The Colonel had spent a frustrating morning. He had discovered Beauregard shortly after six o’clock, but the General had not been expecting him and had no time to see him, and so Faulconer had been forced to cool his heels as the hours dragged by. Yet now, wondrously, he had received the orders he had craved. Beauregard, desperate to vivify his attack that had mysteriously stalled in the vacant countryside across the Run, had appealed for fresh troops and Faulconer had seen his chance. He had volunteered the Legion and received orders to march the men across to the right wing. General Johnston’s newly arrived men from the Army of the Shenandoah could be left to buttress the rebel left wing, while Beauregard put new impetus into the right. “We need some enthusiasm,” Beauregard had grumbled to Faulconer, “some push. It’s no good playing kitty-bender on a battlefield, you have to show ’em a touch of whip and spurs.” It was all Faulconer wanted; a chance to lead his Legion into a battle-winning charge that would write another glorious page of Virginia history.

“Come on, Ethan!” Washington Faulconer now called back. “We’ve got permission to attack!”

“But they’ve gone!” Ridley shouted. His tired horse was much slower than the Colonel’s well-rested stallion, Saratoga.

The Colonel curbed Saratoga in, turned him and stared at Ridley.

“They’ve gone, sir,” Ridley said. “That’s what I came to tell you.”

The Colonel swatted at a fly with his riding crop. “What do you mean, gone?” He sounded very calm, as if he had not understood the news Ridley had just fetched across the battleground.

“It was Starbuck,” Ridley said. “He came back, sir.”

“He came back?” the Colonel asked, incredulous.

“He claimed to have orders from Evans.”

“Evans!” Faulconer pronounced that name sulfurously.

“So they marched off to Sudley, sir.”

“Starbuck brought orders? What the hell did Pecker do?”

“He ordered the men to Sudley, sir.”

“Under that ape Evans’s command?” The Colonel shouted the question and his horse, unsettled, whinnied softly.

“Yes, sir,” Ridley felt the satisfaction of delivering damning news. “That’s why I came to find you.”

“But there’s no damned battle at Sudley! That’s a feint! A lure! The General knows all about that!” The Colonel was goaded into a sudden and incandescent fury. “The battle will be here! Christ! On this side of the field! Here!” The Colonel slashed down with his riding crop, whistling the air and frightening an already nervous Saratoga. “But what about Adam? I told him not to let Pecker do anything irresponsible.”

“Adam let himself be persuaded by Starbuck, sir.” Ethan paused to shake his head. “I opposed them, sir, but I’m only a captain. Nothing more.”