The head of the column swung into a turn, urged by the leveled muskets of a line of infantrymen, bypassing the tiny village of Anderson huddled around the small South Western Railroad depot and heading along a road across a swamp towards the fifteen feet high pine fence of Andersonville's stockade.
The level of misery to which the spirits of many prisoners sunk at the sight of the Confederate prison was deepened by the awareness of how close they had been to escaping the fate which awaited them behind the impassive fence. But Hedges was unperturbed by this new turn of events. As Forrest had pointed out, he was still alive and while he continued to be so he was on the winning side. The column straggled past one of the four forts that guarded the prison, then the cookhouse and the bakery, the smell of burning food mingling with the heavier odors rising from the swamp which steamed lazily in the hot Georgia sun. The road dead-ended against it heavy gate, but as the prisoners and their escort approached, two guards moved forward and swung the barrier aside. As the prisoners ambled through, the escorting soldiers sheered away.
"Welcome, Yankees," a pale-faced, red-eyed little guard in a too-large uniform yelled gleefully. "Make yourselves at home."
"Shut your stupid mouth, Mint Julep," a second guard bellowed, running his cruel eyes over the new group of prisoners come to experience the misery which had already been the lot of thousands of other Union soldiers with the ill luck to fall into Confederate hands.
*****
"You were a guard at Andersonville!" Edge said, snapping out of his reverie and sitting up suddenly, pointing a finger like a revolver barrel towards the prisoner in the next cell.
Mint Julep was sitting on his mattress, clasping his knees to his chest, fingers entwined in front of his calves. His face was haggard and his eyes sunken as he suffered the effects of enforced abstinence. "It weren't so clean as this place, but at least I could get a drink there," he muttered absently.
Edge shook his head, clearing it of the last vestiges of thoughts from out of the past. The movement set off renewed pain from his bruised head, but the sensation was less intense than it had been before. He stood up and stretched, feeling the razor pouch pressing against his neck. It was hot in the jailhouse and his underwear was tacky against his skin. He rested his hands on the bars of the cell and looked at the sleeping hulk of Marshal Railston sprawled in the chair behind the desk.
"Sure ain't no sleeping beauty, is he?" Mint Julep said. "Resting that way he looks meaner than when he's awake."
''What about his deputy?' Edge asked.
"Vic ain't mean," the suffering drunk answered. "He's a straight guy. Ain't many lawmen like him around, I'm telling you."
Edge returned to the bunk and sat down, taking off his hat and using it to fan his sweating face. The motion merely stirred the humid air without cooling it.
"Hey, mister?"
Edge looked through the bars at Mint Julep. "Yeah?"
"I do you any harm at Andersonville?" A dry tongue licked drier lips.
"Not that I recall," Edge answered. Appreciate it if you wouldn't put the word around about me being a sentry there, I mean. Lot of Yank … Northerners got long memories about what happened down there in Georgia. Figure we was all the same. I never hurt nobody. Some people wouldn't believe that," He sought to moisten his lips again and failed. "They'd make trouble for me, you know?"
"I got enough trouble of my own," Edge told him.
"Thanks," Mint Julep said, the single word filled with genuine feeling.
A horse clip-clopped into the yard behind the jailhouse and a man's voice spoke softly to it as leather slapped against the wood of a hitching rail. As Deputy Paxton entered the marshal's office his face showed the fatigue compounded of lack of sleep the previous night and the exhausting heat of the day. But he seemed to gain some relief from the sight of the Sleeping Railston. Hedges watched the young deputy cautiously as Paxton crossed the office on the points of his riding boots and, halted at the cell door. Paxton threw a glance over his shoulder to check on the red-headed marshal before speaking in a low tone. "Emmeline Greer's holed up somewhere in the Garden of Eden," he said.
Both Edge and Mint Julep got off their bunks and moved to the front of their cells, as if each had an equal interest in Paxton's information.
"Is that the way she wants it to be?" Edge asked.
Paxton shook his head. "I don't think so. I heard Lydia Eden talking with Red. It seems he wants to get rid of her; but the old lady is happy to keep her under wraps until after the trial."
