Battle of Fisher’s Creek and The Battle of Cedar Hill in the Shenandoah. But, they are most famous for what they did after General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox….firing the last shots of the War in North Carolina.

During the night of May 5, 1865, the Legion camped in the Mountains above the City of Waynesville, North Carolina, which had been under Union control. Throughout that night, the Confederate troops let out war whoops and Rebel yells, occasionally firing their weapons. The Union garrison there was under the impression that they were surrounded by thousands of Cherokee and Mountain Men! So, the next day when Colonel Thomas and 20 troops rode into town under a flag of truce, the Union Garrison there surrendered!

By May 9^th, when Colonel Thomas was informed by a Union officer that General Lee had surrendered a month earlier, Thomas voluntarily had the Legion lay down their arms. The War was now over for the Legion.

In the postbellum years, Thomas continued to work in favor of Cherokee interests as their Chief, and received a pardon from President Andrew Johnson in 1866. Sadly, in the post-war years, there were hard times for Thomas and his beloved Cherokee. The tribe suffered a terrible smallpox epidemic, and Thomas’s own mental health deteriorated. It is believed now that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s…but from 1867, when he was declared insane, until his death in 1893, he spent most of his time in mental hospitals. Near the end of his life, however, he was able to assist James Mooney of the Smithsonian Institution in his compiling of information about the ways of the Cherokee People.

William Holland Thomas is remembered today by being portrayed in the “Unto These Hills” stage shows in Cherokee, North Carolina; and by his Legion’s flag being displayed in the Museum of the Cherokee Indian there. He also has named for him a Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp, 2231, based in Clyde, North Carolina.

He was also always remembered by my ancestor, Lucius Wilburn Allen, who, after surviving the war, married Amanda Robinson in 1870 and had children, one of whom (Arthur) was my Grandfather’s father. Lucius Wilburn lived until 1912.

One small way in which I have honored my ancestor and his Legion was by creating a fictional Cherokee character in my Post-War Western novels that had served alongside him under Colonel William Holland Thomas.

Please be sure and take a look at the photos, and this book, “The Civil War in the Smokies”, which I highly recommend. Also, before you go, you can pick up one of these sheets I have printed about my research. And, if you are interested, one of my business cards for my writings.

I hope this has been interesting information for y’all tonight, and I appreciate you listening.

Thank you!

Learn more about the William Holland Thomas Legion

 

Articles about W.H. Thomas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Holland_Thomas

https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/thomas-william-holland

Articles and Videos about his Legion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas%27_Legion

http://www.thomaslegion.net/thomas.html

https://www.ncpedia.org/north-carolinas-last-shot-civil-war?fbclid=IwAR09gp4SL9KoXwuHGMvRIJ0h3a4YBwMmeV9gxDk4rhc4gHvSWMlJM30QzuU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6dMqjIEW4Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR1y1NfhqtQ

Book about the War in the Smokies:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6715396-the-civil-war-in-the-smokies

Article about Thaddeus Bryson

https://www.smokymountainnews.com/archives/item/18205-not-a-lot-known-about-bryson-city-s-namesake?fbclid=IwAR2anXmNZ71VTa04FA2xUSj1g73pwsvl5IUO-6dIp4Bq8ydMYEdYAYIJfOo

Link to my post-war Western ‘Tom Fortner Trilogy’:

amazon.com/author/cgfaulkner

Photos (L-R) Author C.G. Faulkner, 1905 Thomas Legion Reunion (L.W. Allen front left), Thaddeus Bryson, William Holland Thomas.

 

 

 

Lyrics to ‘A Hazy Shade of Winter’

‘A Hazy Shade of Winter’, by Simon and Garfunkel, from 1966. Also the title of my most recent short story, found on this blog; and, appropriately enough, posted on the first day of Winter,  2018-2019. And in case anyone is wondering, titles to songs, movies, books etc. are not copyrighted, as most are too common a phrase for only one person to have the right to use.
https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ34.pdf

“A Hazy Shade of Winter”

Written by Paul Simon

Time, time time, see what’s become of me

While I looked around for my possibilities

I was so hard to please

Don’t look around

The leaves are brown

And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hear the Salvation Army band

Down by the riverside’s, there’s bound to be a better ride

Than what you’ve got planned

Carry your cup in your hand

And look around

Leaves are brown, now

And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hang on to your hopes, my friend

That’s an easy thing to say

But if your hopes should pass away

Simply pretend that you can build them again

Look around

The grass is high

The fields are ripe

It’s the springtime of my life

Seasons change with the scenery

Weaving time in a tapestry

Won’t you stop and remember me

At any convenient time?

Funny how…

A Hazy Shade of Winter-A Tale of the Cold War

(Please enjoy this Jeff Fortner Cold War short story, that I have written as a Christmas ‘Thank You’ to my readers.)

