Reynolds made no sound which Lieutenant Steele could hear. There was the little, spiteful slap of the ball, and the next instant the general was on the grass; he seemed to bounce as he struck the ground. Steele got to him before anyone else. He said, “God—sir!” and put his arms around the firm, muscular shoulders. Reynolds looked rather canny and knowing; the lids sagged slightly over his eyes, and there were straws caught in his beard, and his hat had fallen off. There was a blue hole in the skin where his neck joined the head, squarely behind his right ear, and a larger hole in the left side of his head, higher up. Something wet and hot, a soggy scrap, fell on Jack Steel’s naked wrist. He cried, God damn dirty sons-a-bitching bastards—

Dead, and he had never known about it. Steele carried him back to the shelter of a big beech tree, and put him gently on the ground. He stood breathing from the exertion; Reynolds was not a tiny man. The staff kept bending over the general, and mumbling dazedly; nobody else cried, no one except Lieutenant Steele. Not just then … The lieutenant heard the thud of hoofs approaching across the shade; he looked up at General Buford and saw the amazed frown which drove between his eyes. “Is he dead?” Buford demanded.

“Yes, sir,” a thick voice said. “Shot through the head. Must have been a sharp-shooter.”

“I’ll give you a line to General Meade.” Buford turned his horse, so that he would not be facing the prone figure under the beech tree; he took out his notebook and began to scratch with a lead pencil. “General Doubleday’s at the school over yonder,” he said, without looking up. “One of you gentlemen will notify him at once. I reckon he’s up in the cupola.”

Steele cried, “Yes, sir!” He beat Captain Fane to his horse, and went scuttling away, the mouldy acorns scattering, the bullets crooning overhead. He was grateful for something to do, though it seemed like basest treachery to desert Reynolds, now that he was so quiet and saying nothing. And he was supposed to be a captain, himself, only it hadn’t come through … stared blankly into General Doubleday’s sir-loin, thick-mouthed face, and saying: Regret to inform the general that General Reynolds has just been killed, sir. Doubleday said what-what-why, what is that, sir, hold on lieutenant, repeat what you were saying. The batteries over on the Pike were going full-tilt, and it was hard to deliver or receive a verbal message.