He flung the kicking legs away from him and Myron scuttled across the cell to rescue his brother from drowning.
“Okay, Captain, how we gonna bust out of here?” Forrest asked, rubbing his hands together, enjoying the final few moments of pleasure.
Hedges moved over close to the outside wall of the cell and crouched down. He inserted his long, brown fingers into a wide crack in the concrete and levered up a slab to expose the earth beneath. “You set the yellow-belly Reb on the right course,” he told Forrest, then showed a cold grin to the confused troopers. “But I’m a bit more particular about the kind of hole I crawl into.”
It was the latrine that had given Hedges the idea for tunneling out of the cell: that and the general state of disrepair of the floor.
“I ain’t no friggin’ mole,” Seward rasped.
“And I can’t do no digging after getting a kick in the balls like that,” Rhett complained.
“Sergeant?” Hedges asked, and all the men looked at the sour-faced non-com.
Forrest spat. “It ain’t gonna be like slicin’ no cake, sir,” he growled.
“Something you all ought to see,” Hedges invited, and went to the wall, circling around the crouching Myron who was trying to clean the mess from his brother’s hair and beard. He stooped down in the same manner as Seward had done earlier. “Take a look. And no cracks about Rhett. There isn’t time. There isn’t time for anything except digging.”
One at a time, the men climbed on to his back and peered out at the scene of the gallows and the seven graves in process of being dug. Forrest was the last man to sink his boot heels in Hedges’ back and see the physical evidence of the threat which hung over them. When he stepped down, he spat again and raked abruptly glinting eyes over the nervous faces.
“Billy ain’t no mole, and neither are any of us. But one way or another we gonna go underground. Reckon Captain Hedges’ way is the best.
“Rebs gonna help?” Hal Douglas wanted to know.
“What do you think?” Forrest asked, glaring at the bearded brothers.
“I reckon they’re gonna help,” Roger Bell supplied.
It was muscle-aching, energy-draining, sweat-pouring work in the evil smelling cell which was almost airless but for the meager trickle which infiltrated the tiny barred window. And grimly slow, for seven prisoners had to squat idly by while two at a time scratched out the tunnel with fragments of concrete and their bare hands. For Floyd and Myron it was nauseating, too. For, urged by the menace in Forrest’s glinting eyes, they had chosen to work together in a team and there was no way to clean all the human excrement from Floyd’s beard and hair: and in a three-feet-square tunnel the air soon grew thick with the overpowering stench of the man.
The shaft had to be sunk four feet deep to reach below the foundation of the wall before the tunnel proper could start. Initially, the two men who were working cursed the earth and each other, applying their energy but not their hearts to the task. But, as their strength ebbed seemingly in direct relation to the inch-by-inch progress made, the bitter words ceased. They worked with one man clawing and scraping at the earth and the other stretched on the floor on his belly, scooping out the displaced soil. The heap against the wall grew gradually larger and after awhile it was high enough for those men who were resting to stand on it and peer through the window.
The seven graves had been dug now and the compound was deserted. The sight of the ominous pits with the evil shape of the gallows nearby inevitably drove the men to work more furiously in the lengthening tunnel. The placid peace of the scene beyond the window, marred only by the quiet sounds of the river, the subdued throb of the sleeping city and the chiming of the distant clock, seemed to enhance the fearful eeriness.
“Somethin’s been botherin’ me, Bob,” Forrest said wearily against the ringing chimes sounding the hour of five o’clock.
Hedges was at the window and he turned to look down into the cell, suddenly aware he could see the men much more clearly than before. Their dirt-heavy clothing, their grimed and sweat-run faces and their bruised and bloodied hands. He had been so intent upon studying the world outside for signs of activity, he had failed to notice the sky lightening towards dawn.
The sergeant was being helped out of the hole by the New Englander who was his working partner.
“What’s that sarge?” The lines of pain and exhaustion were etched deeply into the weak handsomeness of Rhett’s face.
Forrest was approaching the same degree of exhaustion, but he managed to show his tobacco-stained teeth and back the grin with a glint in his eyes. “Who the hell’s this guy Lovelace you figure to be nuts?”
