As she moved to the next soldier and the next, finding cases of dysentery, pneumonia, malnutrition, and infection, she no longer saw the filth or smelled the vile air, or cringed at the despair and inhumanity. Good God, their clothes were holding their bones together. She only saw dying men who wanted and needed comfort in their final hours. Saving them was impossible. No medicine. No decent food. No clean clothes or bandages. No one to provide care, fresh straw, or untainted water. None of these prisoners could walk on his own. Most would be dead in twenty-four hours. Even if there was a way to take them all home with her, it was too late. The regret would linger in her heart for a long time.
A lost generation.
Getting a message to Braham seemed hopeless now. With a deep breath of the fetid air, she made a decision. She’d have to find the dungeon and do it quickly. Jack had threatened to come after her if she didn’t return within the hour. He might have already dipped into the flask he’d filled before he left the Van Lews’. The liquor was not for him, he had assured Charlotte, but for nervous guards. He’d better have some left. By the time she got out of Castle Thunder, she’d need a stiff drink.
When she was in high school, if she didn’t call him exactly when she was supposed to, Jack would come looking for her and embarrass her so badly she wouldn’t speak to him for days. If he came barging into the prison, embarrassment would be the least of their problems.
“Are these prisoners going or staying, sir?” the private asked.
“Not one of these men can walk, and I doubt many will survive the night. Are there any other sick or wounded?”
“All the sick ones are down here. The prisoners upstairs can walk.”
“What about the prisoners in the dungeon or solitary confinement cells? What shape are they in?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Don’t know.”
“My orders are clear. Count the prisoners who can’t walk. If there are any in those cells, I have to count them, too.”
“Let me ask the sergeant.”
She couldn’t allow that. She looked down at the sterling silver-tipped cane, thinking fast, knuckles turning white. “Go ahead, but he said to help with whatever I needed. I’ll wait here for you.” She was taking a gamble which might backfire. “I can’t stand much longer. Let’s get this done, soldier.” She put her full weight on the stones, grimacing from pain she didn’t have to feign. Jack’s brilliant idea was comparable to wearing an insole made of porcupine quills.
The private licked his bottom lip. After a moment he said, “Never mind. Let’s go.” He pointed to a doorway. “The cells are on ground level, facing Dock Street.”
Charlotte glanced toward the sergeant’s desk. The group of guards, full of brag and bluster, was still standing at the entrance berating the Union Cavalry.
The private lit a lantern and led the way down the stairs. With each step, the smell of decomposition grew stronger. She breathed slowly in and out through her mouth. Using the railing on one side and cane on the other, she could hobble down without putting pressure on her aching foot. As she came off the last step, her foot landed squarely on the stones and she let out a sharp gasp.
The private turned, jerked the lantern up high, alarm written across his face. The pulse at his temples beat rapidly. “We shouldn’t have come down here. Going up will be worse for your leg.”
Charlotte swiped sweat from her face with her jacket-covered arm, not wanting to put her hands anywhere near her nose, mouth, and eyes. “We’re here now. Keep going.”
Four massive oak doors lined the hall. Scurrying rats made rustling noises as they darted in and out. One ran over the top of her foot. She swallowed a scream. She hated rats. The overpowering stench of excrement, vomit, and blood curled around her stomach and squeezed.
“How many prisoners are down here?” She breathed through her mouth and hoped her breakfast would stay in her stomach.
“Four.” He grabbed a ring of giant iron keys off a wall hook. Each key was about ten inches long, four inches wide. They clanked together as the private approached the last cell holding the lantern in one hand, key ring in the other.
Charlotte began to whistle.
The private handed her the lantern. “Will you hold this while I unlock the door?” With practiced ease, he inserted a key and a loud click reverberated through the clammy dungeon. More rats skittered by. Whatever her anxiety level had been prior to coming down the stairs, it had now doubled.
