He had not intended to sleep like that. Sleepless nights, hours of passion, the eternities of brooding had worn him down. Now there were a hundred things which he must do, distressing tasks he must complete; he had a sickening notion that there was something concerning Elijah Huddlestone and all the rest, which only he could arrange … He snapped his suspenders over his shoulders, cursed monotonously as he forced his naked feet into his boots. He ran down the stairs. The head of the column was passing as he reached the front fence; bare-calved boys scampered alongside, wheeling their arms in circles, screeching. “You blame kids skeedaddle back to town, now,” a youth’s voice shouted. “Want that the rebels should get you?” The heavy shoes, squad and trample and squad again, trying to keep step … why do they have to carry so much with them? Tall knapsacks, stuffed and enormous; the sausages of blankets; canteens, pouches, belts, bayonet scabbards rattling, a multitude of seminarians and lame men and old men, all trying to keep step, like burdened peddlers in their chafing uniforms.

“Hud!” he called. This must be Company A; there was old man Gubbe, but a few years younger than John Burns, trying to measure his pace with the college students. They carried their muskets like hoes and brooms and buggy whips, every which way: shouldered, sloped, hung by the slings. Pink face, wax face, the gnome face of a lawyer’s clerk—Almighty God, it was that lad who’d read law with Julius Orcutt, and he had a club foot—they were letting him go. This was all nightmare, a nightmare worm which marched in the morning on fifteen hundred feet.

Elijah, so tall. “Dan…” He waved his musket.

“Good luck,” Bale heard himself rasping.

So new, right off the shelves—their dark clothes. The hard leather belts squeaked and whined, stiffness reluctant to go out of them. Pink face, stubble face, gnome head all turning, twitching around. The boys began to call under their breath, the snub-nosed, the crazy young … that fellow Bale. Yep, where’s his gun? Oh, he left it out west; fightin’ Indians. Somebody hooted, clapping his hand against his mouth: owwowwowwow. “Silence in the ranks!” howled Elijah. The laughter sighed down; only a titter now, a mumble of shoes over the damp macadam.

Company B, Company C … he didn’t know them. He turned and walked back into the house. The little boys were returning down the slope, pointing their sticks at every tree and bush. Bang! Bang! A throng of women stood far back by the Pike gate, bulbous pyramids of pink and brown against the hazy foliage. A bell at the seminary began to ring.