Moon went higher, hour by hour; it was plastered by a close halo at times, and at other times washed out by a veiling of clouds; still it sent reflected heat against the white hillside and encouraged the mosquitoes. Far down the valley existed spots of light, and turning wheels and nickering horses, and the same sounds drifted over the brow of the hill: part of a background constructed of many thousand men, breathing and whispering and spying at the lower ground before them.

His headache dried up, and the skin stiffened and swelled around the welt at his hair-line. I will go all the way, he resolved, if they kill me for it. I will spite them … He even slept in snatches, huddled stiff on the hard soil, and conscious of the outcries beyond and the changing shadows made by the moon. Then he awoke, cooler than he had been, and found the world gray where it was black before. Every film of vapor evaporated from the sky; Dan stretched his neck and looked toward the east, and saw the wild beauty prepared in silver and blue without a semblance of war.

He slid out from between the caging rocks. In the dawn above him swelled a bulk of elms and evergreens and torn turf, with uniformed corpses spread in impossible positions. There was a low stone wall and a movement of life behind it. Dan got up. It was torture to move; he hobbled as he pushed up the hill. Behind, early rifles began to protest—the spraying lead clicked around him. “Take care,” the officer said, “he’s blue…” and the slim Springfields were pulled back over the wall. “Let him come in, men,” and Dan had climbed across the barrier, and soldiers were staring suspiciously at him. Over on the other side of Culp’s hill a storehouse of Chinese crackers began to be set off. The dawn was growing yellower and yellower.

Chapter 8

8.

The boy with the braided shoulder-straps said, “All right. Come on.” They stepped over the legs of snoring men and across a low ditch; robins were singing in the cemetery and smoke came up from a dozen little fires along the road, gypsy saucers of glowing twigs where coffee steamed in tin cans. There was the friendly smell of scorched beef-fat: you thought of a kitchen where there were white curtains and geraniums at the window. The smoke of the Culp’s hill muskets had already deadened the bright torrent of dawn. Ditch and roadside were banked with men and knapsacks and rolled blankets, edge to edge, knee to knee, covering the earth with a padded human carpet.

“Was ist ein gefängner, Schmidt?” asked a tired voice.

The boy turned his stubbled face toward a group of men around a coffee can. “Nein. Citizen. Wo ist der Über-Offizer?”

“At the fence, Lieutenant.”