The Sapphire Brooch by Katherine Logan (best novels to read to improve english .txt) 📕

the prisoners who can’t walk. If there are any in those cells, I have to count them, too.”

“Let me ask the sergeant.”

She couldn’t allow that. She looked down at the sterling silver-tipped cane, thinking fast, knuckles turning white. “Go ahead, but he said to help with whatever I needed. I’ll wait here for you.” She was taking a gamble which might backfire. “I can’t stand much longer. Let’s get this done, soldier.” She put her full weight on the stones, grimacing from pain she didn’t have to feign. Jack’s brilliant idea was comparable to wearing an insole made of porcupine quills.

The private licked his bottom lip. After a moment he said, “Never mind. Let’s go.” He pointed to a doorway. “The cells are on ground level, facing Dock Street.”

Charlotte glanced toward the sergeant’s desk. The group of guards, full of brag and bluster, was still standing at the entrance berating the Union Cavalry.

The private lit a lantern and led the way down the stairs. With each step, the smell of decomposition grew stronger. She breathed slowly in and out through her mouth. Using the railing on one side and cane on the other, she could hobble down without putting pressure on her aching foot. As she came off the last step, her foot landed squarely on the stones and she let out a sharp gasp.

The private turned, jerked the lantern up high, alarm written across his face. The pulse at his temples beat rapidly. “We shouldn’t have come down here. Going up will be worse for your leg.”

Charlotte swiped sweat from her face with her jacket-covered arm, not wanting to put her hands anywhere near her nose, mouth, and eyes. “We’re here now. Keep going.”

Four massive oak doors lined the hall. Scurrying rats made rustling noises as they darted in and out. One ran over the top of her foot. She swallowed a scream. She hated rats. The overpowering stench of excrement, vomit, and blood curled around her stomach and squeezed.

“How many prisoners are down here?” She breathed through her mouth and hoped her breakfast would stay in her stomach.

“Four.” He grabbed a ring of giant iron keys off a wall hook. Each key was about ten inches long, four inches wide. They clanked together as the private approached the last cell holding the lantern in one hand, key ring in the other.

Charlotte began to whistle.

The private handed her the lantern. “Will you hold this while I unlock the door?” With practiced ease, he inserted a key and a loud click reverberated through the clammy dungeon. More rats skittered by. Whatever her anxiety level had been prior to coming down the stairs, it had now doubled.

The door opened. He took the lantern and entered the cell. A barefoot man in tattered clothes huddled in the corner. Hopelessness dulled his pale eyes. A chain attached to a heavy iron ball was wrapped around his ankle, and had rubbed the skin raw. Where did the guards think he would go?

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“John Hancock.”

Charlotte moved into the room and squatted close to him. “Can you walk?”

He shook his leg and the chain rattled. “Not with this goddamn ball and chain.”

“How about without it?” she asked.

“Guess so.”

“Good. You’re being evacuated tonight. Be ready.” Elizabeth had told her if she saw Hancock, White, or Lohmann, to say the words be ready. They would understand the message.

Before the soldier opened the next door, her whistle had been cut short by another rat running over her foot. Her heightened fear was taking its toll on the muscles in her neck, tensing them to the point of rigidity, but she wouldn’t leave until she found Braham.

“Don’t think them rats like your whistling.”

The second man was on his feet when the private held up the lantern. “I can walk,” the prisoner said in a coarse whisper like a heavy smoker’s. The blood splatters on his body and clothes told her his voice had been strained by screaming, not smoking. His ankle, too, was raw from the attached manacle.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Bill Lohmann.”

She gazed into his sunken eyes, trying to soften hers and convey a sense of hope, much as she had done to scores of patients through the years. “Be ready.”

In the next cell the prisoner was also standing, eager to be told he, too, would be evacuated. By the time they reached the last cell, she was flushed with a rage so intense it seemed to scorch the very marrow of her bones. How could people do this to each other?

The door squeaked open, and the private held up the lantern as he’d done in the three previous cells. The prisoner was on all fours, trying to stand. He rolled back onto the floor, groaning. “I can stand.”

Charlotte barely stifled a gasp at Braham’s condition. She tried to calm her racing heart. She pressed her foot harder on the stones. The pain was a necessary reminder of the role she played. To rescue him, she had to allow him to suffer now.

“Don’t think you can make it,” the soldier said. He turned to leave, taking the light with him.

“No, wait.” Charlotte went inside the cell. The miasma of death filled her lungs. In a pile of musty, foul-smelling straw, she spied a dead rat. She looked directly at Braham then. His eyes flicked to her, huge with shock. Sweat poured from his face, and the rags of his filthy shirt hung bloodied and sodden against his chest. Blood seeped from open wounds. A gash on his forehead was crusted with dirt, and one side of his face was swollen. Both his hair and beard were streaked with blood, but the corners of his mouth trembled in an attempt to smile.

She couldn’t speak past the lump in her throat, past her scorching fury.

“What’s your name?” the young soldier asked.

He didn’t answer right away, and she wasn’t sure he had any voice left after everything his interrogators had done to him. She held her breath, waiting. Then,