The Edge of Hell: The Mitchell Brothers Series Book One

2

Andersonville Prison, Georgia

Wolstan lay in a rocky mud puddle beneath a sodden, threadbare blanket—his only shelter against the morning deluge—thinking it a pity he was too weak to stand in the rain and scrub two months' worth of filth from his body.

Not that it would do much good against the Army of lice infesting his clothes and eating him alive. He'd spent all day yesterday picking the tenacious pests off him, taking pleasure in popping their tiny grey bodies between his finger and thumb, only to find himself covered in them again the instant he crawled under his shelter to sleep.

Inflamed sores from their greedy bites covered the lower planes of his stomach and itched with an incessant fiery pain, adding to his overall misery caused by hunger and fatigue.

Ames Donaldson, his tent mate who'd gotten captured at Gettysburg and spent time at other prisons before finally getting transferred to Andersonville, teased he'd come to believe the little beasts were the smallest, best-fed regiment of the entire Confederate Army. And after two months of them feeding on his flesh, Wolstan had to agree.

At the thought of food, his stomach growled even as it lurched at the remembrance of the rotten ham they'd been given for their last meal four days ago. He'd choked it down out of necessity, only to vomit it up moments later.

This morning rumor had spread they'd be receiving supper. And while he'd learned to keep his expectations low, his starved body yearned for the early days after arriving when he'd received a pint of peas full of bugs, a pint of coarse meal, and an angel's portion of tough meat.

Now it seemed when they were given food, it was spoiled scraps infested with fleas, maggots, and worms that not even a desperate dog would deign to eat.

Thunder crashed, shaking the ground and reverberating through his chest, startling Wolstan out of his thoughts to remind him it was raining. How he'd forgotten that fact when water pelted him in the face through the water-logged cloth as though it wasn't stretched out above him, he didn't know. But he had.

He rolled his head to the side and winced when his right cheek encountered a sharp stone. However, too weak to adjust his position, Wolstan ignored the pain and continued to survey his surroundings.

Andersonville prison was a far cry from the imposing stone fortresses that six lettered word used to evoke in Wolstan's mind.

Stretching across twenty-six acres, the disease-ridden camp—for that was what this hell on earth truly was—consisted of two hillsides split by a swampy, poisonous stream.

It ran through the middle and was covered by a thick scum that moved with the gentlest breeze. Any who drank from it were rewarded by having their faces swell up.

The entirety of the camp was enclosed by the deadline—a plain post and rail fence that could get a man shot if approached too close—which was further surrounded by the outer stockade wall erected from tall, rough-hewn timbers.

To say it was a noxious, dirty place, currently overflowing with more than thirty-one thousand forlorn creatures in poor health, most of whom slept with nothing over or under them and were the very picture of despair, was a gross understatement.

New prisoners were made sick by the foul air within the first few hours of their arrival—a plight Wolstan had silently come to refer to as 'The Andersonville Welcome.'

Nothing said you've officially arrived in hell better than getting slapped in the face by the stench of stagnant raw sewage mixed with the pungent aroma emanating from tens of thousands of unwashed prisoners crammed within the stockade walls.