Seward and Scott rose from squatting against the wall and shuffled towards the hole. Rhett’s hollow-eyed, sunken-cheeked face became creased by a frown as he searched his jaded mind.
“Out in the courtyard awhile back,” Hedges recalled for the lanky fag, and curled his lips to show a grin of his own as he sensed the genuineness of Forest’s good humor.
Rhett sank to the floor and rubbed his eyes. “He was a poet. British. Seventeenth century!’ He yawned.
“Nice we ain’t gonna die ignorant,” John Scott rasped scornfully.
“Wrote something like: ‘Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage’,” Rhett quoted wearily.
“Wasn’t just nuts,” Roger Bell groaned. “He was a friggin’ ravin’ lunatic.”
“Not if he was thinkin’ about guys like us,” Forrest answered, stretching out full-length on the floor. “I reckon we’re under the rock and can start goin’ up.”
There was a stretched second of utter silence inside the cell. Every man caught his breath and stared into Forrest’s relaxing face with incredulous awe. Then the first grey light of dawn struck the bared teeth of each Union trooper.
“Yell and you’ll hang!” Hedges rasped to fill the silence a moment before the wild sounds of unleashed excitement could shatter it. “Get down the hole, Billy. And no goofing off.”
“Captain’s right,” Forrest said urgently, his exhaustion falling from him like a garment he had shed as he sat up. “Guards hear party sounds from the death cell they ain’t gonna just think we’re happy to be outta the war.”
It was as if the frustration of being unable to vent their joy was channeled through an emotional-physical reversal to emerge as a burst of renewed energy desperate for release. Douglas and Bell could hardly wait for Seward and Scott to finish their stint in the tunnel. Then Floyd and Myron went to work with a will they had not shown before. Forrest and Rhett replaced the Rebel deserters. Nobody wanted Hedges to spell him and the Captain remained at the window, his impassive ice-blue eyes showing no sign of the anxiety he felt as the sky above the sleeping city grew greyer by the minute.
The compound remained empty, except for a lark which settled on the uppermost cross-strut of the gallows and began to signal the start of the dawn chorus. The far-off clock scared the bird into flight with the chimes of five-thirty. Hedges became aware that, until now, the note of the bell had possessed the quality of a death-knell. But, as the final clang faded into the misty morning, he heard it as an alarm. A crack appeared in the trampled ground three feet to the left of the window, two feet from the wall. Then the fingers of a hand clawed up through the crack. They flexed, as if testing the feel of free, clean air.
Hedges experienced a stab of elation. Almost as powerful as the surge of exhilaration that possessed him at the outset of every battle, swamping his true nature so that he could kill and maim and destroy with all the impunity to conscience of the killer that war had made of him. But in the next instant an ice-cold calm swept over him. A picket gate in the compound’s perimeter fence had opened.
“Hold it!” he snapped over his shoulder. He heard the order repeated along the tunnel. Then he returned his hooded-eyed gaze to the gate.
The bulky figure of the prison governor stepped into the compound. Carefully, the big man closed and latched the gate behind him. For a few mom
ents, he surveyed the enclosed area, then he took a cigar from under his coat and lit it. The fingers withdrew into the crack, like the feelers of some bizarre insect which had sensed danger. The governor began to stroll across the compound. Hedges reached a hand under the long hair at the nape of his neck and drew the razor from its pouch. He tossed the weapon down to Seward who was crouched at the side of the hole.
“One man,” he said. “I’ll say when. Then a count of five before a show.”
Again the order was passed along the tunnel. This time, the razor accompanied it. Floyd and Myron sat huddled in a corner, unable to comprehend the cryptic words which were instantly understood by the troopers: amazed by the coolness of the Union men as they waited in the tense silence for the signal to action. But the Rebels had opted out of the war too early. Had no chance to become molded into a cohesive group under battle conditions. Had not experienced situations in which individual personalities and enmities were subjugated by the need for common, rather than self, preservation. Had never known circumstances when split-second decisions had to be made and instant orders given and obeyed. Had not learned the harsh lessons of a vicious war.