The door opened. He took the lantern and entered the cell. A barefoot man in tattered clothes huddled in the corner. Hopelessness dulled his pale eyes. A chain attached to a heavy iron ball was wrapped around his ankle, and had rubbed the skin raw. Where did the guards think he would go?
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“John Hancock.”
Charlotte moved into the room and squatted close to him. “Can you walk?”
He shook his leg and the chain rattled. “Not with this goddamn ball and chain.”
“How about without it?” she asked.
“Guess so.”
“Good. You’re being evacuated tonight. Be ready.” Elizabeth had told her if she saw Hancock, White, or Lohmann, to say the words be ready. They would understand the message.
Before the soldier opened the next door, her whistle had been cut short by another rat running over her foot. Her heightened fear was taking its toll on the muscles in her neck, tensing them to the point of rigidity, but she wouldn’t leave until she found Braham.
“Don’t think them rats like your whistling.”
The second man was on his feet when the private held up the lantern. “I can walk,” the prisoner said in a coarse whisper like a heavy smoker’s. The blood splatters on his body and clothes told her his voice had been strained by screaming, not smoking. His ankle, too, was raw from the attached manacle.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Bill Lohmann.”
She gazed into his sunken eyes, trying to soften hers and convey a sense of hope, much as she had done to scores of patients through the years. “Be ready.”
In the next cell the prisoner was also standing, eager to be told he, too, would be evacuated. By the time they reached the last cell, she was flushed with a rage so intense it seemed to scorch the very marrow of her bones. How could people do this to each other?
The door squeaked open, and the private held up the lantern as he’d done in the three previous cells. The prisoner was on all fours, trying to stand. He rolled back onto the floor, groaning. “I can stand.”
Charlotte barely stifled a gasp at Braham’s condition. She tried to calm her racing heart. She pressed her foot harder on the stones. The pain was a necessary reminder of the role she played. To rescue him, she had to allow him to suffer now.
“Don’t think you can make it,” the soldier said. He turned to leave, taking the light with him.
“No, wait.” Charlotte went inside the cell. The miasma of death filled her lungs. In a pile of musty, foul-smelling straw, she spied a dead rat. She looked directly at Braham then. His eyes flicked to her, huge with shock. Sweat poured from his face, and the rags of his filthy shirt hung bloodied and sodden against his chest. Blood seeped from open wounds. A gash on his forehead was crusted with dirt, and one side of his face was swollen. Both his hair and beard were streaked with blood, but the corners of his mouth trembled in an attempt to smile.
She couldn’t speak past the lump in her throat, past her scorching fury.
“What’s your name?” the young soldier asked.
He didn’t answer right away, and she wasn’t sure he had any voice left after everything his interrogators had done to him. She held her breath, waiting. Then, his jaw clenched, he said through his teeth, “Carlton Jackson.”
The amount of suffering he had endured was unimaginable. Not being able to treat his wounds filled her with cold rage. To leave him behind, even for a short while, would be the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. She s
truggled, but found her voice again and asked, “Can you stand, Mr. Jackson? If you want to leave here tonight, you have to walk.” She slipped her hand into her pocket and palmed the four pills she’d placed there earlier. Then she stepped over to him and took his arm. “Let me help you.”
The tobacco-spitting sergeant who had been stationed at the desk the floor above entered the cell, shoving the door open so hard it bounced against the outside wall. He fisted his hands at his hips, and his bulk filled the doorway, muscles bulging, jowls quivering with fury. “These prisoners aren’t allowed visitors.”
She stomped down on her good foot, putting herself mere inches from the foul-breathed sergeant’s face. “I am not a visitor. I’m a major in the Army of Northern Virginia on assignment to evaluate prisoners for ambulation, which includes”—she jabbed her finger in Braham’s direction—“this man.”
Braham staggered to his feet and managed a step toward the sergeant, his nostrils flaring. His eyes shone almost black.
She moved between the two men and pointed her cane at the sergeant. “This prisoner can obviously walk. I’m done here.”