A Hazy Shade of Winter

A Tale of the Cold War

By C.G. Faulkner

Copyright 2018  Falcons’ Rest Farm Publishing

“Seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won’t you stop and remember me…”

From ‘A Hazy Shade of Winter’ as performed by Simon and Garfunkel, 1966

(Song written by Paul Simon)

 

Central Intelligence Agency Field Officers Jeff Fortner and Sam Hunt stood on the Margaret Bridge (Margit híd) overlooking the Danube River in the heart of Budapest, Hungary. The frigid December waters flowed beneath them, moving southeast deeper into the Eastern Bloc.

1968 had been a Spring, Summer and Autumn of wars, invasions and assassinations. What the Winter that was about to begin held in store was hazy, but likely bleak, as well.

The situation in Budapest was much more stable than it had been during the dark days of 1956, but the shadowy skirmishes of the Cold War continued…despite the placid, cool Christmastime veneer around them. One such skirmish was just about to proceed that very night.

Hunt, clad in a ushanka hat and trench coat, flicked his cigarette into the river, then turned to Fortner and growled, “Well, kid…time to go to work.”

 

***

 

Forty-eight hours earlier, in the Langley, Virginia office of Deputy Director of Plans (DDP) Charles Mansfield, Fortner and Hunt were being briefed on their operation.

“These are the daughters of Colonel Stanislaus Popov of the GRU,” Mansfield turned on the slide projector in the darkened room. A slide was shown of two beautiful young ladies in ballerina outfits, obviously publicity shots for the Bolshoi Ballet. “The one on the left is Svetlana, age 22.”

Sam Hunt nudged Fortner. “I stake my claim on that one, Jeffy-boy. You can have the mousy one.”

“Shut up, Hunt. At least try and act like a professional.” Fortner replied, annoyed at Hunt’s typical obnoxiousness.

Mansfield removed his glasses and glared at the young field operatives. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything important, gentlemen…”

“Sorry, sir…please proceed,” Fortner replied.

Hunt grumbled and nodded in agreement.

Mansfield went on, to point out the Colonel’s younger daughter, Valeria, age 20. Fortner wouldn’t have called her ‘mousy’ at all. She possessed a subtler beauty than her taller, blonder sister, but was still very pretty. He also thought that she had a more sincere, trustworthy face.

Just as when the 27-year-old Fortner had been partnered with the more senior Agent Hunt on a few previous occasions during Fortner’s nearly two years with ‘The Company’s’ Clandestine Services, he was irritated by Hunt’s extremely abrasive personality. Hunt had always focused on the ‘fringe benefits’ of a mission: the girls, the expense accounts, the travel to exotic lands, and the rich food and drink. Somehow, though, their joint operations had still been successful despite Hunt’s lackadaisical attitude. Mainly because, while of course, a pretty face turned Jeff Fortner’s head as well, his priority was always to ‘stay on mission’.

“…so, gentlemen. Our best intelligence from our Station Chief and his assets indicate that these sisters want to defect to the West; and a very valuable defection they would be. Their father knows all of the contingencies of their heavy armor divisions. The divisions that would be the first to roll into West Germany in the event of ground war. We suspect he’s also very knowledgeable regarding Warsaw Pact moles that have penetrated NATO. Getting these girls would be the next best thing to turning the Colonel himself…not to mention a major embarrassment to the GRU itself. He’s a dedicated Party man, part of Stalin’s old guard that’s held on through the changes…but by all reports dotes on his daughters, especially since he and his wife separated. Luckily for us, and not so much for Popov, these girls are going through a ‘rebellious stage’, like many of our own youth…” Mansfield chuckled.

“How do we know we can trust them, sir?” Fortner asked.

“As with all defectors, we don’t. Our station chief in Budapest, and his assets there, assure us that, with the time they have spent outside Mother Russia, travelling with the ballet company in some of the more open Eastern Bloc countries…they have begun to genuinely question their country’s leadership, and its oppression; including their own father’s.” Mansfield took another puff on his pipe, and studied the cherry-tobacco smoke ring that drifted to the ceiling through the light beam of the slide projector. “Now, on to brass tacks. The plan of extraction…”

 

***

Now, as Fortner and Hunt walked away from the Margaret Bridge, the operation was clear (an operation that Hunt had jokingly dubbed ‘Santa Baby’, though its official title was ‘Midnight Clear’); meet the girls backstage after their December 22^nd Christmas performance of Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Nutcracker’, and get them safely back to the bridge where they had transport out of the Eastern Bloc arranged by way of a small river barge destined upriver for Bratislava and then, Vienna. It had been decided that they would walk the seventeen or so blocks back to the bridge, as opposed to taking a cab, as the state security service employed many informers amongst cab drivers in the city. So, a thirty-minute Yuletide stroll through a snowy Budapest to freedom.

