He folded the letter and put it, with the billfold and remaining sheet of writing paper, back into his pocket. He measured the pencil stub between his thumb and forefinger, and shook his head. He slipped it into his pocket.
He got up from the floor and looked out the window again, this time with unseeing eyes. He turned from the window and paced along the wall and back again. Now that the letter was finished he was tortured by a feeling of suffocation. He wanted to send it on its way right now, or better still, deliver it himself.
CHAPTER TEN
As Tim finished his game with Red they heard the familiar rattle of keys and the sound of the lower door. “There’s Bull Head,” said Red, “coming to take us to the yard.” Tim swept the chessmen off the board and set them on the mantle.
They had been in the jail for nearly five months now. After a week or so they had been joined by the officers captured in the second attempt to take Fort Wagner. This room where they had first been imprisoned wasn’t used for sleeping now. The Army prisoners had been given the run of the second floor, and this had been kept as a sort of common room.
They had thought of escape almost constantly, but they hadn’t found a plan that was good enough. If they worked together they might overpower the guards, but the hue and cry would come too soon. Some might escape but some would surely lose their lives. Prisoners went outside under guard every day, but they were carefully watched. An open wagon came into the yard several times a week bringing food, but it went out empty. There was no place to hide on the wagon.
Shortly after the arrival of his prisoners Captain Senn had realized that their stay was to be an extended one, and he’d had double-decker bunk beds installed in the cells along the corridor. The beds were furnished with straw mattresses and one rough woolen blanket each, supplied by some kindhearted women of Columbia.
For a time the floor above the Army officers had been occupied by Army privates, but these men had been sent to Belle Island prison to suffer through the winter in the open air. Now the second floor was occupied by Navy men captured in Admiral Dahlgren’s unsuccessful attempt to land an assaulting force at Sumter.
Corporal Addison appeared at the top of the stairs, his holstered pistol bumping foolishly against the curve of his stomach. Another guard stood behind Addison, his bayonet glistening in the gloom. “Fall in,” Addison said. “Time to take you to the yard.”
He might have saved himself the trouble of giving the command. Most of the men already waited in line and now they filed along the corridor, talking to each other in quiet tones.