Crazy Betsy, then chatted with her for a bit about matters of no consequence. Crazy Betsy was a tiny, tense, blue- eyed woman, about forty, addressed formally as Miss Van Lew. Boys loitering outside the building shrieked 'witch!' when she entered. Occasionally they threw stones at her. But that didn't deter frequent visits, and the authorities allowed her the run of Libby because she was a lifetime resident of Church Hill and helped keep the inmates pacified with her little gifts.
You did everything possible to avoid depressive thoughts of your situation. You played checkers. Swapped combat stories. Learned French or musical theory in one of the informal classes taught by prisoners. If you had spare paper, you scribbled out an item for the
Above all, if you were Billy Hazard, you avoided contact with Corporal Clyde Vesey.
Throughout the early weeks of Billy's imprisonment, that wasn't hard. Vesey was still posted on the ground floor, where he continued to receive new prisoners and maintain records of those already inside. One night right after Christmas, however, in the freezing room where Billy was trying to sleep amid the restless men around him, Vesey appeared, specterlike, carrying a lantern.
'There you are, Hazard,' said he, smiling. 'I was anxious to find you and tell you I've been transferred up here, nights. It means half again as much in wages. It also means I shall be able to give you the attention you deserve.'
Billy coughed into his fist; he had caught a cold. After the spasm, he said, 'Wonderful news. I'll treasure each and every golden moment in your presence, Vesey.'
Still sweetly smiling, Vesey glanced at the hand with which Billy braced himself on his bit of floor while he spoke. Quickly Vesey shifted and stepped on the hand with his hobnailed boot.
'I'll have none of your arrogant college ways while I'm on duty.' He put more weight on Billy's hand. 'Clear, sir?'
Billy clenched his teeth and squinted. Tears filled the corners of his eyes, and a little line of blood ran from under the sole of Vesey's boot. 'You son of a bitch,' Billy whispered. Fortunately Vesey was talking again.
'What? Do I see the brave Yankee weeping? Excellent. Excellent!' He twisted his boot back and forth. Billy couldn't hold back a low, choked sound. Vesey raised his boot, and Billy saw the gashes, the blood shining in the lantern light. 'I must go on my rounds. But I shall be back often from now on. We shall have regular lessons in humility, until you learn your proper station. Lower than the lowest nigger. Good evening, Hazard.'
And off he went, humming a hymn.
Billy blinked several times, tore a piece from his ragged shirt, and wrapped his bleeding hand. He sneezed twice. Men lay on either side of him and at his head and foot. He was certain they must be awake, but not one had stirred during Vesey's visit. He didn't blame them. He wasn't sure he would risk his own chances of survival just to defend some other prisoner unlucky enough to draw a guard's wrath.
By early January Billy's hand was infected and his cold much worse. Vesey sought him out at least once every night to abuse him verbally or force him to march up and down the prison staircase for two hours, or stand in a comer on tiptoe while Vesey sat on a stool, a bayonet on his musket and the steel tip held half an inch from Billy's trembling back.
'Confess,' Vesey would croon to him, smiling. 'By now you must be cognizant of your inferiority. Your heathen nature. Your wrong thinking. Confess that you admire President Davis and consider General Lee the greatest soldier in Christendom.'
Billy's legs shook. His toes felt broken. He said, 'Fuck you.'
Vesey tore Billy's shirt and raked his back once with the bayonet. Luckily the wound didn't fester as his hand had; the hand was all yellow and brown with pus and scabs. 'We shall continue this,' Vesey promised as his duty sergeant came looking for him. 'Be assured of it, heathen.'
Billy's attitude about helping other prisoners soon underwent a change. Eight new men arrived in the top- floor room to occupy the space of a captain who had died in his sleep. One of the newcomers, a sallow, curly-haired youth with a high forehead, found space next to Billy. The newcomer's name was Timothy Wann. He had enlisted at the end of his freshman year at Harvard and been brevetted to second lieutenant after three others holding that rank in his unit were killed one by one.
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
