[CHAPTER X]
Tom is Hungry—He Learns to "Spoon" by Squads—The Bullet at the Window—Working on the Tunnel—"Rat Hell"—The Risk of the Roll-call—What Happened to Jake Johnson, Confederate Spy—Tom in Libby Prison—Hans Rolf Attends Him—Hans Refuses to Escape—The Flight Through the Tunnel—Free, but How to Stay So?
When the war between the States began, Libby & Son were a thriving firm of merchants in Richmond. They owned a big warehouse, which fronted on Carey Street and extended back over land that sloped down to another street, which occupied all the space between the southern wall of the warehouse and the canal that here bordered the James River. The building was full before the war of that rich Virginia tobacco which Thackeray praises in "The Virginians" and which the worn-out lands of the Old Dominion can no longer produce.
LIBBY PRISON AFTER THE WAR
The prisoners in Libby had painfully little to eat. The whole South was hungry. When Confederate soldiers were starving, Confederate prisoners could not expect to fatten. Nor was this the only evil thing. The prison was indescribably unclean. The cellar and the lower floor, upon which no prisoners were allowed except in the dining-room in the middle of the floor and the hospital, swarmed with huge rats which climbed upstairs at night and nipped mouthfuls of human flesh when they could. There was no furniture. The prisoners slept on the floor, so crowded together that they had to lie spoon fashion in order to lie down at all. They had divided themselves into squads and had chosen commanders. Tom found himself assigned to Squad Number Four. The first night, when he had at last sunk into uncomfortable sleep upon the hard floor, he was awakened by the sharp command of the captain of his group:
"Attention, Squad No. Four! Prepare to spoon! One, two, spoon!"
The squad flopped over, from one weary bruised side to another. It seemed to the worn-out boy that he had just "spooned," when again he waked to hear the queer command and again he flopped. This was a sample of many nights.
On the following morning Tom had one of the narrow escapes of his life. He was leaning against one of the barred windows, looking at the broad valley of the James, when he was suddenly seized violently by the arm and jerked to one side. His arm ached with the vice-like grip that had been laid upon it and his knees, sticking through his torn trousers, had been barked against the floor, as he was dragged back, but he turned to the man who had laid hold of him, not with anger, but with thankfulness. For, at the second he had been seized a bullet had whizzed through the window just where his head had been. If he had not been jerked away, the Chronicles of Tom Strong would have ended then and there.