 

***

 

Fortner and Hunt had flown into Budapest with impeccable credentials and under the NOC (Non-Official Cover) of being tractor and agricultural equipment salesmen from West Germany. Though their primary foreign language fluencies were in Russian (as well as Vietnamese for Fortner) they both spoke enough German with the correct accent to get by (Fortner’s father had been undercover in East Germany a few times and spoke it like a native). They had passed through customs without incident, notified the CIA Station Chief of Budapest of their arrival, and checked into the Corinthia Hotel (formerly the Grand Royal), though they wouldn’t actually be staying overnight; and then gone on to do the reconnaissance of their escape route at the Margaret Bridge.

Neither had a concealed sidearm for the mission, as they didn’t think it was warranted, as well as the risk being run going through airport security. Fortner had, however, smuggled a switchblade (an ugly, but sometimes useful weapon) inside the salesmen’s briefcase he carried that also contained catalogs and models of the tractors, combines and threshers that they ‘sold’.

Neither had much interest in watching the ballet, so they waited out the long performance at the Hotel Restaurant and Bar. After a hearty meal of Paprikás Csirke (Chicken in Sour Cream), Gulyás (the national dish, goulash), and Kürtőskalács (a sweet bread), they sat at the corner table, Hunt chain-smoking as usual, and on his third double ‘Maker’s Mark’ Kentucky Bourbon.

Jeff Fortner (whose retired CIA father, Ethan, drank heavily in his own downtime, but was always functional) was only a moderate drinker himself, and never imbibed when he was about to possibly run a gauntlet of state security, city police, GRU and possible KGB men, all while having to babysit a couple of ballerinas. Jeff sat down his coffee and said quietly, “Don’t you think you ought to slow down with the booze now, Hunt? You may think that this operation is a ‘walk in the park’, but you know that the Popov sisters’ father will probably have assets in the area…not to mention eluding any AVH Ministry of Interior Agents that may be watching us…”

Hunt sat down his now-empty glass, ice clinking after draining it. Then he crushed out his cigarette. “Jeffy-boy…you worry too much. You’ll remember I’ve been in this line of work for over a decade now. Heh…your famous Daddy wouldn’t be worrying so much, and I bet he’d be out-drinking even me…”

Fortner didn’t bother to respond to Hunt’s quip. Sam was always trying to get under his skin by mentioning Jeff’s estranged (and legendary at CIA) Father. Ethan Fortner was a flawed man in many ways, but he had always been a consummate professional, totally unlike the jackass, Sam Hunt.

Jeff had signed on with the Agency after resigning his commission with the USMC and a stint in a POW Camp. Joining the Agency was against Ethan’s wishes for his son, and they had rarely spoken since. They’d never had the relationship they should’ve. Ethan’s wife had died moments after Jeff’s birth, and neither had ever really dealt with it.

Snapping out of his reverie, Jeff returned to the moment at hand. “You’re supposed to be lead Agent on this op, Hunt. Act like it. Get a cup of black coffee and go splash your face in the men’s room. We leave in ten minutes…. the performance ends at ten-thirty.”

“Fine, fine…the boy scout is always right,” grumbled Hunt.

In truth, Jeff had not been a Boy Scout since he was twelve years old. With his Father rarely around, and only two spinster Aunts to try to keep him out of trouble, he had been more of a rebellious ‘hood’ or ‘greaser’ youth in his teen years; hot-rodding, fighting and mostly defying his absentee Father at every turn. Until finally leaving for the Marines, where he had been forced to learn discipline, the discipline that had kept him alive up to now.

Soon, they left the Hotel, ditched their briefcases full of farm equipment catalogs in a dumpster and walked through the intensifying snow to the State Opera House. As they approached the back door, they were greeted by a small, toad-like man that reminded Fortner of the old actor Peter Lorre. In stilted German the man asked, “Have you heard of the men on the moon this Christmas?”

Jeff replied, “No, not on the moon. They are just orbiting around it…”

Recognition phrases complete, the man smiled and offered his hand and introduced himself as Andrej, the lead stagehand for the opera house. He was also the local station chief’s asset that had informed them that the Popov sisters wished to defect while in Budapest.

“I’m Fortner. This is Hunt.” Sam didn’t shake, just nodded brusquely.

“So where are these chicks?” Sam asked, impatiently fiddling with his pack of ‘Lucky Strikes’.

“They are just finishing the performance now…” Andrej replied.

They had arrived just moments before the end of the production, and, while Hunt smoked in the alleyway at the back door, Andrej allowed Jeff inside to see the last bit of the ballet. Though it was at a distance, he could tell which one Valeria was right away. While both were talented, she was the more exquisite dancer than her sister Svetlana. The orchestra’s dramatic climax and dance ended, the girls ran back to their dressing rooms. Andrej and Jeff stepped back into the alley.

“They are changing, now. Should be out any minute. They are anxious to go with you tonight…. I am anxious, too, for…” Andrej seemed nervous.