Edge narrowed his eyes and looked hard into Paxton's young face. "What you going to do about it?"
"It’s a mighty big property," Paxton answered with a tired sigh.
"I know it pretty good," Mint Julep put in quickly, and loudly.
The marshal groaned and his chair creaked as he changed position in his sleep. The drunk flinched back from the hard glares of Edge and the deputy.
"How come?" Paxton asked.
Mint Julep's voice became a hoarse whisper. "Real plump jackrabbits skipping around that place. Sometimes I set gins and catch me a few to sell."
"That's dangerous," Paxton said.
The drunk grimaced. "Going without eating and drinking is a damn sight more dangerous, Mr. Paxton," he pointed out. "You get any clue as to whereabouts they got the whore?"
Paxton shrugged. "The Garden of Eden has got a long ocean frontage. Lydia Eden mentioned a beach-house."
The drunk's wizened face lit with a grin. He seemed about to burst forth with a revelation, but a flash of Edge's eyes cautioned him into a low tone. "I know where that is," he said quickly.
"Don't keep it no secret," Edge said coldly.
Mint Julep blinked and ran a fingernail down one of the bars separating his cell from that of Edge—as if to test that it really was made of unbending iron. "What's it worth to me?" he asked lightly.
Edge's burnished features formed into a snarling expression. He spoke through clenched teeth. "What did you do in the war, Daddy?" he hissed.
The drunk swallowed hard.
"I'll get a bottle of wine in to you," Paxton said, failing to understand why Mint Julep was more impressed by Edge's strange comment than the promise of liquor.
"You ain't no honorable man, mister," Mint Julep said sadly.
"They want to hang me tomorrow," Edge said softly. "I don't give one damn about my honor, so long as my neck stays intact."
"About a mile up the shoreline from the south boundary marker," Mint Julep said, trying to ignore Edge as he spoke directly to Paxton. "On a shelf of rock above the beach. Stairway goes up to it from the dunes. I'd sure appreciate that bottle, young feller."
Paxton nodded his acknowledgement, then looked at Edge. "I can't make her tell it your way, he said earnestly.
"Just get her into the courtroom," Edge told him.
Paxton sighed. ''I'll leave it till tonight. Lydia Eden's trigger-happy guards will have less chance to spot me."
"Better get that bottle while the bastard's still napping, Mr. Paxton," Mint Julep urged, hugging himself to try to stop a new bout of trembling.
"Sure thing," Paxton said and turned to leave the jailhouse as quietly as he had entered.
Both prisoners returned to their bunks and regarded each other through the bars of the partition.
"They were bad times," Mint Julep said when the silence became unbearable to him. "In that place."
"You won't find nobody to disagree with you," Edge replied.
"That Henry Wirz," the drunk muttered, shaking his head from side to side. "He was probably meaner than even Red Railston."
"He was a German, wasn't he?"
"From someplace in Europe. He talked funny. Not like an American.
"German, I reckon," Edge said. "He sure had ways of making us talk."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Captain Henry Wirz, commandant of Andersonville Prison was, in fact, a native of Zurich in German speaking Switzerland. But both in his bearing and his speech he wa
s strongly influenced by things Prussian and as he strutted through the stockade's north gate that afternoon there was about him an, arrogance which was part inbred and part affected. For he wore his attitude as a cloak to conceal his deep frustrations. In his early forties, he was a round-shouldered man with a sallow skin and bloodshot eyes. Most of the time he was in pain from a dyspeptic stomach and an arm wound received during a battle near Richmond. But the agony he suffered in the mind was far harder to bear than mere physical discomfort. For Wirz was a proud man who considered he deserved a superior rank to that of captain and a more rewarding post than the one he had.