The governor ambled over to the gallows and looked up at the suspended noose. He blew a smoke ring at it but the insubstantial circle of grayness disintegrated long before it reached the rope. Then, with the cigar clamped between his teeth and his hands clasped behind his back, the big man walked along the line of graves, glancing down into each and giving curt nods of satisfaction. Abruptly, he sensed watching eyes and his head snapped up. He looked in many directions before his dark eyes came to rest on the barred window of the cell with Hedges’ face a pale blur beyond. His teeth became bared in a cruel grin around the tight-held cigar and he began to take long strides towards the rear wall of the prison block. He halted about three feet to the left of where a crack in the ground marked the tunnel’s exit point.
“Looks like it’s gonna be a nice mornin’ for a hangin’, soldier boy,” he greeted expansively, snatching the cigar from his mouth and expelling smoke up towards Hedges. Its aromatic scent was a pleasant contrast to the fetid atmosphere filling the cell.
“The pleasure’ll be all yours, feller,” Hedges answered.
The governor shook his head. “Not mine alone, soldier boy. You ain’t no ordinary spies. President intends to make a big event out of this necktie party. Comin’ himself and bringin’ along some guests. Whole bunch of soldier boys’ll be here, too. Hear tell there’s a chance General Robert E. Lee will be present.”
“The best the South has got is nothing less than we deserve,” Hedges said wryly.
“Course,” the governor continued, unbuttoning his topcoat, then clamping the cigar back between his teeth as he worked on his pants’ flies. “Means the show will start a little late. Got to take the fences down so we all get a good view of you guys doing the mid-air dance.”
The governor groped into the front of his pants, then stepped closer to the wall to urinate.
“Not sunrise anymore?” Hedges asked in the same tone as before. Then, against the splash of water on the wall, his voice rose for the single word: “When?”
The word was hissed along the tunnel. Bell and Douglas used their initiative to guard against an eventuality. In unison, they crouched in front of the two Rebels and Floyd and Myron suddenly found filthy hands clamped across their mouths.
The governor laughed harshly around his cigar. “Don’t worry none, soldier boy. You’ll be one of the first to know when the show starts.”
Hedges had a moment of worry when the man at the head of the tunnel burst through the cracked ground and was boosted out by the man behind him. It was Bob Rhett. But in the next instant he had peered through the dirt on the New Englander’s face and recognized the expression it carried. He was scared, certainly—Rhett was constantly in a funk when he was close to the enemy. But he possessed the coward’s natural bent for viciousness when the circumstances allowed. And they were good now. The governor had his back towards Rhett and both hands were busily engaged. Added to this was the fact that Rhett’s victim was no ordinary unknown enemy. The governor had hurt him badly out in the courtyard. So hatred as well as kill-lust contorted the New Englander’s thin features as he side-stepped and then moved forward.
“No last requests?” Hedges asked easily.
Rhett’s timing had been good. He had waited the designated five seconds before breaking clear of the tunnel. He stayed cool, positioning himself perfectly for the kill.
“Ask for anythin’ you like, soldier boy,” the governor invited as he finished peeing. He looked up at the window, eyes glinting with scorn. ‘‘Course, you won’t get a goddamn thing.”
“You’re a hard man, governor,” Hedges rasped, holding his attention.
Rhett had the natural grace of the homosexual. Close to the governor, but not touching him—holding his breath to keep from releasing a warning stream of warm air against the thick neck—he rose on to his toes. He lifted both arms like a ballet dancer at the start of a routine. The fingers of his left hand were splayed and those of his right were clamped around the handle of the razor.
“Flattery won’t earn you anythin’, soldier boy,” the governor rasped, and snatched the cigar from his mouth to bellow with laughter.