“Pay?” Hunt replied. “You’ll get it, right before we take off.”

A bitter wind gusted through the alleyway, and Jeff pulled the collar of his parka tighter around his neck and his tweed golf cap down more over his snow-flecked light brown hair.

A few minutes later, the door opened, and Jeff’s steel-gray eyes focused on the girl that walked out first. Valeria Popov. Her unvarnished beauty hadn’t been done justice by her photograph. Lush chestnut hair, tied up in a bun under a forest green beret. Deep brown eyes flecked with gold, milky, unblemished skin, and a petite but shapely figure that was obvious even through her coat.

She was quickly followed by her older sister Svetlana, unsuccessfully attempting to light a Sobraine cigarette in the wind. She, too, was beautiful, but in an artificial way that was much more dependent on troweled on makeup. The look on Hunt’s face showed that she was just his type. He stepped up with his zippo and a cupped hand to offer lighting the smoke for her. She smiled gratefully as he did so.

Andrej handled all of the introductions, and gratefully accepted his pay. Then Jeff spoke up. “It’s after 11 o’clock now, and the barge will be at Margaret Bridge at midnight. If we aren’t onboard by the twelfth bell, they leave without us. Shall we?” He offered an arm, and Valeria took it.

Hunt followed suit with Svetlana, after lighting another smoke for himself. It was part of their cover that they would simply pose as two couples having left the ballet and out for a Yuletide stroll. The shops were open late, and many other revelers were about. They didn’t notice as they made their way up the Hajos Utca that a group of three men had come out of an alley and begun to follow them.

Andrej counted the generous amount of forints the Americans had provided, and then the envelope full that the three other men had paid. His family would have a nice ‘Celebration of the Fir Tree’ this year. He could taste the steaming bowl of halaszle already.

 

***

Svetalana was talking rather loudly to Hunt about how she looked forward to seeing in the New Year in New York’s Times Square, as well as seeing the Broadway musical ‘Hair’ and shopping in the stores of Fifth Avenue. What she really wanted was a ‘decent fur coat’. “The ones we get here in the East just aren’t as nice as the American ones…” she pronounced. Hunt was lapping up everything she was saying, and making promises that he’d be glad to take care of all of her needs in America.

Fortner kept glancing back at them, signaling for them to ‘shut up’, as, even though they were conversing in Russian, there was likely a Hungarian nearby that might understand them.

Fortner turned to Valeria and whispered, “This isn’t a game. I’m afraid your sister and…my associate aren’t taking things seriously enough. This isn’t a cakewalk…”

“She never does,” Valeria whispered back; and then asked, “What is this cakewalk?”

“Oh, it just means an easy task.”

“Ah, I like that expression. I know very little English, but want to speak it well. I want to be able to dance in America, and travel freely; and not have the KGB or my father’s GRU following me everywhere.”

“I understand. But if you don’t mind…let’s save our conversation for the barge upriver…to the freedom you seek.”

The freedom you’ll have to earn by telling my Agency every one of your father’s secrets, Jeff thought to himself, cynically.

Fortner glanced back the ten paces behind them again at Sam and Svetlana, and noticed the three men emerge from the shadows as they passed in front of the lights of a late-night café’. They seemed out of place…three hulking stern-faced young men in badly-cut suits. They weren’t celebrating the Yuletide, they were following them, and they were likely from Col. Popov’s GRU.

Fortner loudly cleared his throat, and signaled for Sam and Svetlana to follow them into the Christmas Tree lot on the right. “Valeria, I believe the men back there are working for your father. Did you or your sister tell anyone besides our people that you were defecting?”

Svetlana, right behind them now, answered for her. “No, but our father has spies everywhere in the ballet company. We call them his Bolshoi Bolsheviks…”

Sam murmured, “Here they come, dammit…”

The three men came into the fir tree lot, each with one hand in their coat, likely about to pull Makarov PMs, the standard issue firearm of their department.

The CIA Agents were unarmed; unarmed except for the switchblade that Jeff had hidden in his sock.

Fortner looked around. It was late, and there were few tree buyers, and none close by. They’d still have to get out of this quickly. Any delay may cause them to ‘miss the boat’. Hunt seemed indecisive, so Fortner spoke first. “Uriemberek…Boldog Karácsonyt!” The Hungarian Christmas greeting surprised the men momentarily, and they left their guns holstered, but were still approaching. One showed an ID card and stated in Russian, “Glavnoye razvedyvatel’noye upravleniye…Colonel Popov has ordered us to take you girls to him. Come with us now, please.”

One grabbed Valeria’s arm and she screamed, “Nyet!” Jeff quickly broke the man’s vise-like grip and jabbed him hard in the abdomen, he doubled over in pain as Valeria stumbled to the ground.