It was, therefore, perhaps understandable that the luckless Union prisoners in Andersonville received the backlash of the commandant's dissatisfaction. And on that afternoon, one particular prisoner bore the brunt of Wirz's cruelty born of frustration. Under the menacing muskets of the guards, three Negroes had erected a framework of two upright posts with a cross member some ten feet from the ground on one side of the prison track called Main Street. Stripped to the waist, Hedges had been given the choice of being shot or allowing himself to be strung from the cross member by ropes tied around his wrists. For an hour he had hung there, at first able to watch with near detachment as the other prisoners were rounded up by brutal guards and organized into disorderly ranks to form three sides of a square in front and at the sides of him. But then the beating heat of the sun on his bare head and the strain of supporting his own body weight had begun to take its toll.
Moisture oozed from every pore of his body, beginning to form into rivulets, across his coppery skin but almost at once becoming tacky and then drying to salt which built up into a stinging crust. And soon there was no more sweat to be drawn; to the man it seemed that even the blood had been drained from him by the harsh Georgia sun. His skin began to burn, showing patches of angry redness that soon developed white blisters. Paralleling the expanding pain of his dehydration, Hedges experienced an upward curve of torturing agony which began at his shoulder blades and progressed by degrees along his arms until even the very tips of his fingers were screaming for release.
But no sound sprang from his lips, which gradually curled back to show his teeth in a silent snarl while the pain mirrored in his eyes was blanketed by lids screwed tight shut. Thus, by the time that the more than three thousand Union prisoners were in position, Hedges was no longer aware of their presence as he fought with an iron will to turn all his senses inwards and concentrate his diminishing strength upon containing the urgent need to plead for mercy.
"You will now confess your actions and give your word of honor to obey the laws of this establishment for the duration of your stay."
Wirz had halted before the framework and was staring up into the mask of agony that had spread across Hedges' face. He spoke slowly and distinctly and when he received no response he lifted his gold-headed walking cane and jabbed it viciously into the captive's navel. The thrust was hard enough to set Hedges' suffering was the most powerful personification broke through the defense of a mental block he had erected so earnestly. His eyes snapped open and a low groan erupted from his throat and hissed between his tightly clamped teeth. He raised his chin from his chest and moved his head from side to side. His vision was blurred by a scarlet mist of agony: but he knew the vista from the memory of the first few minutes of suffering. Row upon row of wretched humanity ranged against a background of a swampy enclosure of firmly embedded pine logs, littered in tightly packed disorder with ragged tents and crude shacks. It was a panorama of misery, the whole drawing from each individual experience so that while the potent example of Hedges' suffering was the most powerful personification of Andersonville's anguish, it generated little sympathy from the reluctant audience. For slow death and crippling disease were as much inmates of the prison as the captured men, and compassion for another's torment diminished as a man's own misery increased.
"You will confess escaping—leading the escape and murdering two civilians and six men of the Confederate Army, Captain."
Hedges looked through the opaqueness of his eyes into the thin, cruel face of Wirz. "What's the reward?" he croaked.
The yellow tinge of the commandants skin deepened as rage swept over him.
Hedges screwed his eyes closed again and pressed his swollen tong up against the roof of his mouth to hold back a cry as his body ceased to swing and seemed to grow heavier by the moment.
"A confession is its own reward," Wirz snapped. "Your punishment will be decided later."
Hedges sucked from deep in his throat, seeking a drain of moisture to lubricate his mouth. "You know already," he managed to rasp.
Wirz looked around at the assembled prisoners, enjoying their emaciation, the hatred shining dully from their hollow eyes, the filth clinging to their ragged uniforms, the stench emanating from bodies.
"I know," he replied, speaking to the prisoners. "But these creatures do not. This rabble believes no word I speak, so they must hear from you why you are being punished. They must be taught that I am a just man."
"You're nothing but crud," John Scott muttered, then screamed and pitched forward, clutching at his groin!
One of several guards on the ground, augmenting the protection given by many more on the stockade wall, had heard Scott's insult and stepped forward, swinging his carbine hard and accurately.
"Christ!" Rhett exclaimed, but bit off further words as a beefy guard swung towards him.
The new batch of prisoners were grouped together, their freshness to Andersonville evident from the comparative neatness of their uniforms and the well fed look of their faces and bellies.
