Vesey said to him: "Oh, I wouldn't interfere. It'll go hard with you later."
Billy hesitated, then stepped back to his place. The search went on. Billy's mouth grew dry as the corporal moved along the second row. He bent to rummage through the clothing piled beside Billy's bare feet.
"What's this?" Vesey said, pleased. From Billy's jacket he pulled the copybook.
"That's my journal," Billy said. "It's personal."
Vesey stood and slowly waved the copybook an inch from Billy's nose. "Nothing is personal in Libby unless we declare it so. This is a book. Regular churchgoing has taught me to distrust books, especially novels, and all those who read them. It's my Christian duty not merely to hold you men as prisoners, but to reform your errant ways. 'I will take you from among the heathen,' says the prophet Ezekiel. That's just what you Yankees are, heathen. Here's a fine example. You will just have to get along without your godless books."
He's mad, Billy thought, filled with dread. "Murch?" Vesey flung the copybook to the other soldier, who caught and pocketed it. After a fleeting smile at Billy, Vesey stepped to the next man.
The search continued. Billy's legs started to ache. Finally Vesey finished and returned to the front, hands locked at the small of his back again. At last we can get out of here and sit down, Billy thought.
"It is now my duty and privilege to give you gentlemen some moral instruction." Vesey spread his feet, planting them solidly. One officer swore. Vesey glared. The artilleryman was still weeping softly. "The instruction concerns your status in this prison. As I said to the man with the concealed copybook, we don't consider you merely enemies; we consider you heathen. You —" he lunged forward suddenly, grabbing the fat artilleryman by the hair "— pay attention when I speak." He twisted the hair. The captain's flabby white breasts shook as he struggled to control his sobbing. Breathing loudly through his open mouth, Vesey stepped back, his clean pink face stiff with anger.
"Each of you mark this well. You are no longer officers. You are no longer gentlemen. Your status here is that of a nigger. No, I'm too generous. You are lower than niggers, and you will learn to feel that — sleep and eat that — breathe that every minute you are in my care. Now —"
A long inhalation. Then he smiled.
"Show me that you understand what I just told you. Show me what you are. Get down on your knees."
"What the hell —?" Billy growled. Behind him, another officer said, "You fucking reb ape —"
"Murch?" Vesey gestured. Using his side arm, the private hit the outspoken officer in the back of the head. The man staggered. A second blow laid him on his side, barely conscious.
Vesey smiled again. "I said," he murmured, "kneel down. Heathen niggers. Kneel — down."
The artillery captain dropped first, panting. Someone cursed him. Vesey dashed to the third row and hit the offender, then seized his shoulder and forced him to his knees. Anxious looks flashed between the prisoners, tired men who wanted to save themselves from this lunatic. Slowly, one by one, they knelt, until just three naked officers remained standing. Vesey studied the trio and walked to the nearest — Billy.
"Kneel down," Vesey purred, smiling broadly and fixing him with those October eyes.
Heart hammering, Billy said, "I demand that this group of prisoners be treated according to the rules of war. The rules your superior surely understands even if you do no —"
He saw the hand flying toward his face, tried to jerk aside but was slowed by his fatigue. The open-handed blow hurt more than he anticipated. He lurched sideways, almost fell.
"I told you before. There are no rules here but the ones I make. Get down."
He dug immaculate fingernails into Billy's bare shoulder. "Jesus," Billy said, tears in his eyes. Vesey's nails broke skin; blood oozed as he dug deeper.
"Now you blaspheme. Get down!"
Wanting to stay on his feet, Billy felt his legs giving out. His head began to vibrate like some faulty part in a machine. He clenched his teeth, resisting the steady downward pressure —
Unexpectedly, Vesey pulled. The shift unbalanced Billy, and he tumbled over, knees whacking the floor, bare palms skidding along it; a long splinter drove into his right hand.
He raised his head and saw the corporal turn away. "Murch?"
"Sir?"
"What's his name?"
"Hazard. William Hazard. Engineers."
"Thank you. I want to be certain to remember that," Vesey said through lips so tight with rage they had lost all color.
His eyes shifted to the two other officers still standing. First one, then the other, knelt down. "Good," Vesey said.
Billy scrambled up on his haunches. Blood leaked along his forearm from the wounds left by Vesey's nails. He watched the bright October eyes return to him again, marking him.
That day, just at five, the wind strengthened, the sky blackened, the heat broke under an assault of raging rain, pelting hail, thunder loud as massed field guns. Orry started across the capitol rotunda as the storm burst, and, with no gas jets lit as yet, found himself in near-darkness. He blundered into another officer, stepped back, astonished.
"George? I didn't know you were in Richmond."
"Yes," said his old friend Pickett in a peculiar, detached voice. Pickett's long hair was uncombed, his eyes ringed by shadows. "Yes, for a while — I'm temporarily detached. Good to see you. We must get together," he said over his shoulder as he hurried into the dark. Thunder tremors vibrated the marble floor.
He didn't recognize me. What's wrong with him?
But Orry thought he knew. He had heard the stories. Once so courtly and light-hearted, Pickett had gone up Cemetery Hill, leading his boys to a slaughter. He had come down a ruined and a haunted man. Orry stood motionless in the center of the rotunda. The whole building shook, as if the elements wanted to tear it apart.
On the same day, in Washington, George received a bedraggled envelope forwarded by means of a three-cent stamp added at Lehigh Station. So far as he could tell, the envelope bore no other franking. Curious. He opened it, unfolded the letter, saw the signature, and whooped.
Not only was Orry in Richmond, he was with Madeline, who was now his wife. George shook his head in amazement as he read on through the letter obviously sent to Pennsylvania by illegal courier. Fate had ironically shunted the two friends along similar paths. Like George, he could barely tolerate most of his war department duties.
In spite of the letter's tone of melancholy, it brought a smile whenever George read it. And he read it, aloud to Constance and silently to himself, many times before he put it away with his permanent keepsakes.
None of the drinkers in the hotel bar laughed; few raised their voices above a mutter. What was there to be cheerful about? Not even the weather. The heat wave had broken, but relief had come with a storm so fierce it sounded as if it might level all of Richmond.
Trying to shut out the voices of discontent all around him, Lamar Powell worked on a draft of a letter to the foreman of the Mexican Mine. He had chosen a table in a back corner for privacy and was writing to advise the mine foreman that sometime within the next twelve months he would personally appear at the site to take charge.
When he was satisfied with the wording, he began to consider ways to get the letter out of the Confederacy He distrusted the illegal mail couriers who operated between here and Washington; they were a duplicitous lot, sometimes dumping a pouch of letters into some gully or creek and disappearing with their meager profits. Still, they represented the fastest and most direct means of sending mail across enemy lines. Perhaps he should use a courier but send a copy of the letter by another route. To Bermuda, via Wilmington. That way —