“Yes.” Starbuck’s hands trembled as he closed up the still-unloaded revolver. His whole life suddenly seemed trivial, wasted, gone to hell. He had thought this morning that war would prove a fine adventure, a defiance to toss into his father’s face and an adventure story to describe to Sally, but instead it was proving to be something much more terrible and unexpected, as though a curtain in a frippery theater had lifted to reveal a glimpse of hell’s horrors seething with twisted flames. My God, he thought, but I could die here. I could be buried at this wood’s edge. “It was a girl,” he blurted out.

“Girl?” Adam frowned with incomprehension.

“In Richmond.”

“Oh.” Adam was embarrassed by Starbuck’s admission, but also troubled by it. “Father guessed as much,” he said, “but I don’t understand why you risk everything for…” He stopped, maybe because he could not find the right words, or perhaps because a shell had smashed into a tree trunk and ripped a chunk of bright timber clean out of the wood and filled the shadows with its filthy sulfur-laden smoke. Adam licked his lips. “I’m thirsty.”

“And me.” Starbuck wondered why he had blurted out his confession. The Yankees were coming stolidly on. In minutes, he thought, just minutes, we have to fight. All the posturing and defiance has come to this warm meadow. He watched a northern officer stumble, drop his sword and fall to his knees in the grass. An enemy skirmisher ran forward five paces, knelt to take aim, then realized he had left his ramrod behind and went back to find it in the long grass. A riderless horse cantered across the slope. The drummers’ rhythm was more ragged, but still the northerners came on. A bullet whistled close by Starbuck’s head. One of the northern bands was playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the music prickled at Starbuck’s eyes and conscience. “Do you not think about girls?” he asked Adam.

“No.” Adam seemed not to be concentrating on the conversation but was staring down the slope. “Never.” His fingers were twitching on the reins.

“Are you certain you two should be on horseback?” Major Bird strode over to join Adam and Starbuck. “I’d hate to lose you. You heard that young Sparrow died?” He asked this question of Starbuck.

“I saw his body, yes.”