The Sapphire Brooch (The Celtic Brooch Trilogy Book 2) (47 page)

“Damn leg,” she said. The stones were stark reminders of what she was doing and why.

The red-haired soldier, a private, told a guard stationed at a desk inside the door, “We’re evacuating Richmond. The doctor’s got to count the prisoners who cain’t walk.”

A coarse man, roughhewn, reeking of well-aged perspiration, and built like a bull, saluted her. Then he lowered his head, studying her. “Never seen you ’afore, Major. You got an order?” he asked in a deep, staccato voice. He set his jaw and slapped the desktop with stubby fingers tipped with dirty, bitten nails.

She pulled the order out and handed it over. “Can’t have just anybody walk in off the street and demand to see your prisoners, can you?”

He read the document, or appeared to, before handing it back. “Like I said. Never seen you ’afore.”

“You heard of Mallory Plantation? We’ve lived there for over a hundred years. I was with the Second Corps of Northern Virginia until I was wounded last month. Just now getting out, starting to walk a bit.” She was jabbering and needed to shut up. “Can’t stand for long. Haven’t been able to operate, but I can do this job while others treat the wounded and prepare to evacuate.”

The private, beanpole thin and jittery, moved closer to the desk. “We don’t have much time. Yankees is comin’.”

The sergeant’s brow creased as he eyed the private. A moment of intimidating silence saturated the air around the desk. Then the sergeant hawked and spat a blob of tobacco juice, which landed on the floor with a splat, missing the spittoon by mere inches. Charlotte tamed her rolling eyes and moved her foot away from the dark brown spot, one of many wet patches on the wood plank. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of her face, but she ignored it, letting it plop to her collar. He waved Charlotte away as if she were an annoying fly. His lips compressed, showing only the edges of decaying teeth. “Private Franklin will show you to sick bay.”

“And if I need anything else—” The front door blew open.

A half dozen guards rushed in, crowding the entry. She inched back out of the way, before they could crush her with grossly sweating bodies reeking of unwashed male, fear, and onions. The distraction was a welcome relief, and untied one of the many knots in her stomach. The men and their concerns should keep the sergeant occupied while she searched for Braham.

“Richmond’s being evacuated—”

“They’re opening the banks—”

“On a Sunday afternoon—”

“So customers can get their money to leave town—”

The sergeant worried the flesh of his lower lip with one of his crooked yellow teeth as he followed the conversations. “I ain’t got no money to get out.”

“The mayor announced to the City Council—”

“The government’s leavin’—”

“Two militia companies are staying to protect the city—”

The sergeant spit again. This time he hit the spittoon. “Doubt they’ll be able to protect the city from looters. Nobody wants to stay. Don’t blame ’em none.”

The buzz of activity surrounding the sergeant’s desk continued. He gave the red-haired private a dismissing wave. “Whatever the Major needs, see he gets it.”

The private pointed down a hallway. “This way, sir.”

When they reached the end, he pushed opened a door. A guard, leaning haphazardly on the back legs of a chair, dropped his feet and jumped to attention, saluting. Charlotte gagged at the filth and fetid smell in the room.

“We’re evacuating,” the private said.

The guard’s eyes widened.
“When?”

“Tonight.” The private swung his head, doing a sweep of the room, his eyes darting quickly from one row of prisoners to another. “The doctor’s here to count the patients who can’t walk.”

“Got several. Where we takin’ ’em?” the guard asked.

Charlotte continued breathing through her mouth, avoiding the man’s sweet-sour odor. “South.”

“By train?” the private asked.

She shook her head. “No trains. No wagons. No ambulances. Those who can’t walk get left behind.”

The bare rafters supporting the floor above creaked as soldiers moved around upstairs. Sturdy bars covered open windows, leaving the prisoners exposed to weather and temperature extremes. Dark splotches covered the dank prison walls. She hated to guess what caused them. Even the naked posts and beams were splattered with stains. Although she couldn’t see the ticks, fleas, and rats, she knew they skirted the room, spreading disease. Even thinking about the vermin made her scalp itch.

The floor was slick with slime, and wet as well. Patients lay moaning on straw mats on the floor. Several patients, lying in their own filth, had pustulant sores. Others had wounds wrapped in old, bloody bandages. All the semi-naked men appeared emaciated. Those who were aware enough to notice her arrival, tracked her movements with vacant eyes.

Man’s inhumanity to man.
Robbie Burns got it right. But her favorite verse on inhumanity was from Alan Paton:
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.
Her grandfather had taught her the verse, and it had probably been largely responsible for her decision to go to medical school instead of law school.

But right now she had to endure man’s inhumanity. “I’ll start at the far end and work my way back here.” She needed a minute or two to compose herself, to shut down feelings, and turn off her emotions. Her cane thudded rhythmically against the floor as she shuffled down the long line of straw mats.

Her mind flashed to Lincoln’s most prominent feature—the perpetual look of sadness. He’d been to the battle fields, he’d read the prison reports. No wonder he was so burdened with sorrow. She doubted she’d ever make it through a day in the future without having flashes of these men who’d been treated like rubbish.

When she reached the end of the row, she knelt beside the first patient. If he had been dead for a week, he couldn’t have smelled worse. No bath in months, a bloody bandage around his leg. She didn’t need to remove it to know the tissue beneath was gangrenous. He was a shell of a man with sunken eyes and a cachectic body.

“What’s your name, soldier?” she asked.

His eyelashes fluttered and, after some effort, he opened his eyes, and said in a weak voice, “Private Jeff Dougherty.”

“What hurts?”

“Not much don’t hurt, sir. I want to go home.”

She clasped a very dirty hand, but he barely had the strength to squeeze her fingers. “Just a few more hours,” she said. “Can you hang on?”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

“How old are you, soldier?”

He didn’t change his pained expression, but something nameless passed between them. “Sixteen on my last birthday.”

He was merely a boy who would never grow to manhood.

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 Lew’s. 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 was able to 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.