“Good, good.” Bird did not offer an explanation. In the last two weeks a number of men had discovered petticoats left on their porches or in their wagons. All were men who had failed to volunteer for the Legion. Some were men with ailments, some were the only supporters of large families, others were boys with glowing futures promised at colleges, and only a few, a very few, might have been considered timid, yet the mocking gift of petticoats had lumped them all together in the category of cowardice. The incident had led to bad feeling in the community, dividing those who were enthusiastic for the threatened war against those who believed the war fever must pass. Bird, who knew full well where the petticoats had come from, had kept a politic silence.

“Sally says I ought to join,” Decker explained.

“If he wants to be a proper husband,” Sally explained, “then he has to prove himself. Every other man’s gone to war. Or all the proper men have.”

“I wanted to go anyway,” Robert Decker went on, “like Sally’s father did. Only he’d be real angry if he knew I was here, so I want to be enlisted proper before I go to the camp. Then he can’t have me put out, can he? Not if I’ve been properly signed on. And I want it arranged so that Sally can draw my pay. I’m told they can do that, is that right, Mister Bird?”

“Many wives draw their husbands’ pay, yes.” Bird glanced at the girl, and was again astonished that such beauty could have been bred in the ragged hills. “Your father’s in the Legion?” he asked.

“Thomas Truslow.” She said the name bitterly.

“Good God.” Bird could not hide his surprise that Truslow had whelped this girl. “And your mother,” he asked tentatively, “I’m not sure I know your mother, do I?”

“She’s dead,” Sally said defiantly, intimating that it was none of Bird’s business anyway.

Nor was it, Bird allowed, so busied himself by explaining to Decker that he should go to the Legion’s encampment and there seek out Lieutenant Davies. He almost added that he doubted anything could be achieved before morning, but he checked himself in case such an observation might suggest he should offer the couple a night’s shelter. “Davies, he’s your man,” he said, then stood up to signify that their business was finished.

Decker hesitated. “But if Sally’s father sees me, Mister Bird, before I’m all signed in, he’ll kill me!”

“He’s not here. He’s gone away with the Colonel.” Bird gestured his visitors toward the door. “You’re quite safe, Decker.”

Sally stood up. “Go and look after the horse, Robert.”

“But—”