Out of Hell

By Lincoln Reed

“We’re clear of the stockade. Twenty yards or so.” Corporal Tiller’s sullied head emerged from the hole, poking into the shade of the primitive lean-to. “I reckon we run like hell, we can reach a river by dawn. Lord willing.”

Lieutenant Roland Chadwick helped the Union soldier from the tunnel’s entrance. Tiller nodded his thanks, rubbed grime from his teeth, and spat. “Well, Lieutenant, what d’you think? Ain’t going to have another nighttime moon for a month.”

Flies buzzed and mosquitoes danced. Within the hovel, five emaciated figures crouched next to Chadwick, awaiting his reply—men of twenty, thirty, and forty summers, the youngest of whom was a drummer boy of twelve. The lieutenant studied their bony faces, inhaled their stench, and listened to their weak breaths. Would any of them outrun the guards?

Each Union soldier inside the shanty understood what would happen if he was caught. Confederate Commandant Henry Wirz would have them barred in the stocks for days. They could be hanged or beaten.

Even so, to dig was to live.

A sharpshooter from an Ohio regiment, Chadwick understood the value of a calculated shot. After months of tunneling in secret, he suspected tonight would prove to be the group’s best chance of escape. Otherwise, word of the passageway might leak. Someone would betray them for a piece of bread.

No, tonight was the night. Either they’d be free… or they’d die trying.

With hunger pangs stabbing his ribs, the lieutenant considered his words, fished into his pocket, and placed a scrap of crust in the drummer boy’s palm. In Camp Sumter, bread was like gold, and the boy chewed slowly.

Chadwick considered the gray-coated sentinels atop the fifteen-foot stockade walls. “Rebs in the pigeon roosts will rotate soon. Best get to it.”

After midnight, the camp’s rancid smell dissipated into fresh earth as Chadwick’s bony fingers dug through the soil, his elbows wedging forward inch by inch. In the tunnel behind, his men crawled like slugs toward freedom. One after the other, each prisoner crested the grassy earth beyond the walls and shuffled toward the woods, their malnourished legs clicking forward like sticks churning invisible butter. Without a word spoken, they entered the tree line and disappeared into the darkness.

Chadwick stayed behind.

He painted his face with mud, dug himself into the debris, and waited. Within the hour, when a Confederate guard stumbled upon the tunnel’s exit, Chadwick pounced.

The man yelled. Struggled. Punched and fought.

Chadwick snatched the guard’s knife just as a bugle sounded the alarm.

“Loose the hounds!”

Sergeant Hayden DuPont mounted his horse and led the charge toward the forest. Gray-coated soldiers hustled behind. Bayonets gleamed and torches shimmered. The search dogs leapt ahead with their handlers. A single howl bellowed, followed by another.

Didn’t get far. They never do.

Sweat dribbled from the sergeant’s bearded chin as his steed slowed to a stop within the woods. He dismounted and strode to the spot where the dogs had discovered one of his own men with muddy Yankee rags thrown upon him. Bart was lying against a tree, his throat cut. DuPont inspected the corpse.

Where’s his uniform? His rifle?

A muffled wail reverberated to DuPont’s left. He and his troops whirled. Listened. The flash of a muzzle. The crack of a gunshot. The guard next to DuPont toppled.

The stolen rifle? Or, could it be a scout from Sherman’s army? How many Yankees were there?

The sergeant crouched behind a log and ordered his men to return fire. The guards obeyed, shooting blindly into the dark woodland. When the reverberations faded, DuPont exhaled. His heart drummed.

Somewhere to his left, two men scuffled. Bayonets clashed and another Confederate guard dropped. A shadow disappeared behind a tree, flitting from trunk to trunk like a wraith.

It’s just one man?

DuPont cocked the hammer on his revolver, squinted, and aimed at the figure running through the forest. Dogs growled. More enemy shots rang out. Another Confederate fell.

With dawn approaching, DuPont ordered a retreat, but only two of the ten original posse joined the sergeant outside the tree line. One held a torch, the other a boy in a blue uniform whose grimy face was twisted as if holding back tears.

DuPont took hold of the small drummer boy and shouted toward the forest. “Can you hear me, Yankee?” He lowered a knife to the captive’s neck. “You have ten seconds. Throw down your rifle. Come forward. Hands up.”

Crack!

A bullet whistled and Dupont’s hat jumped off his head. The sergeant flinched. Cursed. The knife pressed firmer against the boy’s neck.

“Yankee, hear me! Surrender… or the boy dies!”

The sergeant held his breath. The boy shivered. Crows cawed.

A figure appeared from the forest dressed in a gray coat, hands empty and raised. He walked like a skeleton; he was so thin. When he was close enough, the two guards delivered blows upon his head and stripped him of the stolen uniform.

The hangman’s cord went taut.

Seconds later, DuPont’s saber whooshed.

The rope broke and Chadwick fell to the wooden floor of the gallows. The twine gnawed at his neck.

Standing above, Commandant Henry Wirz smirked. “You thought you’d leave this place? Death by hanging? No, no. Too quick. I’ve changed my mind. This prison… it is your hell—one you will never escape. Slow death is better. You will starve. That is your fate.”

Within a neighboring hovel, the drummer boy helped ease Chadwick’s head onto a pillow of soiled uniforms. He raised a tin cup of dirtied water to the lieutenant’s lips.

“Think Tiller and them got away?” the boy asked.

Chadwick blinked, his throat too sore to talk or swallow. The lean-to’s ceiling of tattered shirts and torn canvas failed to quench the Georgia sun.

“What now? DuPont’s men found the tunnel. Caved it.”

The lieutenant grimaced, shifted on his side, and used the cup to scoop dirt.

We dig.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lincoln Reed is a professor, writer, and editor. He holds a BA in film and media production from Taylor University and an MFA in creative writing from Miami University of Ohio. More than a dozen of his short stories are featured in online publications and print anthologies.

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