The other two were wrestling Svetlana away from Hunt. Hunt threw a clumsy punch at one that glanced off of his shoulder. Hunt was, at best, mediocre at hand to hand combat, and was, on this occasion, still impaired by his excessive alcohol consumption.

Jeff’s opponent recovered and reached for his pistol. Just as he brought it out, Jeff flicked out the switchblade he had grabbed from his sock. I brought a knife to a gunfight, he grimly thought to himself. He had brandished a blade like that as a teen, but never actually fought with someone using it. He had, however, plenty of experience with a Ka-Bar combat knife in the Corps. The GRU Agent was about to start firing a gun in a Christmas Tree lot, and there were a few innocent men, women and children now nearby. Before the man took aim, Jeff, using his left hand, grabbed the man’s gun, twisting it from his grip and relieving him of the pistol, and with his right hand plunged the switchblade deep into his guts, then upward into the heart. The man hissed out his last breath.

Valeria tried to suppress a scream, covering her mouth.

Jeff lowered the man to the ground. He had, as always, hoped to avoid bloodshed; and killing in this situation seemed dirtier to him than in combat. Then he remembered the words of his Drill Instructor: When it comes down to you or the enemy, let it be the enemy that gives his life for his country.

He then turned to Hunt and the other two Agents. The tree lot merchant and shoppers had noticed what was going on amongst the firs by now and were screaming “Rendorseg!” for the police. If they got involved, they’d never get the Popov sisters to the boat on time.

Jeff barreled into the two agents, tackling them both into a row of trees that fell like dominoes. Hunt added a kick to one on the way down, and that GRU man had the misfortune to land on the large nail of a tree-stand. He cried out, and Hunt kicked him again, rendering him silent. The last one, untangling himself from the pile of snow-covered aromatic trees, finally got free and began to run. Hunt picked up the pistol from the one impaled on the tree stand and took aim at the runner…

“Hunt! No gunfire…it’ll only bring the police straight to us!” Jeff warned.

Hunt ignored him, and fired twice. The Agent went down just as sirens could be heard approaching.

“Damn! We’ve got to go…” Jeff took Valeria’s hand and gently helped her to her feet, as she had twisted her ankle in the fracas. He then took the hand of the frozen-with-fear Svetlana and started leading them out of the Christmas Tree forest.

“Fortner! We should split up. Less likely for us all to be caught that way.” Hunt barked.

Jeff didn’t disagree, and nodded; releasing Svetlana for Hunt to lead away. “Take backstreets, and be at the barge by zero hundred hours.”

Hunt nodded, and they vanished into the night.

 

***

Jeff and Valeria eluded the police, and made it two blocks southwest as a detour to the river.

They found themselves at the steps of Saint Stephen’s Basilica. More sirens approached.

“Let’s rest your ankle in here for a moment,” Jeff suggested. He could tell she was in pain.

“Da,” she nodded, gratefully.

They went into the chapel of the Church, completed in 1905, and it was as ornate and beautiful as any that Jeff had ever seen. It was made even more so by the small Nativity scene and added Christmas greenery.

The chapel was empty, except for a lone old woman praying in the front row. Outside, some late-night carolers could be heard, in Hungarian:

“Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen,

When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even…”

“I’ve never been in a Church,” Valeria said. “Other than Saint Basil’s in Red Square for State functions. Religion is frowned upon, you know…. especially by a true party believer like my father.”

“I haven’t been in a Church for a while, myself…” Jeff replied. He hadn’t lost his faith, but it had wavered over the years, particularly during his time as a POW in Vietnam, and when he came home to a wife that had promptly left him. Changing the subject, he said, “I will get you out of here safely, Valeria…trust me.”

“I do,” she replied, looking into his eyes. “Do you think that I might dance at your Lincoln Center?”

“Perhaps. I hope so.”

“Just being free. Even if I never dance again…” she rubbed her injured ankle. “I will be happy in America, just to be free.”

Jeff smiled at the sweet, innocent young face. He knew he shouldn’t, but he was finding himself thinking of her as more than an asset, or a defector. “Your ankle will be fine. You will dance, and you will be free, Valeria. But for all of that to happen…we need to be at the Margaret Bridge in,” he consulted his watch. “Twenty-five minutes. We’d better go. Can you make it?”

She nodded enthusiastically, and put on a brave smile.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, Hunt and Svetlana were several blocks north. Hunt had turned on what charm he possessed, which wasn’t much. “Y’know, Svetlana…after the debrief in Washington, you stick with me. I can show you all the best my country has to offer. Hotels, restaurants, shows, food, good booze…the works, baby.”

“I would like that, Sam. Very much,” she was looking past him distractedly at a phone booth nearby. “Can you allow me a favor?”

“You name it, sweetheart.”