“All prisoners down here will be evacuated on the order of the warden. If they can’t keep up, they’ll be shot.” The sergeant left the cell and shoved the door back against the wall again, metal bolt clanging against the wood.
Charlotte leaned close to Braham and slipped pills into his hand, giving it a squeeze. “Rest up. You’ll need to be strong for tonight.” She intentionally didn’t look in his eyes. If she did, she would betray them both.
When she hobbled out, she asked, “Is he the final prisoner?”
“Yes.” The private slammed the oak door and turned the heavy key in the lock.
The finality of the sliding bolt shattered her brief bravado. The hall, the door, the cell, quickly dissolved behind a layer of watery film. She stood cemented to the floorboard. The rats could eat her shoes for all she cared. She leaned heavily against the door. As sweat poured down her face, tears poured through her soul.
“You coming?” the sergeant asked.
She cleared away the knot in her throat. “Yes.”
“How many did you count?” he asked.
“Fifty-two,” she said. “Some in the sick bay won’t last the night. Everyone down here is on their feet and should be evacuated, even the last one.”
“He,” he said, thrusting out his thumb, “will be leaving, even if we have to skewer him with a tobacco stick.” The sergeant spat more juice, hitting a rat. Then he yanked the keys from the redheaded private, gripping them tightly in his meaty paw. “The warden wants his neck in a noose as soon as he gives up the names of the Richmond underground leaders.”
“Not sure it matters much now.”
“Does to the captain.” The sergeant nodded toward the stairs. “Let’s get out of here.”
His hand squeezed the keys, his knuckles scabbed and still bloody, and she knew his fist had been the instrument of damage to Braham’s face. What a son of a bitch. If she ever saw him lying on the floor bleeding, she’d forsake her Hippocratic Oath and leave the room.
There is only one way in which one can endure man’s inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one’s own life, to exemplify man’s humanity to man.
“Aren’t there exceptions?” she remembered asking her grandfather.
“No,” he’d said.
Well, Grandfather, you were wrong.
She gripped the rough wood railing to steady herself. She needed the support, but she also was afraid she might run back to Braham’s cell and put both their lives at risk. “Go ahead. It’ll take me longer to climb.”
The men climbed the rickety staircase, their boots scuffing against the wood. The sergeant spat as he climbed. She balanced her weight between the railing and the cane, protecting her bad foot, and hobbled up the stairs slowly and carefully, whistling as she climbed. It was all she could do to leave Braham with a bit of hope.
55
Richmond, Virginia, April 1, 1865
Braham awoke, and immediate pain reminded him of his present condition. Instead of opening his eyes, he squeezed them tighter, as if not looking would change his situation. He had lost track of the days, but he thought the invasion was close. Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. Could he take another day of the warden’s tenacious interrogation? At the thought, his mouth moved soundlessly, his face contorting in a rictus of agony.
One more day. He could survive one more day, unless they resorted to bucking again. He had heard of the torture device, and knew it left no telltale marks, but had never seen it used until they did it to him. They forced him into a sitting position on the ground with bended knees. His wrists were then bound together and tied to his ankles, his arms cradling his legs. When the guard picked up a tobacco stick, Braham doubted his constitution would withstand another beating. The sergeant had laughed with calm callousness as he passed the stick over Braham’s elbows and under his knees. He had then been forced to remain in the position for hours. When they finally removed the stick, his joints and back were frozen in the unnatural position and were screaming in agony.
The door to the stairs leading to solitary confinement cells squeaked open. Fear crawled coldly through his empty stomach. Bootheels scraped across weathered floorboards. They were coming to interrogate him again. The warden always dragged out his approach to the cells, playing on the prisoners’ fear until they sometimes pissed themselves. At first Braham had tried to hide his dread behind a mask of indifference, but soon enough it had been pitilessly stripped away. Now he only tried to survive.
