He lay in the grass at the corner of the field. The wall went west some eighty yards, then angled to the south. The whole enclosure was full of troops, and there was gleaming field artillery ranged not far behind. Bale closed his eyes: Captain Ballou, he thought. I am becoming acquainted with many of them … Close at hand men were gabbling. Look at them Butternuts go out of there—looks like a rat hunt—they ought to burn that barn. Jehosaphat, they won’t let us burn nothing.

And God knew what might be happening to the Niedes, on the next farm. Dan’s forehead throbbed. Seventy-second Pennsylvania, and where are they?

She sat by this wall. She wasn’t wearing hoops. That day I spoke of Another Field, and she knew what I meant. Tyler was asleep, and it was not a picnic; they had nothing to eat. But the buzzards sensed the strange picnic which was to come, and here it is today.

Far beyond the Taneytown road, over near Rock Creek, guns were slackening their savagery, and there was an echoing whimper of cheering. Dan could feel the sun at work, thawing stiffness from his muscles. Lie in the grass and let the sun pound me. Again he closed his eyes. Who’s that feller over there? He was talking to old Ballou.

“He’s not old,” Dan thought of yelling. “Young, and his chin is weak, but that signifies nothing.” Then the scorch of sun claimed him, and he slept forever, and the Seventy-second P.V. did not come, ho, to the wars.

Chapter 9

9.

There was a dead hush when he awakened. No more guns rang from the east. The sun had him: he was a cricket in the trough of the countryside, and the sun had impaled him on its broad, brass blade. He opened his eyes and saw flattened weeds and corn-sprouts and the stones of the wall; a boy said, Well, I got two jacks. Dan turned his wet head. They were playing cards on a jacket spread open a few feet away. Blue uniforms made a plump inner lining for the whole, jutting field. The sun burned out Bale’s eyes, seeping in sweat, helpless as he was … other insects clucked in the grass near his head. He wondered how the sun had ever climbed to that imposing height.

The youth with the gray flint eyes grinned at him. “You looked to have died, mister.” He was chewing something, and so were the other men.

Dan’s head swam away and then came back. “Are they here, yet?”

The boy shook his head. “They’re still back behind the ridge.”