The Garden of the Serpent by Andrew Miller

Author:Andrew Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palmetto
Published: 2023-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

It was done very quickly and with high drama. Sergeant Johnston led a squad of guards into Will Allen’s dungeon. With clanging of metal on metal, they pushed open the door and rushed in with loaded rifles, fixed bayonets, and gleaming lanterns. Johnston jammed his revolver in Will’s face. The prisoners awoke and started yelling, but the guards formed a circle of bayonets pointing outward around Allen’s bunk.

“This is him. Get up!” Johnston kicked the bunk. “On your feet, Rebel.”

Will had been sleeping poorly, still in pain from his bruised ribs, and was as confused as the rest of the prisoners in the cell. He covered his face from the light.

“What took you so long, Sergeant Johnston?”

Johnston, the former blacksmith who hated all Confederates, and most other men for that matter, grabbed him by the collar and lifted him from the bunk with one arm. Will grunted with pain and nearly passed out. Johnston shoved Will ahead of him out into the narrow corridor, the guards following and pulling the heavy cell door closed and locked behind them.

Will was nearly doubled over with pain as they pushed him out of the dungeons, while anger and protest came from other cells. One of these was the half-blood, Corporal Yellowmoon.

“Will! What are they doing? Where are they taking you?”

Johnston whacked the cell door with an open hand. “Don’t you worry none about that, redskin. You’re prob’ly next anyways.”

The little party flowed out of the dungeons’ entrance, locking the outer door behind them. And it was over. It had taken minutes. They put shackles on Will’s wrists and ankles. He then stood face to face with Major Jonathan Kelly, a bayonet digging into the Confederate sergeant’s back.

Will almost laughed despite the pain. “What are the charges, Major? Or didn’t you bother with any?” The bayonet dug a little deeper into Allen’s back.

“You’re charged with assaulting an officer and inciting a prison riot. You’re going to solitary until the trial.”

“Trial? That’d be a first.”

Kelly stepped aside. The guards pulled and pushed Allen across the Parade Ground and past the Commandant’s House, where Will looked up to see Colonel Baker in the window of his candled-lit office, leaning against the wall, calmly watching.

A guard opened the door to the solitary cells and Allen was led into the underground world that he already knew from Wilton Blair’s brief, miserable existence there. This time, all three cells were empty. The guard unlocked the cell that had belonged to Thomas Gage, but Sergeant Johnston grabbed his arm.

“No, no – he’s for this one here. Major Kelly’s orders.”

The guard opened that cell door and Allen was shoved inside. Johnston loomed in the doorway, shadows of armed men glowering behind him.

“This look familiar, Allen? I guess so. You’re standing right where that man o’yours was but a few days ago. What was his name? Blair? So I guess you know the lay of the land. Maybe we ought to just call it the dead man’s cell.”

The door slammed and the guards departed, leaving Will alone.

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