Let There Be Light (21 page)

Toomey looked up at him, eyes wide. “No.”

“Well, he did. And it was Sergeant Tyler who talked him out of it.”

“You don’t say?”

“I
do
say.”

“Hmpf. Well, whattya know?”

“So you see, he saved your life.”

Toomey chuckled dryly. “Yeah. For his own glory. It just made him look good to Captain Wirz.”

Clay Holden laid hold on Toomey’s arm with a tight grip and pulled him to a stop. Joel Stevens took hold of Toomey’s other arm.

“Tell me, Toomey—why do you hate Sergeant Tyler?” asked Holden.

“I’ve got my reasons.”

“Let’s hear them.”

“All right. First of all, I despise these hypocritical born-again Christians who think they’re better than everybody else.”

“Well, I’m one of those born-again Christians and so is Corporal Stevens. We don’t think we’re better than anybody else. We’re simply sinners saved by the grace of God. And we know for a fact that this is also Sergeant Tyler’s way of thinking. We are his closest friends, and we know him well.”

Toomey sneered and shook his head. “Well, there’s plenty more reasons to hate him.”

“Like what?”

“The countless times he’s had me disciplined for no reason at all.”

Holden looked at him incredulously. “You’re either a liar, or you’ve lost your mind.”

“We happen to know that every time Sergeant Tyler had you disciplined, it was because you were guilty of breaking Captain Wirz’s rules,” said Stevens.

Holden nodded. “Sergeant Tyler was only doing his duty to see that you were disciplined for it. He would be wrong not to.”

Toomey bit his tongue. Having just learned that Wirz had actually ordered his execution by a firing squad had put the fear into him. If he spouted off at Holden and Stevens, it would get to Wirz’s ears. He would say no more.

The corporals delivered Toomey to his area and walked away.

In Toomey’s heart, wrath toward Tyler was growing. Tyler could have overlooked his breaking of the rules, but he didn’t. He saw to it that he was disciplined. The pious hypocrite.

Keith Lewis and Todd Zediker went to Toomey and asked him what Wirz wanted to see him about. He told them, then said it had only served to make him hate Tyler the more. Someday when the War was over, he would find Tyler and get even with him.

“Well, a lot of things will get settled when this war is over,” said Zediker.

Toomey glanced toward Captain William Linden’s tent, where the captain was talking to two of his men. “Maybe I’ll get to settle it with Linden even before the War is over. I wouldn’t be facin’ Tyler’s schemes to get me punished, or Wirz’s threats, or the rest of these Rebel beasts in this pig sty if Linden had listened to me that day outside of Rome. My little brother wouldn’t be dead, either.”

“That’s for sure,” agreed Lewis. “Every bit of it is Linden’s fault. Him and his so-called allegiance to the Union and his so-called honor as a leader of soldiers.”

Toomey was breathing hard as he kept his eyes on Linden.

“Yeah. Not only would Lester still be alive, so would the rest of them that were killed that day. And when I see the men of Company A dyin’ with pneumonia and all those other sicknesses, it makes me hate Linden even more. The man is gonna die. Sooner or later, I’ll find a way to kill ‘im. And I hope it’s sooner.”

Lewis nodded. “Yeah. Me too.”

“Can’t come too soon for me,” Zediker said.

Time moved on. On Friday night, March 24, Edgar Toomey was awakened by a moaning sound. He sat up in the rectangular hole that was his bed, and realized it was Keith Lewis, who was in the hole on his right. Laying aside the thin, tattered blanket that covered him, he sat up. Lewis moaned again.

On Toomey’s other side, Todd Zediker began to stir.

Toomey climbed out of the hole, crawled to Lewis, and said in a low tone, “Keith, what’s wrong?”

Lewis was grinding his teeth. He moaned again. “I … I’m hurtin’ bad, Edgar.”

“Where?”

“Lower midsection all the way to my knees. Really bad. think it’s … scurvy.”

Toomey knew the symptoms. So many men had died of scurvy. “Lie still. I’ll go get some guards so they can take you to the infirmary.”

As Toomey was rising to his feet, he heard Zediker say, “Edgar, what’s the matter?”

“It’s Keith. He’s sick. I think it’s the scurvy.”

“Oh no.”

“Come over here and stay with him while I go for some guards.”

“Sure. Go on.

Toomey zigzagged among the crude shelters in the direction of the closest guard tower, where lanterns burned, giving off light in a
wide circle. When he reached the line of small stones that bordered his particular area along the path that led to the privies, he moved a few steps along the path, waiting for one of the guards to spot him.

It happened quickly. A guard called, “Who goes there?”

“Lieutenant Edgar Toomey!”

“All right, Toomey. Hurry and get your business done at one of the privies.”

“It’s not that! We’ve got a sick man over here. Corporal Keith Lewis. I think he’s got the scurvy!”

“Go on back. I’ll see that two guards are there shortly.”

The guards were there within a few minutes. They picked Lewis up, assuring Toomey and Zediker they would awaken the prison physician immediately, and carried the sick man toward the infirmary.

When the guards returned a half hour later, Toomey and Zediker were still awake. They were informed that Corporal Keith Lewis did indeed have scurvy.

When the guards were gone, Toomey said hotly, “It’s Linden’s fault, Todd. We wouldn’t be in this rotten place if he’d listened to me.”

As with all of the prisoners who had lingering sicknesses, Keith Lewis was kept in the infirmary, which was made up of several shanties. Three days later, Todd Zediker came down with it.

