Seven Out of Hell by George G. Gilman Read Free Book Online Page B

to ask question if we look like soldiers.”
    He squatted down with his back against a tree trunk and began to rasp the finely honed blade of the razor through the thick growing black bristles. Without soap to lubricate the skin, each stroke of the razor sounded like a renting of stout cloth and some of the men winced.
    Forrest took the razor hurriedly when Hedges had finished and was using more water to wash dried sweat and grime from his face.
    “You seem mighty anxious to inflict that torture on yourself,” Seward said.
    As Forrest began to slice through his own bristles, he grinned at the grimacing youngster. “We only got the one blade, Billy,” he pointed out. “And we ain’t got no strop.”
    Rhett swallowed hard. “I think I’ll grow a beard,” he muttered.
    “You’ll shave!” Hedges said with low venom, as he dusted off his uniform with the flat of his hand. “Or you’ll get shaved - and I won’t stop short at the hair on your face.”
    “He ain’t got none anyplace else, Captain,” Douglas put in.
    “How’d you get to find that out, Hal?” Bell taunted. “Guess the fairies must have told him,” Scott returned. “Cut out the yakking!” Forrest snarled. He tossed the razor to Seward. “And do like the Captain says. Or there won’t be one of you with even an eyelash left.”
    The men fell silent, waiting their turn to use the razor and afterwards doing what they could to clean themselves and their uniforms.
    “What’s the plan, Captain?” Forrest asked at length.
    Hedges clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth and watched the disgruntled troopers as they performed their ablutions. “Atlanta’s up ahead,” he replied without looking at the mean-faced sergeant. “I figure the turnpike goes straight into the city. That ain’t for us. Place will be crawling with Rebels and we don’t want any awkward questions to answer. So we gotta look for a town with food and beds. One without any other uniforms in it. After we’ve rested we’ll swing around the city and keep heading north ‘till we hear shooting.”
    Forrest pondered this, then nodded. “Guess I can’t think of nothing better than that,” he allowed.
    Hedges met and held his flinty gaze. “I figured that,” the Captain replied and turned to examine the men.
    The comparative cleanness of their faces served to emphasize the emaciating effects of deprivation and malnutrition and he knew it would take time rather than water and a blade to rid their eyes of the haunted look. Perhaps, he considered, the men would never shed it until death blotted out their memories. He spat into the grass.
    “Sure don’t look like any West Point class of sixty-three,” he pronounced. “Let’s move out.”
    The true dawn had broken now and as they returned to the road and the trees began to thin out, the lightening of the new day was accompanied by a noticeable warming of the air. On the far side of the wood the country was undulating and the turnpike began to curve to left and right, swinging around and between the hills, taking the easiest course. They had ridden perhaps two miles from the wood when they saw the village, nestling under the brow of a hill amid a patchwork of tobacco fields.
    It was comprised of just a few houses, dominated by a church, and looked deserted in the sudden brightness from a sun tightening its hold on the eastern horizon. Hedges led the troopers through the refreshing coolness of a stream forded by the turnpike and then angled off on to a spur which followed the course of the water run up to the village.
    The village was spread along one bank of the stream, on both sides of a short street which dead ended at the church. From below, the setting had looked almost idyllic, but up close the impression was suddenly altered. The houses, two drying barns, saloon and general store all looked on the verge of collapse. But, strangely at odds with the warped and unpainted dereliction of the timber buildings there was a