“It is my mother. She and my father are separated, and she has been ill. She despises him and his ‘party line’ as much as we do. I hate to leave forever and not at least speak with her once more…”

Hunt was taken aback. “Er…I don’t know. That’s probably not a good idea. I’d like to help you, but…”

Svetlana came in closer and wrapped her arms around Hunt’s neck and kissed him. Kissed him like a woman that knew how to get her way. When she withdrew, she looked into his eyes with her ocean blue orbs. He was lost in them. “If you allow me this…I will do for you anything…anything your heart desires.” She licked her lips. “You can even listen in on the phone call. It will only be a moment.”

Hunt had become putty in her hands. “OK, Svetlana…OK. But please, make it quick.”

She smiled and stepped into the phone booth.

 

***

 

Several blocks away, Jeff and Valeria had made up their lost time, and were within sight of the Margaret Bridge. A three-way arch bridge, the Margit Hid was completed in 1876. It spanned the Danube River, linking Margaret Island to the banks of (originally two separate cities that merged in 1872) Buda on one side and Pest on the other. This night, it would be the link to escape for two CIA Agents and a pair of ballerinas.

As Fortner and Valeria were crossing the park that approached the bridge, Jeff’s watch read 11:50 pm. Jeff and Valeria then noticed two uniformed police officers were strolling by…had they been alerted to be on the lookout for them? They’d be looking for four people, hopefully, and not a couple. Particularly not one of several couples spending a romantic, snowy evening in the park embracing. Jeff thought of the clichéd, but usually effective bit of spy craft he’d use next- a distraction needed to allay the suspicion of the police.

He whispered to Valeria, “Would you mind if I kissed you?”

She looked a bit surprised, but then replied, “I’ve been waiting all night for you to…”

He leaned in, and she met his lips. The kiss lingered as the police chuckled and walked on by.

They were safe, for the moment.

Afterward, she asked, “Was that just for their benefit?” She grinned shyly.

Jeff answered honestly, “No, it was not.” His smile reassured her, and he took her hand and they walked on to the rendezvous point on the bridge.

 

***

 

There was very little traffic on the bridge a few minutes before midnight. The plan was to walk to the intersection of the bridge where they would descend a rope ladder that was previously placed there by their contact that would be picking them up. Their contact was the barge’s Captain Imre, and his boat was called the Erika, named for a young girl he had known from the Revolution. Imre had been a part of that uprising in 1956, but had managed to evade capture by the Communists. He had later become a valued CIA and MI6 asset on many occasions since.

Jeff and Valeria stood there, looking to the south from where the barge was slowly approaching; a spotlight flashed three times, so Jeff knew that it was the Erika. He waved back and forth three times in response, hoping they’d see him from the ship’s bridge.

Jeff was also continually checking to the east, and wondering why Hunt and Svetlana hadn’t reached them yet. Had they been caught by Colonel Popov’s men? Mansfield had made it clear that if anyone didn’t make it to the pickup, they would be on their own.

But Jeff Fortner had never left a man behind as a Force Recon Marine Officer in Vietnam, and he wouldn’t start now. Not even with a bastard like Sam Hunt.

Then, he saw them. Relief washed over both of them. They would all make it out. The look of relief vanished from Jeff’s face, however, when he spotted the two cars (probably AVH) coming up behind them on the bridge. Fortner pointed, yelling “Hunt!”. Hunt saw them, and he and Svetlana broke into a run. Jeff and Valeria ran to the intersection of the bridge where the ladder was stowed (Fortner and Hunt had confirmed this on their earlier recon). Leaning over the edge with the switchblade, Jeff cut the strings that kept the rope rolled and hidden under the ledge. It unreeled completely, ending at the embankment of the island where the barge was temporarily mooring.

The cars screeched to a halt alongside Hunt and Svetlana just as the first stroke of midnight could be heard from a clock tower in the distance. Hunt, now dragging Svetlana, ran to join them at the ladder. At the bottom, some of the crew were securing the ladder for the escapees’ descent. They motioned to begin climbing down.

Valeria, with one last brave smile for Jeff, began to descend the long, swaying ladder, her weak ankle making it more difficult. “They will help you on board, and I will be right behind you. Be careful, Valeria,” He released her hand and she took a firm grip on the top rung.

Then his attention was forced to the men exiting the cars, led by Colonel Stanislaus Popov of the GRU. He looked more like an angry soldier than a worried father. He was flanked by two other GRU Agents, while the other car had four more AVH men, guns drawn.

“Halt!” the Colonel commanded. “I will not allow you to kidnap my daughters!”

Jeff didn’t want to respond to anything they might say, knowing that it would only confirm to the GRU who they were. Let them think they were kidnappers…just Hungarian ones, not CIA.

But Hunt wasn’t as savvy. “Sorry, Colonel. The girls want to come over to the West, with us.” He drew the Makarov he’d kept from earlier.

At that moment, Svetlana gently lowered his gun arm and looked him in the eyes. Tearfully, she said, “No, Sam. I am sorry. I…am not going with you. I have…reconsidered.”

