He continued speaking for more than a minute. At the end, Turner laughed loudly. "First rate! You'll have the release order in an hour. It will be best if you take him out late at night. Fewer people awake then. We'll say he's being removed to General Winder's office for an urgent interrogation."
"That's perfect, sir." Vesey couldn't suppress his glee. "I must tell you this in candor. We will have a small group at the event — my cousin, some of his pals. But I pledge, Warden, every man can be trusted."
"I'm holding you responsible for that," Turner said with a genial smile. "I wish I could go with you. Get in a few licks for me." "Yes, sir. We surely will."
"This is General Winder's office?" After the question, Billy spat, but it only dripped down on the spokes because of the awkward angle of his head.
"Shut your face, Yank," said Clyde Vesey's cousin. He pulled Billy's head back, then pushed it forward against the wheel. The horses pranced and snorted. It was a bright, breezy morning, warm for February. Bare trees soughed along both sides of the deserted, heavily rutted road that ran over a succession of little hills.
Billy was spread-eagled against the spare wheel mounted on the rear of the artillery caisson at an angle of about forty-five degrees. His bare back stippled with goose bumps, he lay with the wheel hub jammed into his gut. Normally, six horses pulled the caisson, but taking so many for this kind of excursion might have caused suspicion, so only two had been harnessed. They could handle it; the caisson had been considerably lightened by removal of the ammunition chests.
While four soldiers watched, Vesey inspected the knots of the ropes holding Billy's wrists and ankles to the fellies of the wheel. His body was vertical though tilted forward by the wheel's angle. After brief scrutiny, Vesey said, "Quarter turn, lads. I hear the trip's even better that way."
Snickering, they put their shoulders to it and with effort turned the wheel on its tight hub mount. Vesey called for extra ropes to secure the wheel in that position. Billy's head was now at three o'clock, his feet at nine.
"Crawford?" Vesey's cousin stepped forward. "To you falls the honor of riding postilion." The oafish fellow eagerly mounted the near horse. Cheeks pink in the winter sunshine, Vesey stepped to one side, where the prisoner could see him.
"Gentlemen, are we ready to commence?" Nods, grins. "Ought we to start by singing a hymn? Better still, maybe we should pray for the soul of one about to depart — whether to the nether regions, where all good Yankees go, or merely to the land of the cripples, it is not ours to know just yet."
Following his cousin's example, he seized Billy's hair, yanking his head far back, till he saw Billy grimace. Vesey bent to within three inches of Billy's face.
"One thing sure, boy. You'll never forget the ride."
Billy poked his tongue out between cracked lips and blew spit. This time he didn't miss.
Vesey slammed his head against the spoke, then ran around to the near horse. "Two miles down the road and back, Crawford." He whipped off his cap and lashed the horse, spooking it to greater effort with a long rebel yell that wailed against the noise of the caisson gathering speed.
No matter how determined Billy was, no matter how he braced himself, his body was yanked away from the hub, then hurled back against it as the caisson went over each hump in the road. Being tied horizontally created disorientation; his left eye saw the sky, his right the brown road flying by beneath.
Vesey's cousin whipped the team. "Come on, you nags, do your duty!" Billy's face mashed into a spoke. The inside of his cheek split. Blood began to fill his mouth. A bruise appeared on his temple as it repeatedly hit the wheel. Vesey had known exactly how loosely to tie him, the bastard.
He got a little relief when the team slowed to turn around. But he had been bashed so hard, jerked so violently, that starting up again was twice as bad. His head buzzed. He had a feeling they would break half his bones at least. His emotional control started to slip. He pictured Brett's face. That helped. The return trip seemed to last much longer. Billy sailed beneath a few winter clouds, watching them expand, shrink, blur. Blood ran from the lower corner of his mouth. Pain spread from his belly, hit repeatedly by the hub, to skull and toes. The caisson slowed, then, mercifully, stopped.
"Well, cousin, what d'ye think?" asked Crawford, scratching himself. Vesey strutted back and forth where his victim could see him. "Oh, I think he's enjoying himself too much. I see not the slightest sign of repentance for his heathenish behavior. Let's untie him and turn him over with his back next to the hub. And, Crawford, this time go all the way to the covered bridge before you turn. That's at least a mile more each way." So it started again, Crawford driving up the road as if charging to battle. Billy's middle jackknifed out, then back, the hub battering his spine. Wind-whipped blood trailed away from his upper lip, stringing out behind his head like periods in the air. Finally, ashamed but powerless to stop, he cried out. And blacked out.
The doctor, a sixty-year-old hack, heavy tippler, and native Virginian, happened to despise the young warden of Libby Prison.
He stomped into Turner's office late next day, informing him that prisoners from the third floor had brought him a man, one Hazard, whose body was cruelly battered. A man who could not stand, or speak coherently; a man lying this moment on a cot in the surgery, his life in the balance.
"His back isn't broken, but it's no thanks to whoever beat him."
"Just return that Yank to decent health, and I'll root out the person or persons who did it and discipline them," Turner promised, voice tremoring. "However, Dr. Arnold, we may find it was an accident. A slip on the stairs, a tumble — some of the prisoners get pretty weak, and there isn't much I can do about it. Yes, sir, I'll wager an accidental fall is the answer."
"If you believe that, you're even stupider than I thought. He could have fallen out of one of those reconnaissance balloons and not be hurt this badly." The doctor laid his hands on the desk and pushed his plum nose toward the warden. "You'd better remember one fact, youngster. We may be at war, but we are not on the staff of the Grand Inquisitor of Spain. These are Americans locked up in this building — and Southern honor still stands for something. Find the culprit or I'll go to President Davis personally. I'll see you cashiered."
That might have been the outcome, except for the commotion caused by the great escape.
The escape took place on the ninth of February. A Pennsylvania colonel named Rose had climbed down a prison chimney and discovered an abandoned room in the cellar. There, he and others worked in shifts for several days to tunnel under the wall of the old warehouse. The tunnel they dug was almost sixty feet long. They broke ground and ran, a hundred and nine of them.
Libby was thrown into an uproar, Turner into dire trouble. Special inspectors from Winder's office prowled the area at unexpected hours of the day and night, spying on prisoners for signs of suspicious behavior and insuring that the general's order to double the number of guards on duty had been carried out. Turner, meantime, desperately wrote reports to shift blame for the escape and save himself from charges. All the while, Billy lay on the cot in the surgery, too deep in pain to remember he had been invited to join the escape.
Tim Wann visited at least twice a day. Asked questions of Dr. Arnold, one more than others: "Who did it, Doctor?"
"I can't find out. I've tried like hell, but the guards in this place are a foul breed. They protect one another."
Tim suspected he knew the ringleader. He said, "Someone carried him off in the middle of the night. I was asleep — I never woke up." Pale with guilt, the Massachusetts boy looked at the puffed, discolored face on the thin gray pillow. Even sleeping, Billy occasionally winced in pain.