Someone whistling outside his door brought him fully alert. It wasn’t a sharp whistle to get someone’s attention. It was a recognizable tune. He puckered his parched lips, but his swollen face made it impossible for him to whistle in response. He blew out a steady stream of air, but no sound. Then he heard the whistle again, and in his haze, he thought he knew the whistler.
Not Charlotte. Dear God, not in this demonic hold. It must be his imagination.
Thoughts of her had kept him sane during these long, cold nights, as did one of his favorite Robbie Burns songs which described her to perfection. She’s sweeter than the morning dawn… Her hair is like the curling mist… Her cheeks are like yon crimson gem… Her lips are like yon cherries ripe…
God, he wished he could see her one more time. But what could he tell her that he hadn’t already said?
A rat crawled over his shoulder and nudged its mouth into the open wounds on his back. He swatted at the creature until it scurried away. Braham rolled over onto his wounds to keep the rat from burrowing back in. The straw pricked at the cuts made by the dozen lashes he’d received within hours of being arrested. He sucked air through his teeth and rolled onto his belly, sucked air again, and switched to his side. He couldn’t find a position to relieve the pains around his ribs. One of the many punches or kicks to his gut might have bruised a couple. They weren’t sticking out, and he could breathe, so at least his lungs weren’t punctured.
He rolled his tongue around his mouth. All his teeth were still in place. The cuts on his head had stopped bleeding, but he’d had headaches for hours, maybe days. The growl in his stomach was louder now, too.
The first day, he’d removed worms from the bread he’d been given. Afterward, he ate whatever they gave him, which wasn’t much. He was still alive, and although he’d come close to revealing everything they wanted to know, he’d managed to keep his secrets. The guards set out to unman him, steal his courage and self-control. They had laughed when he pissed himself and vomited, and then they had left him to lie in his own filth and blood. Knowing the Union Cavalry would soon ride down Main Street was the only thing keeping hope alive.
When he heard boots stomp down the wobbly stairs, he sat up, heart racing. If they were coming for him, could he endure another pummeling or the lash? They had started on his back, then his buttocks, and finally his legs. They had left him threatening to move on to his front next time.
Give them what they wanted, or suffer the whip and worse.
“You’ll never get a child on your whore when we’re done with you,” the guard had said.
The ring of keys clinked, and he shivered violently. His shaking leg rattled the chain attached to the iron ball, which he’d learned was too heavy to lift. A kettledrum pounded in his chest when footsteps reached his door. He let out a stifled groan as the men moved past his cell. The whistle again. The tune he had taught Charlotte. But she had gone home. His mind was playing tricks to torment him.
The bolt to one of the doors screeched opened and he heard voices, but couldn’t distinguish what they were saying. The door closed. Another door opened. More discussion. That door closed. He attempted to stand but fell back on his bloodied ass. The door to the adjoining cell opened.
“What’s your name?”
Braham heard only garbled words.
“Can you walk?”
He stilled to hear what was being said. Muffled sounds were muted by the roar of his heart pounding in his ears.
“Be ready.” The words were spoken in a deepened, familiar voice. Terror seized his gut.
A key grated in the lock and a wave of torchlight fell into the cell, temporarily blinding him. He rolled onto all fours and tried to stand. If evil was coming through the door, he would meet it face to face, not as a coward groveling on the floor. If it was Charlotte, he wanted to be on his feet to meet her.
The chain rattled and rubbed against his raw ankle, but he kept trying to stand, twisting and pushing. During the whippings, he had been handcuffed to the wall and the prolonged, awkward stretch had strained the muscles in his arms and shoulders.
Two men entered. The red-haired lad he had seen before.
“Give me a minute,” Braham said. “I can stand.”
The lad turned to leave, mumbling, taking the light with him.
“No, wait,” the bearded officer said. “What’s your name?”
He shaded his rapidly blinking eyes from the light. “Carlton Jackson.” Who was the bearded man? Why did he look familiar?
The Sapphire Brooch Page 35