He reached Middle street and found a mass of gray marching east, and could not understand why they were going in that direction, when peremptory gun-blasts kept summoning them to Zieglers’ grove. He thought of Elijah … take them in the flank. That was one of the phrases Hud had always loved to roll on his tongue: a flank movement.

Undeniably he was a citizen in brown trousers and saffron shirt, but a hundred rebels were no more in uniform than he. He had a vision of a shrewd Federal watchman following him with the sights of a rifle … not that way, not just as I come toward them. He wanted blue. He found blue in the next yard; it sent him sprawling. A sturdy body swollen by summer, lying on its back beside a cistern, with a black blister for a face. Dan got up and came back; despite all horror he knew what he must do. The dusk sifted around him; he heard the regiments tramping toward the east. Sorry, came between his lips.

He unfastened the trouser-band that stretched so tight across the round abdomen. The legs were stiff as boards but the shoes were gone—some rebel had taken them—and it was that much easier to draw the cloth over puffy feet.

Huddled amid the rhubarb he worked savagely, kicking his own legs into the terrible trousers. They would do; they covered the brown pantaloons, and now a Federal sentry could not believe that he was shooting a rebel, even though Dan wore no blouse. I would have spared you this if I could, he wanted to say to the dead man … the wraith hustled beside him as he crossed the intersection diagonally at Baltimore street and sped east through back lots. Wait, it cried, explain, explain—I expected death at one time or another, but why should I have such indignity? I was a virgin, a German, a good wrestler, twenty years old: my name was Emil, my uncle said I was a reliable boy and cried when I went into the army, and now you leave me naked in the sight of a relentless world.

When he came abreast of the silent, quick-moving column the darkness had already claimed them. He heard soft voices muttering: them Looswanna boys goes fust, and he bent behind a stable wall for fear they would see him. The wall ended at an earthy ramp which led up to the barn door. A constant, muffled chafe of accoutrements sounded as the long files switched out into a field ahead, and when Bale lifted his face above the wall he could see clay-colored blots assuming formation beyond the fence. The village had fallen behind, a black quarry of rock houses bunched against the darkening west.