Surgeon Gilliland identified the damage as having been caused by a solution of lye, thrown, splashed or poured over the trooper’s face, a diagnosis confirmed by the burial detail’s observations at the killing site. Death had been caused by a swelling of the nasal passages due to ingestion of the same liquid, which had cut off the trooper’s air supply. Death, Gilliland had confirmed, would have been a merciful release.

Quade’s mind was in turmoil. How in God’s name had it come to this? How had two men, both of whom were fettered, managed to gain the upper hand over four armed soldiers and wreak such catastrophic damage? Thus preoccupied, he presented himself before the colonel to confirm the troopers’ identities; they were indeed the men he had charged with delivering the prisoners from Plattsburg gaol to the encampment and, subsequently, with guarding the prisoners’ hut.

At which point Colonel Pearce had let his feelings be known, forcefully.

Quade was reporting to Colonel Pearce because Colonel Pike was no longer in the camp. Upon the orders of Surgeon Gilliland, who’d diagnosed severe pneumonia, he’d been moved to a more comfortable billet in Plattsburg. Now under the care of a local doctor, he would be bled copiously and dosed with opium, antimony and digitalis until his illness subsided. Colonel Pearce, 16th Infantry, was Pike’s deputy. It was to him that command of the encampment had been transferred.

“Well, Major?” Pearce demanded. “Any Goddamned thoughts?”

Assuming a mystified expression, Quade shook his head. “I’m sorry, Colonel. I’m at a loss. Clearly, they were operating under some misguided initiative of their own.”

“Initiative?” Pearce growled.

Quade had prepared himself for a possible cross-examination, though not for the purpose of speculating on how four men had ended up dead. He’d assumed the alarm would be raised when the prisoners were reported missing and that he would be summoned on account of his previous contact with them; not because of this. This was the last thing he’d anticipated.

But while he’d been shaken by the troopers’ deaths and repelled by their injuries, he was also aware that, crucially, there was no one else left who knew that the men had been acting under his orders. So, while defeat appeared to have been snatched from the jaws of victory, Quade was at least secure in the knowledge that his role in the night’s events would never be known. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to distance himself further. It wasn’t as if the dead could retaliate, was it?

“The men were Fifteenth Infantry, sir. Colonel Pike’s regiment – same as the men killed at Greenbush. Perhaps, with the colonel indisposed, they weren’t prepared to wait for justice to be served upon the prisoners and decided to dispense their own brand of vengeance. Loyalty to the regiment’s a powerful incentive among the rank and file, Colonel. It’s what binds them.”