“What? Wait, that phone call…it wasn’t your mother. You led them to us?”

She nodded, sadly, “Yes, I’m sorry…I…”

“Bitch,” Hunt murmured. He wished he had listened in more closely. “Fine. I’m no kidnapper. Go home to Daddy and Mother Russia, if that’s what you want,” He raised the gun back up, aiming at the Colonel’s chest. “But your sister and us guys are leaving this party.”

“No one is leaving,” the Colonel stated, drawing his own weapon. His men and those of the AVH were all ready to fire, but looked at each other with uncertainty as to what would happen next. “You will be our guests.” Popov knew that what he assumed to be two officers of the Central Intelligence Agency would be very valuable to his superiors.

Jeff was glad that Hunt and Popov’s conversation was keeping them all busy while Valeria slowly made it down the ladder. Only one person could go at a time, or they’d be shaken off, and it was a long drop. But he knew the conversation was about to take a violent turn, and, crouched by the bridge guardrail behind Hunt, he, too, drew the gun he’d taken earlier, preparing for a firefight.

“Guests?” Hunt laughed bitterly. “Guests at your finest accommodations for spies in Siberia, you mean…No…thanks…comrade…” He and the Colonel simultaneously fired. Hunt was winged and fell back against the snow-covered guardrail. The Colonel, hit in the side, fell, sliding down the car door, leaving a blood streaked trail. Then all Hell broke loose. Jeff aimed, but hesitated because Svetlana was in his field of fire. The GRU and AVH men did not hesitate. Their Colonel had been shot, and it was time to open fire on the enemy. They riddled the rail by Hunt as Fortner dove for cover. Svetlana was screaming, “No! Don’t shoot….”and put herself in the path of the bullets. She was hit several times, and spun around and fell into Hunt’s waiting arms.

Then, Jeff returned fire and downed the two GRU men, and one of the AVH. Two of the others took cover behind the cars while the third managed to flank Jeff and ran for the ladder.

Valeria, hearing the commotion above, climbed down even faster, though every step hurt her ankle more; then she chanced a glance upward. Jeff, still watching the men ducking behind the cars, saw what the lone man was doing a moment too late. The Colonel had ordered that no defection would be allowed that night, even if it were his own daughters. The AVH man fired, and the bullet struck her, hitting her upper back. She lost consciousness, and her grip on the ladder, falling the final fifteen feet. Jeff saw her fall into the icy waters of the gap between the drifting barge and the embankment. The boat drifted shoreward…

“No! Valeria!” Jeff yelled. The man then came at Jeff, and received two shots square in the chest from Fortner’s pistol. He flipped over the rail, landing with a thud on Margaret Island far below.

The other two men were coming for Hunt, who had Svetlana’s dead body cradled in his arms. He had been betrayed, and was just sitting there, almost catatonic. He had given up.

The Colonel had managed to get to his feet, and staggered over to the scene. “Moy Svetlana, moy Valeria…nyet…” he murmured, realizing too late what he had caused.

Jeff knew that he only had a couple of rounds left in the Makarov. Firing them now would likely only get he and Hunt riddled with bullets from the remaining AVH men, who had emerged from their cover and had their guns aimed and ready. He glanced over his shoulder and calculated what he’d do next. It was a suicide move…the odds of them surviving were low, but it was his only play. Being taken alive certainly wasn’t an option. He’d hold out longer than Hunt, but eventually the Soviet interrogation specialists would have them both spilling their guts before what was left of them was sent to Lubyanka Prison or the tundra of Siberia.

“Colonel,” Jeff said, “You have murdered your only children…just because they wanted to be free.”

“No…. you caused this. All to spy on my country.”

“Maybe we are all guilty,” Jeff conceded. “But those two girls are dead either way. We all have to live with that now.”

“No, only I will live with it. You two agent provocateurs won’t be living at all…” Popov snarled. He no longer cared about intelligence gathering. He was thinking only as a father with no living children. “Kill them!”

Jeff had anticipated that, and, as they had been speaking, he had inched toward Sam Hunt. He quickly grabbed Hunt by the shoulders, pulling him away from the body of Svetlana, and threw himself and his fellow agent over the bridge railing just as the men fired.

They both plunged into the near-frozen rushing waters alongside the barge. The last things Fortner heard before blacking out were the sounds of Hunt’s body hitting the water just after his own, several gunshots, the barge motor…and then another splash.

 

***

 

Jeff awoke with a start, shivering. He’d had a nightmare about Valeria calling to him from the icy waters. But he knew she was dead. He saw the bandaged Hunt in a fitful sleep in the bunk next to him, muttering about Svetlana. He was angry at his fellow agent for trusting Svetlana to make the phone call that had led to this horrible outcome, but, at the same time, felt sorry for him.

Even a heartless jackass like him wanted to trust someone in this business…just once.

