On Wann's second night in Libby, officers from another room conducted a rat raid. Billy woke out of his usual light sleep to see three bearded men carrying the Massachusetts boy toward the communal washroom. A fourth soldier, unbuckling Wann's belt, said, "Skinny little ass on this chicken. But it'll serve."
Billy knew such things went on, though he had never been threatened or been a witness. But he couldn't tolerate such treatment for a young officer who was really just a schoolboy. He wiped his dripping nose, staggered to his feet, and wove his way through dozing prisoners till he caught up with the quartet carrying the round-eyed, terrified Wann.
"Let him go," Billy said. "You can do that in your own room if you must, but not in here."
The gray-haired man who had unbuckled Wann's belt pulled it loose and stroked it, scowling. "Got some claim on this youngster, have you? Is he your pet bird?"
Billy reached out, intending to pull Wann off the shoulders of the three carrying him like a side of beef. The other soldier stepped back for room, then whipped Billy's cheek with the belt.
Sick as he felt — a fever had been on him for the past twenty-four hours — he found strength in his anger. He ripped the belt away from the older man, grasped both ends, looped it over the soldier's head, and crossed his hands. The soldier gagged. Billy pulled harder.
The friends of the strangling man let Wann fall to the floor. "Get back to your place," Billy said to Tim as one of the raiders punched him. In the corridor, he spied a lantern.
"What's the commotion? What's happening in there?"
Vesey appeared, lantern held high, side arm in his other hand. Billy released one end of the belt. The gray-haired officer stepped away, rubbing his red throat. "This crazy loon attacked me. Started to choke me to death — just 'cause we were in here speaking to friends and he said we disturbed his sleep."
"Your accusation doesn't surprise me, sir," Vesey replied with a sympathetic nod. "This officer is a violent man. Constantly provoking trouble. I shall take him in hand. The rest of you go back to your quarters."
"Yessir," two of the raiders muttered. None wasted any time leaving.
"What are we to do with you, Hazard?" Vesey managed to speak, sigh, and smile at the same time. "My lessons up here have failed to bring an end to this constant rebellion. Perhaps one conducted in the fresh air would be more effective."
"I want my shoes if we're going out —"
"March," Vesey said, yanking his collar. Billy had a glimpse of heads raised here and there in the room. Then they sank down again, and he wondered why he had been so stupid as to help Tim. The young prisoner started to get up. Billy shook his head and walked out of the room ahead of Vesey.
On the river side of the building, Vesey handed his lantern to the guard at the door, then prodded Billy down the steps and pushed him to his knees. Vesey proceeded to lash Billy's wrists and ankles together behind his back, pulling the ropes steadily tighter until Billy's shoulders bowed with strain. In a matter of seconds, his leg muscles were aching.
Light rain began to fall. Vesey shoved a foul-smelling gag in Billy's mouth and secured it with a second rag tied around his head. While he worked, Vesey hummed "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."
By the time Vesey was finished, the rain was falling hard. Cold rain, freezing rain, Billy realized. He sneezed. Corporal Vesey ran back up to the shelter of the doorway.
"I shall return as soon as I find my overcoat, Hazard. It's nippy out here, but I must watch you undergo your punishment for a while. If we can't break your spirit, perhaps we can break your spine."
That night, miles away in Charleston, Judith said, "I don't understand you any longer, Cooper."
He frowned from the other end of the dining table. Wearing a loose silk shirt, he hunched forward in his customary tense posture. His untouched plate had been pushed aside.
"If this is another of your complaints about my failure to perform my husbandly duties —"
"No, blast you." Her eyes glistened, but she fought herself back to control. "I know you're tired all the time — although it would be nice if you treated me like a wife at least occasionally. That was not the reason I said what I did, however."
A breeze from the walled garden fluttered the candles and played with the curtains of the open French windows. "Then it's the test," Cooper said suddenly. "Damn Lucius for drinking too much claret."
"Don't blame poor Lucius. You invited him again this evening. You poured all that wine. For him and for yourself as well."
He answered that with unintelligible sounds. Out of sight in the parlor, Marie-Louise began to play "The Bonnie Blue Flag" on the pianoforte. At Judith's urging, she had taken the Mains' frequent guest into the other room after he inadvertently blurted a remark about the test now scheduled for Monday of next week. Cooper had withheld all mention of it from Judith, hoping to avoid tiresome reactions — bathetic tears, moralizing — which would in turn require him to waste energy dealing with them.
Looking hostile, he asked, "What did you mean about not understanding me?"
"The sentence was plain English. Is it so difficult to decipher? You're not the man I married. Not even the man with whom I went to England."
His face seemed to jerk with a spastic fury. He locked his hands together, elbows pressing the table so hard it creaked. "And I remind you that this is no longer the world in which either of those events occurred. The Confederacy is in desperate straits. Desperate measures are required. It's my duty to involve myself in this test. My duty. If you lack the wit to appreciate that or the courage to endure it, you're not the woman I married, either."
"Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern rights — hurrah!" sang the adolescent girl and the guest in the parlor. "Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star!"
Judith brushed back the dark blond curls on her forehead. "Oh," she said, with a small bitter twist to her mouth, "how you misunderstand. It isn't the risk to yourself that's upsetting me now, though God knows that kind of upset has become a constant of life here. I object to the callous way you've pushed this infernal fish-boat project. I object to your insistence on another test. I object to your forcing seven innocent men to submerge that iron coffin once more because you think it must be done. There was a time when you hated this war with all your soul. Now, you've become some — some barbarian I don't even recognize."
Icy, he asked, "Are you finished?"
"I am not. Cancel the test. Don't gamble with human lives to fulfill your own warped purpose."
"So now my purpose is warped, is it?"
"Yes." She struck the table.
"Patriotism is warped, is it? Defending my native state is warped? Or preventing this city from being burned and leveled? That's what the Yankees want, you know — nothing left of Charleston but rubble. That's what they want," he shouted.
"I don't care — I don't care!" She was on her feet, weeping. The patriotic anthem had ended in mid-phrase. "You are not the sole savior of the Confederacy, despite your attempt to act like it. Well, go ahead, kill yourself in your holy cause if you want. But it's hateful and immoral of you to demand that other lives be sacrificed to appease your anger. The old Cooper would have understood. The Cooper I loved — I loved so very —"
The broken words faded into silence. Out in the garden, palmetto fronds rattled in the wind. Like some long snake uncoiling, Cooper rose from his chair. His face blank, he said, "The test will proceed as scheduled."