May 28, 1883
The Nautilus
Turner woke to a very sharp sound and lay awake with every creak caused by changes in pressure on the hull. Energetic voices echoing against the metal walls melded with his semi-lucid dreams. Had there been a fight, or had he dreamed it?
Finally, the ship must have reached its depth for optimal movement against the currents it would encounter in the English Channel. Or, so he estimated. Turner rolled over and tried to find a position that didn’t remind him of prison, of sleepless nights waiting for death. Try as he did to fill his head again with visions of damn close to anything but death, the room’s elements kept dragging him back to the War, the Confederate prison, the pain. Twice he awoke in a terrible sweat, gasping for air, tearing at an invisible rope around his neck. Unlike reality, in his dreams General William T. Sherman did not arrive in time.
A moment of head clearing later, he knew he’d had another worthless total of an hour’s sleep. It served him right – they had used sleep deprivation on Pierce to break him down, to make him more malleable and cooperative. It served him right not to get any rest now that he was the prisoner. What was the cliché? No rest for the wicked?
He was relieved when all that came for him was a meal.