Jeff knew that there would be some faces he could trust in their world, and many he should not; but would he always know the difference?

He’d have to report it, along with all of Hunt’s missteps, in the debrief to Mansfield, of course. What should have been a simple defection had turned out to be a fiasco. Fortner knew that Sam Hunt, and himself, living with the consequences would be the most severe punishment there could be.

Captain Imre came into the cabin with some coffee.

“You’ve been unconscious for hours,” the Captain said. “Fortunately, we snared you both and fished you out within seconds of landing in the river. The Danube is very unforgiving in Winter. We are nearing Bratislava now. This cabin was made for smuggling, the door is hidden…so, no problems with any checkpoints.”

“And the men on the bridge?” Fortner asked.

“They turned their fire on us as we were pulling you two from the water. We returned fire…” he patted the old Danuvia 43M submachine gun slung over his shoulder. I’m pretty sure we hit all of them, though I can’t say if fatally. No one chased us down, anyway.”

“I don’t think they will, regardless. Colonel Popov, if he lives, would probably want this whole mess contained and covered up. It would be an embarrassment, his daughters attempting to defect,” Jeff sighed. “And now, both dead.”

“I am sorry we couldn’t save her…that we couldn’t do more,” the Captain stated.

Jeff nodded gratefully, and sipped the steaming black coffee.

 

***

 

They reached Vienna by 2300 hours of the 23^rd and were separately debriefed by a disappointed, but understanding, DDP Mansfield. He didn’t go into what had been said between he and Hunt, but he assured Jeff that there would be no major repercussions for either of them due to the failure of ‘Operation Midnight Clear’. But he did let Jeff know that he’d not be sent again on a mission with Hunt as lead Agent, and that he understood Fortner preferred to operate on a ‘solitary basis’.

At this, Jeff was satisfied. He preferred to work alone.

Mansfield had also said, “After all, many of our operations fail…some major ones. The Bay of Pigs was a snafu of epic proportions. And you are very familiar with our intelligence failures in Southeast Asia. But, that’s often the cost of taking risks. And, in this case, we did avoid bringing over one potential asset that we wouldn’t have been able to trust,” referring to Svetlana.

“Valeria just wanted the freedom of the West…and to dance at Lincoln Center,” Jeff said. “She’d be alive if not for us…”

“I know, son. And I am sorry we lost her. But it’s not your fault. If anything, blame the evil system she was trying to escape.” Mansfield said. He went on to explain that the Station Chief in Budapest would be investigating their informant at the Opera House, Andrej…as they now suspected that he may have been playing both sides.

In closing, the DDP said, “No reports on Colonel Popov resurfacing, but we will know eventually.”

“He’s probably in mourning, if he lives…” Jeff said.

“Hmmm,” Mansfield replied. “Well, we have tickets on the ‘red-eye’ tonight to Dulles, and then a connector for you to Atlanta. We’ll all be home for Christmas Eve. Try to enjoy the holiday, Jeff; and put this whole episode behind you.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll try.”

 

***

 

So, by sunset Christmas Eve, Jeff Fortner sat in his easy chair in his cabin near Indian Springs State Park, back home in Georgia.

Elvis Presley’s ‘Blue Christmas’ played on the turntable, the fire crackled, the multi-colored lights on the small tabletop Christmas Tree blinked…and he was alone.

He wondered what his ex-wife Linda was doing this Christmas, their third apart…and then banished the thought.

He also wondered what his father, Ethan, was doing at that moment. He imagined that it was pretty much the same as he was doing, except at his own lonely cabin, 150 miles north in Blue Ridge, Georgia. He pictured him sipping a large tumbler of a single-malt scotch. Probably a Glenlivet.

The record ended, and Jeff clicked on the television. Then he sat back in his chair, with a glass of eggnog, apportioned with a generous shot of Bacardi rum. He took a sip and turned his attention to the RCA. A special report was on, regarding NASA’s Apollo 8 mission that was orbiting the moon. After News anchor Walter Cronkite’s update on the mission, a transmission from the crew commenced:

The first to speak was Lunar Module Pilot William Anders, “We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.”

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, ‘Let there be light’: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.”

Then was the voice of Command Module Pilot James Lovell,

“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.”

Lastly, was Commander Frank Borman,

“And God said, ‘Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear’: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good.”

Then Borman said, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”

As Jeff watched and listened to the historic broadcast, he remembered the few moments that he had seen of Valeria dancing, in the performance of ‘The Nutcracker’, and thought of what her life could’ve been, had it continued.

Then, he looked at the grainy, black and white images of the beautiful and mysterious moon, and thought of the three American explorers that orbited it. He raised his glass of eggnog and said, “Godspeed, gentlemen…and a Merry Christmas to you.”

THE END

To read more of the Cold War Adventures of Jeff Fortner, please visit amazon.com/author/cgfaulkner