"Nobody talks while the captain's speaking," the guard snarled at Rhett who drew back, beginning to tremble.
Scott clawed at the dusty ground and moaned his pain. The guard who had floored him raised his carbine again and brought it down, stock first. Polished wood crunched against Scott's skull and the Union trooper rolled onto his, back and was silent. On the other side of the road a boy of eighteen with cheekbones that seemed about to break through the slack grayness of his skin clutched at his stomach and collapsed, his bowels vacating the stench of untreated dysentery. The prisoners and guards close to him shuffled away. Flies swarmed in and settled on the dying boy.
"Get yourself another teacher," Hedges rasped.
Wirz stepped to the side, raising his cane. His knuckles were white around the head as he swung the heavy wood. It landed across Hedges' lower stomach with a resounding smack that forced a cry from the captive and caused him to jerk up his knees. When his legs straightened they felt like lead weights and their heaviness only heightened the burning pain.
"This man is a fool!" Wirz screamed at the rows of prisoners. "Had he agreed to confess his crime he would have been cut down and given water. He chooses to be obstinate. For this his punishment will be prolonged. He will stay where he is until sundown. If any prisoner comes within ten yards of him, that prisoner will be shot."
Wirz stooped down and scraped up a handful of dust. Then he reversed his cane, grasping it tightly with the hand of his good arm. "You and you," he snapped, stabbing the cane towards two guards. "A leg each. Open them."
The designated men sprang forward and did as commanded, drawing Hedges' legs wide apart. Hedges opened his eyes and saw Wirz as a mere dark shadow against the blazing whiteness of the ground. For a moment he believed he was to be cut down, but it was a fleeting error.
The gold head of the cane flashed in the sunlight as it travelled in an underarm arc. Blazing agony exploded and scattered to every nerve in Hedges' body as the blow landed. The opaqueness in front of his eyes began to revolve and he heard a scream without realizing it sprang from his own lips. His mouth and eyes were pulled wide. Wirz hurled the dust and Hedges felt it swirl into his mouth and clog his nostrils and eyes. The shadowed world began to turn more quickly, then became streaked with brilliant flashes of light, like a multicolored thunderstorm,
"I hope you die," a Germanic voi
ce hissed a moment before the lights went out, the shadows merged into darkness and Hedges dived off the springboard of pain into the soothing sea of unconsciousness.
The level of his senselessness wavered throughout the remainder of the day and sometimes an involuntary sound issued from his slack mouth. But on each occasion when he neared the edge of waking his mind refused to accept the burden of pain and drove him back into the deep darkness. Around him, prison camp life returned to normal. One man collapsed from malnutrition and pitched headfirst into the ill-named Sweetwater Creek which cut a course through the swamp at the center of the compound. He drowned before anybody took the trouble to haul him out. Two men who had been wounded just before capture finally succumbed to the gangrene. A boy soldier who had been on the same prison train as Hedges tried to protect his near-new boots from one of the many gangs of marauding raiders which made periodic assaults on fellow prisoners. He was beaten to death with sticks, but not before the raiders had stripped him of his clothing. Bodies were either left where they fell or dragged clear of living quarters to await the call of the dead wagon the following morning. Guards patrolled the stockade wall and kept watch from sentry towers, hardened to the conditions before their bored gazes.
Not until the last redness had faded from the western sky did the lieutenant of the watch issue an order to a sergeant. This sergeant, with a six-man escort, went into the compound through the north gate. A few prisoners watched the activity, but most ignored it. While four guards fanned the surrounding area with their carbines, two others hoisted the captain onto their shoulders.
"He still alive, Sarge?" a man asked.
"You care?" the non-com asked.
The man shrugged. The sergeant sawed through one rope and Hedge's body sagged, swinging and turning as he hung by the right arm. "Cut him down, the snotnose officer told me," the sergeant said sourly as he hacked at the second rope. "So 1 ain't about to start feeling if his ticker's still pumping."
The Blue, the Grey and the Red Page 10
