“Why? What happened?”

He shook his head and then lowered his face to his plate to shovel in another large spoonful of beans. He spoke around them, muffled. “Ain’t sposed to talk about it. Gonna be hushed up and smoothed over, like they allus do.”

“What?”

He swallowed noisily and gulped coffee to be sure the food had gone down.

He glanced around the mess and then leaned closer to me. “Murder last night. I heard something ’bout a whore, an officer, and some soldiers.

What I heard was the officer fancied the bit and got mad when the soldiers had her first. He shot one of the boys. Something like that.”

“That’s ugly,” I said, leaning away from his breath.

“Life’s ugly,” he agreed, and went back to his food. I turned my attention to my own plate, and a short time after that, Ebrooks pushed back from the table and left. My meal was four rashers of bacon and a steaming sea of brown beans with biscuits. I enjoyed it more than the food merited, until I noticed Sergeant Hoster at a nearby table with a couple of his cronies. His friends were grinning broadly as they watched me eat, but Hoster was regarding me with a stare of flat dislike. One of Hoster’s friends rolled his eyes and muttered something to Hoster. The other man snorted wildly into his cup of coffee, spattering liquid all over their table while the first one leaned back, choking with juvenile laughter. Hoster’s expression didn’t change. He rose slowly and approached my table. I kept my eyes on my plate, pretending I didn’t know he was coming. I refused to look up until he addressed me directly. “You look tired, Burv. Keeping some late hours?”

I had to swallow before I could reply. “No, Sergeant.”

“You sure about that? You didn’t come to town last night for a bit of fun?”

“No, Sergeant. I stayed home last night.”

“Did you?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Must get lonely out there. A man lives alone all the time, he can get real hungry for the company of a woman. Isn’t that so?”

“I suppose.” I suspected he was setting me up for mockery. I was trying not to rise to the bait.

He leaned very close to me and spoke softly. “Did you hear the news, Burv?

She didn’t die. In a few days, the doctors think she’ll feel well enough to talk. She’ll be able to describe who attacked her. And I’d say you’re a hard man to mistake.”

He was accusing me of being one of the rapists. Outrage vied with shock. I kept calm with difficulty. “I was at my cabin all last night, Sergeant. I’ve heard about the attack on the woman. It’s a terrible thing. But I had nothing to do with it.”

He straightened up. “Well. We’ll see, won’t we? Don’t think about running off.

You wouldn’t get far.”

All around the mess hall, men had stopped eating to stare at us. They continued to stare even when Hoster sauntered away to rejoin his friends.