Words I’d read in Virgil sprang to mind as my foot found the first rung.

The descent into hell is easy.

There was nothing below me; the bottom could be five feet away or a thousand. I climbed down another rung.

The descent into hell is easy.

“Hurry up.” The redcoat jabbed his bayonet at me.

I jerked back, nearly losing my grip on the greasy bars. Toeing for the next rung, I climbed down again.

The descent into hell is easy.

This was something thicker than darkness, something that swallowed my own hands. The hot smell rising from below was worse than sewage. It was misery.

“Is there a problem, Lieutenant Duncan?”

I looked up. Duncan stood at the hatch, framed by a square of starry night. His eyes on me were frantic. “Stop,” he said. “Please. Make this stop.”

I kept going.

Rung for rung.

Virgil for Virgil.

Finally, my foot touched something fleshy that let out a groan.

I jumped away and tripped over another body and landed on yet another, my chin smashing against sweaty muscle and bone.

“Watch yourself, boy!” said the hoarsest voice I’d ever heard. The heat of stinking breath pushed into my face. Invisible hands shoved me aside. I stumbled again, shoves and growls following me as I weaved blindly, desperately. The ladder had disappeared and there was nowhere to stand. Only bodies everywhere.

A nightmare.

My worst nightmare.

Finally, I found an open spot and let out a shaking breath. There, I lay down slowly and pulled my knees to my chest, tightening myself into a knot.

Breathe, I told myself. Breathe.

But the air was so thick with vile smells, I couldn’t bear it. Cool wetness seeped through my trousers, dampening my thighs. The boards beneath me were gritty and covered in scum. I didn’t want to know what it was.

My ears came awake to noises. Breathing and wheezing. Coughing and moaning.

Someone was weeping.

Someone else was rambling about a fire.

“We are burning. Can you not feel the flames?”

“Go to sleep, Fire Man,” muttered a voice.

“How? How can I sleep when we are engulfed in flames?”

I didn’t think I’d ever see anything in the darkness, but the line of a shoulder appeared before me. My face was inches from a man’s back. Slowly, I came up on one elbow.

There were hundreds of men. I couldn’t tell where they ended.

“We are all going to burn,” Fire Man moaned. “It’s so hot. Can you not feel the flames?”

I could feel them. Flames consuming me. This fear and stench would be the end of me.

I stood only one chance of escaping this torture.

I breathed in deep, pretending it was clean air. Then I imagined diving off the wherry and breaking into clear blue water. I imagined coolness washing over me. I pictured myself kicking. Stroking my arms forward and back, swimming down, down, down to one fathom.

Then two.

All I had to do was get to the seventh. There was no rising in the seventh. No falling. Just floating. Just freedom. Anything I wanted, I could have there. I could make it possible.