LITMIR.BIZ

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Truslow amended.

      “And it’s anyone’s guess whether the liquor will kill him before one of his slaves does,” Starbuck said, “or one of us, for that matter.” He spat into the fire. “I’d kill the bastard willingly enough.”

      “Welcome to the Faulconer Brigade,” Truslow said to Coffman.

      The Lieutenant did not know how to respond to such cynicism, so he just sat looking troubled and nervous, then flinched as a thought crossed his mind. “Will we really be fighting in a day or two?” he asked.

      “Probably tomorrow.” Truslow jerked his head toward the northern sky, which was being reddened by the reflected glow of an army’s fires. “It’s what you’re paid to do, son,” Truslow added when he saw Coffman’s nervousness.

      “I’m not paid,” Coffman said and immediately blushed for the admission.

      Truslow and Starbuck were both silent for a few seconds; then Starbuck frowned. “What the hell do you mean?” he asked.

      “Well, I do get paid,” Coffman said, “but I don’t get the money, see?”

      “No, I don’t see.”

      The Lieutenant was embarrassed. “It’s my mother.”

      “She gets the money, you mean?” Starbuck asked.

      “She owes General Faulconer money,” Coffman explained, “because we rent one of his houses on the Rosskill road and Mother fell behind with the rent, so Faulconer keeps my salary.”

      There was another long pause. “Christ on his cross.” Truslow’s blasphemy broke the silence. “You mean that miserable rich bastard is taking your three lousy bucks a week for his own?”

      “It’s only fair, isn’t it?” Coffman asked.

      “No, it damn well ain’t,” Starbuck said. “If you want to send your mother the money, that’s fair, but it ain’t fair for you to fight for nothing! Shit!” He swore angrily.

      “I don’t really need any money.” Coffman nervously defended the arrangement.

      “’Course you do, boy,” Truslow said. “How else are you going to buy whores and whiskey?”

      “Have you talked to Pecker about this?” Starbuck demanded.

      Coffman shook his head. “No.”

      “Hell, then I will,” Starbuck said. “Ain’t going to have you being shot at for free.” He climbed to his feet. “I’ll be back in a half hour. Oh, shit!” This last imprecation was not in anger for Washington Faulconer’s greed but because his right sole had come loose on his first proper step. “Goddamn shit!” he said angrily, then stalked off to find Colonel Bird.

      Truslow grinned at Starbuck’s inept cobbling, then spat tobacco juice into the fire’s margin. “He’ll get your cash, son,” he said.

      “He will?”

      “Faulconer’s scared of Starbuck.”

      “Scared? The General’s scared of the Captain?” Coffman found that hard to believe.

      “Starbuck’s a proper soldier. He’s a fighter while Faulconer’s just a pretty uniform on an expensive horse. In the long run, son, the fighter will always win.” Truslow picked a shred of tobacco from between his teeth. “Unless he’s killed, of course.”

      “Killed?”

      “You’re going to meet the Yankees tomorrow, son,” Truslow said, “and some of us are going to get killed, but I’ll do my best to keep you from getting slaughtered. Starting now.” He leaned over and ripped the bars off the Lieutenant’s collar, then tossed the cloth scraps into the fire. “Sharpshooters put telescopes on their rifles, son, just looking for officers to kill, and the Yankees don’t care that you’re not full-grown. See a pair of bars like that, they shoot, and you’re two feet underground with a shovelful of dirt in your eyes.” Truslow spat more tobacco juice. “Or worse,” he added darkly.

      “Worse?” Coffman asked nervously.

      “You could be wounded, boy, and screaming like a stuck pig while a half-drunken doctor rummages through your innards. Or sobbing like a baby while you lie out in the field with your guts being eaten by rodents and no one knowing where the hell you are. It ain’t pretty, and there’s only one way to keep it from being even uglier and that’s to hurt the bastards before they hurt you.” He looked at Coffman, recognizing how the boy was trying to hide his fear. “You’ll be all right,” Truslow said. “The worst bit is the waiting. Now sleep, boy. You’ve got a man’s job to do tomorrow.”

      High overhead a shooting star whipped white fire across the darkening sky. Somewhere a man sang of a love left behind while another played a sad tune on a violin. Colonel Swynyard’s flogged slave tried to keep from whimpering, Truslow snored, and Coffman shivered, thinking of the morrow.

      THE YANKEE CAVALRY PATROL REACHED GENERAL Banks’s headquarters late at night. The patrol had come under fire at the Rapidan River, and the loss of one of their horses had slowed their journey back to Culpeper Court House, as had the necessity to look after two wounded men. A New Hampshire corporal had been struck by a bullet in his lower belly and would surely die, while the patrol’s commander, a captain, had suffered a glancing hit on the ribs. The Captain’s wound was hardly serious, but he had scratched and prodded at the graze until a satisfactory amount of blood heroically stained his shirt.

      Major General Nathaniel Banks, commander of General Pope’s Second Corps, was smoking a last cigar on the veranda of his commandeered house when he heard that the patrol had returned with ominous news of enemy forces crossing the Rapidan. “Let’s have the man here! Let’s hear him. Lively now!” Banks was a fussy man who, despite all the contrary evidence, was convinced of his own military genius. He certainly looked the part of a successful soldier, for there were few men who wore the uniform of the United States with more assurance. He was trim, brusque, and confident, yet until the war began he had never been a soldier, merely a politician. He had risen to be Speaker of the House of Representatives, though it had taken 133 ballots to achieve that honor, and afterward Governor of Massachusetts, a state so rich in men willing to be taxed that the federal government had deemed it necessary to offer its governor the chance of immortal martial glory as a token of its thanks. Governor Banks, who was as passionate in his love for his country as in his hatred of the slave trade, had leaped at the chance.

      Now he waited, ramrod straight, as the cavalry Captain, wearing his jacket like a cloak so that his bloody shirt showed clearly, climbed the veranda steps and offered a salute, which he dramatically cut short with a wince as though the pain in his chest had suddenly struck hard.

      “Your name?” Banks demanded peremptorily.

      “Thompson, General. John Hannibal Thompson. From Ithaca, New York. Reckon you might have met my uncle, Michael Fane Thompson, when you were a congressman. He sat for New York back in—”

      “You found the enemy, Thompson?” Banks asked in a very icy voice.

      Thompson, offended at being so rudely cut off, shrugged. “We sure found someone hostile, General.”

      “Who?”

      “Damned if I know. We got shot at.” Thompson touched the crusted blood on his shirt, which looked brown rather than red in the lamplight.

      “You shot back?” Banks asked.

      “Hell, General, no one shoots at me without getting retaliation, and I reckon me and my boys laid a few of the bastards low.”

      “Where was this?” the aide accompanying General Banks asked.

      Captain Thompson crossed to a wicker table on which the aide had spread a map of northern Virginia illuminated by two flickering candle-lanterns. Moths beat frantically around the three men’s heads as they leaned over the map. Thompson used

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