“And there still appear to be seventy-two men missing,” Bird continued stoically with his bad news. “They aren’t necessarily lost to us forever; Turner MacLean’s boy staggered in five minutes ago having spent the best part of two hours wandering around the battlefield, but he never did have an ounce of sense. Others are probably dead and gone. I hear Ridley was killed.”

“Murdered,” the Colonel insisted.

“Murdered, was he?” Bird had already heard the story, but wanted to provoke the Colonel.

“He was murdered,” the Colonel said, “and I witnessed it, and you will enter that in the regiment’s books.”

“If we ever find the books,” Bird remarked happily. “We seem to have lost all the baggage.”

“Murdered! You hear me?” Faulconer thundered the accusation, sending a stab of pain through his wounded chest. “That’s what you will enter. That he was murdered by Starbuck.”

“And Starbuck’s missing,” Bird went blithely on, “I’m most sorry to say.”

“You’re sorry?” There was something very dangerous in the Colonel’s voice.

“You should be too,” Bird said, ignoring the Colonel’s tone. “Starbuck probably saved our colors, and he certainly prevented Adam from being taken prisoner. Didn’t Adam tell you?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you, Father,” Adam said.

“Starbuck is gone!” the Colonel said flatly, “and if he was here you would be required to arrest him for murder. I saw him shoot Ridley. I saw him! Do you hear that, Thaddeus?” In fact half the Legion could hear the Colonel, whose indignation soared as he remembered poor Ridley’s death. Good God, Faulconer thought, but did none of these men believe him when he said he had seen Starbuck fire the shots that murdered Ridley! The Colonel had turned in his saddle and watched him fire the revolver! And now Pecker Bird wanted to make out that the Bostonian was some kind of hero? Christ, the Colonel thought, but he was the hero of Manassas! Had not General Johnston said as much? “You say we lost poor Roswell Jenkins?” he asked, deliberately changing the subject.

“He was quite obliterated by shellfire,” Bird confirmed, then obstinately changed the subject back. “Are you really ordering me to arrest Starbuck for murder?”

“If you find him, yes!” the Colonel shouted, then winced as a lance of pain shot down his arm. “For God’s sake, Thaddeus, why do you always have to make such a damn fuss about things?”

“Because someone has to, Colonel, someone has to.” Bird smiled and turned away while behind him, on a plateau edged with fire, the battle came to its breaking point at last.

James Starbuck never quite understood why the northern lines broke, he just remembered a desperate panic suddenly overtaking the federal troops until, all order gone, there was nothing but panic as McDowell’s army ran.