Both men only grew worse, and Lewis died on Thursday, April 6. When Edgar Toomey stood at the edge of his area and watched Keith Lewis’s body being carried out the gate for burial in the prison camp’s graveyard, his blood was hot. He renewed his vow to kill Captain William Linden.

Todd Zediker died two days later.

There was a brutal expression on Toomey’s face as he turned and went back to his crude shelter after watching the body being carried out. He looked at the empty rectangular holes on both sides of him with a smoky flare in his eyes. His arms hung straight, his hands heavy-knuckled. His jaw made a determined cut against the sunlight that bathed his face. “You’ll pay, Linden. You’ll pay.”

O
N
S
UNDAY NIGHT
A
PRIL
9, Edgar Toomey lay awake in the rectangular hole in the ground. His blood was to the boiling point, and he could hardly breathe for the loathing that coursed through his body.

William Linden must die tonight.

There was silence across the compound, except for the night breezes soughing through the trees, which were sprouting their leaves. A half moon hung in a star-spangled sky above, partially covered at times by drifting clouds.

Just before midnight, Toomey slipped out of his blanket and crawled up to ground level, staying on his belly. The compound was dimly lighted by the lanterns that hung high on the guard towers, leaving dark shadows between the circles of light. Toomey pulled the pocket watch from his trousers, angled it toward the lantern light of the nearest tower, and nodded.
I was right. It’ll be midnight in three minutes
.

He slipped the watch back into his pocket and crawled some twenty yards in the shadows to a patch of trees where many limbs had fallen on the ground from the winter’s high winds. Staying on his belly, he searched among the broken limbs until he found a section of limb some twelve inches in length that was sturdy and had a sharp point.

He looked back toward the towers. The guards were moving slowly along the edges of the platforms, rifles in hand. On the ground were other guards who were doing patrol duty near the dead line.

Crawling slowly and glancing periodically toward the towers and the guards, Toomey moved in the shadows to the small tent occupied by Captain William Linden. He could hear the soft, even breathing inside. Glancing once more toward the towers and the guards, he gripped the sharp length of tree limb and crawled past the flap into the tent.

Moments later, Edgar Toomey’s heartbeat was expanding like thunder through his whole body as he crawled into the hole that was his bed.

He lay there a few minutes, breathing heavily. A grin of triumph was on his face.

When his breathing returned to normal, he crawled back out of the hole and stood to his feet. Pulling the watch from his pocket, he slanted it toward the lantern light and noted that it was 12:20. He looked toward the nearest tower and saw the guards moving slowly around the perimeter of the high platform, their eyes searching the shadowed compound.

He pocketed the watch, and with steady steps, he threaded his way amid the sleeping men of what was left of A Company to the path that led to the nearest privies. Stepping onto the path, he moved slowly, knowing that any second the guards would spot him.

A call came quickly. “Lieutenant Toomey, do you need to go to the privies?”

Toomey stopped and looked toward the guard. “Yes.”

“Take care of your business quickly and get back to bed.”

“Sure will.”

Toomey picked up his pace and hurried toward the privies. A few minutes later, he came out, waved at the guards, and moved with haste to his hole in the ground.

The next morning, when the men of A Company were ordered by the guards to join the Union soldiers of five other areas and walk to the mess hall for their thirty-minute breakfast shift, they soon entered the hall and sat down at the tables under the watchful eyes of the guards.

Lieutenant Harry Fisher stood before them and observed as guards began calling the roll, with sheets of paper in hand, overlooking the names that were scratched out. Each man answered with a “Yo!”

Edgar Toomey’s heart was banging his ribs. When the guard assigned to A Company read off the name of Captain William Linden and there was no reply, Toomey cupped a hand over his mouth and grinned.

Lieutenant Harry Fisher picked up on Captain William Linden’s absence immediately.

While the prisoners were looking around as if they could not believe Linden would bypass breakfast, Fisher glanced at Corporal Joel Stevens. “Corporal, will you go to Captain Linden’s tent and check on him, please?”

“Yes, sir. With all the sickness that’s in the camp, Lieutenant, I’d say Captain Linden is probably coming down with something.” With that, Stevens left the mess hall and headed across the compound toward the area marked off for A Company.

When he entered the area, he hurried up to Linden’s tent. The flap was still down. “Captain Linden, are you in there?”

Dead silence.

“Captain Linden?”

Not a sound.

Stevens leaned down, pulled back the flap, and stuck his head inside. What he saw made him catch his breath and sent a tingle up his spine. He moved in and knelt beside Linden’s form. A sharp length of tree limb was buried deep in his chest. He pressed fingers to the side of Linden’s neck, intending to see if there was a pulse. The coldness of his skin and the lack of a pulse told him the man indeed was dead.

Back in the mess hall, Edgar Toomey was eating his small ration of grits and cornbread, acting as if all was normal. He kept a watchful eye on the door and smiled to himself when he saw Corporal Joel Stevens enter and rush up to Lieutenant Fisher. Since the prisoners were not allowed to talk during meals, all was quiet in the mess hall except for the tinkling sound of eating utensils. Everyone heard Stevens tell Fisher he found Captain William Linden dead in his tent; he had been stabbed through the heart with a sharp stick.

“Let’s go tell Captain Wirz,” Fisher told Stevens. The two went out the door.

As they neared the cabin, Wirz was just coming out the door with Sergeant Dan Tyler. They saw the two men hurrying toward them and waited.

Wirz frowned. “Something wrong?”

“Yes, sir,” said Fisher. “When the roll was called for A Company at breakfast, Captain Linden was not there. I sent Corporal Stevens to see about him. He found him dead in his tent.”