But he didn’t have the time. Rhett arched his body forward and swung his arms inwards. Terror replaced humor in the governor’s eyes. Rhett’s left hand fastened over his mouth, the fingers snapping closed. The New Englander pivoted his body slightly to extend the length of his reach over the governor’s right shoulder. Then the hand punched towards the left side of the victim’s neck. The blade of the razor sank an inch into the soft flesh beneath the ear. Then it was ripped in a sideways arc. The governor’s eyes bulged with alarm, then agony. A muffled grunt escaped Rhett’s tightening hand. Blood sprayed from punctured skin, then gouted as the jugular vein was severed. A weary sigh followed the grunt and was the governor’s dying sound. Rhett pulled the razor free below the right ear. He released the dead man and tipped him away with his elbows. The governor splashed his unfeeling face into the pool of his own urine. His blood was like dark smoke clouding the yellow liquid.
Rhett grinned proudly up at Hedges, reaching to hand back the razor. “Did I give that bastard what he deserved,” the New Englander muttered as Forrest snaked out through the hole in the ground and eyed the governor’s body with cold venom.
“He got what he came over for,” Hedges answered as Seward put in an appearance out in the compound. “Wanted a slash.”
Then he stepped down from the heap of earth and wiped the blood from the razor before sliding it back into the pouch and going headfirst into the tunnel behind Bell.
The final traces of night had almost disappeared when Forrest and Douglas gripped him under the armpits and hauled him out of the hole on the other side of the wall. Rhett was searching the governor’s body for weapons. He had to be content with a silver watch. Seward had located the discarded cigar and was drawing against it luxuriously. Bell and Scott were staring at the two Rebels with hard eyes more menacing than gun muzzles would have been. When the hooded gaze of Hedges swung towards them, Floyd and Myron stepped backwards as if driven by a physical force.
“I get an inkling you’re gonna foul us up, you’re dead,” the Captain hissed. “Got it?”
Neither man trusted himself to speak. Both swallowed hard and nodded.
“Let’s move,” Hedges ordered, and set off at a trot. He recalled the last occasion he and his men had been behind enemy lines with unwanted company. It had worked out fine then: but those men had been freed slaves.* (*See—Edge: Vengeance is Black.)
The others fell in behind him in single file, Bell and Scott assuming responsibility for Floyd and Myron, staying close at the heels of the nervous brothers. Hedges led the men along the foot of the wall, then stayed close in to the fence to the water’s edge. There they halted a moment, some casting tense glances up at the roof of the c
ell block, searching for the silhouettes of patrolling guards against the now distinctly grey sky of the new day. None showed.
Hedges eased his head forward to peer around the end of the fence, looking upstream. What he saw caused his lips to crack in a tight grin. A vacant lot spread with garbage rotting among scrub grass, then the high wall of a warehouse at the edge of a dock complex. Tied up at bow and stern alongside the wharf fronting the warehouse was a Rebel ironclad. The ship rose and fell almost imperceptibly. Nothing else moved on water or land.
“We’re out, but a long way from home,” Forrest muttered from immediately behind Hedges.
Freedom had fed the familiar sourness back into the sergeant’s tone and Hedges noted there was no suffix of rank to the remark.
“I ain’t through yet, sergeant” Hedges rasped.
“No, sir” came the response, with a hint of scorn and a grimace to reinforce the point. “What now?”
“River trip should be good for us after being cooped up—like chickens, some of us.”
Forrest’s eyes glinted dangerously at the taunt. But he was no longer in a panic situation. Merely perilous, and that was nothing new. He could control his anger and store it, along with his already generous supply, for future use.
Hedges moved down the bank and into the cold water of the James River. The men followed him. And saw the ship for the first time—grey-painted and ugly looking in the dawn light. The colors of the Confederacy hung limp and unmoving from a short mast at the bow.
Forrest spat and rubbed his punished hands together in keen anticipation as he entered the river.
“How about that, Bob?” Hal Douglas chided as the New Englander stepped tentatively into the chill water. “Maybe you’ll get some naval action. You know what sailors are.”
“Sonofabitch!” Rhett hissed as, like the others, he crouched low so that just his head remained above the surface.
“Don’t get all steamed up at Hal,” Seward muttered with a giggle.
EDGE: Blood Run (Edge series Book 14) Page 5
