The Sapphire Brooch Katherine Logan (best beach reads TXT) 📖

“The mayor announced to the city council—”

“The government’s leavin’—”

“Two militia companies are staying to protect the city—”

The sergeant spat again. This time he hit the spittoon. “Doubt they’ll be able to protect the city from looters. Nobody wants to stay. Don’t blame ’em none.”

The buzz of activity surrounding the sergeant’s desk continued. He gave the red-haired private a dismissing wave. “Whatever the major needs, see he gets it.”

The private pointed down a hallway. “This way, sir.”

When they reached the end, he pushed opened a door. A guard leaning haphazardly on the back legs of a chair, dropped his feet, jumped to attention, and saluted. Charlotte gagged at the filth and fetid smell in the room.

“We’re evacuating,” the private said.

The guard’s eyes widened. “When?”

“Tonight.” The private swung his head, doing a sweep of the room, his eyes darting quickly from one row of prisoners to another. “The doctor’s here to count the patients who can’t walk.”

“Got several. Where we takin’ ’em?” the guard asked.

Charlotte continued breathing through her mouth, avoiding the man’s sweet-sour odor. “South.”

“By train?” the private asked.

She shook her head. “No trains. No wagons. No ambulances. Those who can’t walk get left behind.”

The bare rafters supporting the floor above creaked as soldiers moved around upstairs. Sturdy bars covered open windows, leaving the prisoners exposed to weather and temperature extremes. Dark splotches covered the dank prison walls. She hated to guess what caused them. Even the naked posts and beams were splattered with stains. Although she couldn’t see the ticks, fleas, and rats, she knew they skirted the room, spreading disease. Even thinking about the vermin made her scalp itch.

The floor was slick with slime, and wet as well. Patients lay moaning on straw mats on the floor. Several patients, lying in their own filth, had pustulant sores. Others had wounds wrapped in old, bloody bandages. All the semi-naked men appeared emaciated. Those who were aware enough to notice her arrival tracked her movements with vacant eyes.

Man’s inhumanity to man. Robbie Burns got it right. But her favorite verse on inhumanity was from Alan Paton: There is only one way in which one can endure man’s inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one’s own life, to exemplify man’s humanity to man. Her grandfather had taught her the verse, and it had probably been largely responsible for her decision to go to medical school instead of law school.

But right now, she had to endure man’s inhumanity. “I’ll start at the far end and work my way back here.” She needed a minute or two to compose herself, to shut down feelings, and turn off her emotions. Her cane thudded rhythmically against the floor as she shuffled down the long line of straw mats.

Her mind flashed to Lincoln’s most prominent feature—the perpetual look of sadness. He’d been to the battlefields, he’d read the prison reports. No wonder he was so burdened with sorrow. She doubted she’d ever make it through a day in the future without having flashes of these men who’d been treated like rubbish.

When she reached the end of the row, she knelt beside the first patient. If he had been dead for a week, he couldn’t have smelled worse. No bath in months, a bloody bandage around his leg. She didn’t need to remove it to know the tissue beneath was gangrenous. He was a shell of a man with sunken eyes and a cachectic body.

“What’s your name, soldier?” she asked.

His eyelashes fluttered and, after some effort, he opened his eyes and said in a weak voice, “Private Jeff Dougherty.”

“What hurts?”

“Not much don’t hurt, sir. I want to go home.”

She clasped a very dirty hand, but he barely had the strength to squeeze her fingers. “Just a few more hours,” she said. “Can you hang on?”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

“How old are you, soldier?”

He didn’t change his pained expression, but something nameless passed between them. “Sixteen on my last birthday.”

He was merely a boy who would never grow to manhood.

As she moved to the next soldier and the next, finding cases of dysentery, pneumonia, malnutrition, and infection, she no longer saw the filth or smelled the vile air, or cringed at the despair and inhumanity. Good God, their clothes were holding their bones together. She only saw dying men who wanted and needed comfort in their final hours. Saving them was impossible. No medicine. No decent food. No clean clothes or bandages. No one to provide care, fresh straw, or untainted water. None of these prisoners could walk on his own. Most would be dead in twenty-four hours. Even if there was a way to take them all home with her, it was too late. The regret would linger in her heart for a long time.

A lost generation.

Getting a message to Braham seemed hopeless now. With a deep breath of the fetid air, she made a decision. She’d have to find the dungeon and do it quickly. Jack had threatened to come after her if she didn’t return within the hour. He might have already dipped into the flask he’d filled before he left the Van Lews’. The liquor was not for him, he had assured Charlotte, but for nervous guards. He’d better have some left. By the time she got out of Castle Thunder, she’d need a stiff drink.

When she was in high school, if she didn’t call him exactly when she was supposed to, Jack would come looking for her and embarrass her so badly she wouldn’t speak to him for days. If he came barging into the prison, embarrassment would be the least of their problems.

“Are these prisoners going or staying, sir?” the private asked.

“Not one of these men can walk, and I doubt many will survive the night. Are there any other sick or wounded?”

“All the sick ones are down here. The prisoners upstairs can walk.”

“What about the prisoners in the dungeon or solitary confinement cells? What shape are they in?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Don’t know.”

“My orders are clear. Count