“I did.”

“Hell, this is a stroll compared with that. Keep going.”

Sergeant Case displayed no weakness. He marched steadily, untiringly, with Billy Blythe’s bedroll over his own. When, each hour, the column halted for a ten minute rest, Sergeant Case would find water and bring it to Blythe. Starbuck watched the two and wondered if it had been they who had tried to kill him in the Harper’s Ferry night, but now, under the unrelenting sun, that murder attempt seemed like a bad dream. He wondered if he had been mistaken. Maybe the shot had merely been some man’s attempt to clear his musket of fouled powder, or perhaps a drunk had loosed a bullet into the night. He had seen two men running away, but that proved nothing.

Potter’s company led the battalion. They lost no one to straggling, nor should they, for they were the cream of the Special Battalion. Potter marched happily enough, singing with his men, telling stories and jokes, and sometimes helping to haul the hearse with its precious load of ammunition. More ammunition was carried on the wagon, but the draft horses taken at Harper’s Ferry were proving fatally weak. The wagon fell farther and farther behind, causing chaos as gun teams and battalions tried to pass it on the road.

“I assume,” Potter said to Starbuck, “that there is a purpose to this exertion?”

“If Old Jack marches like this,” Starbuck said, “you can be sure he’s going to battle.”

“You like him, don’t you?” Potter observed with amusement.

“Old Jack? Yes, I do.” Starbuck was faintly surprised at the admission.

“You emulate him.”

“Me?” Starbuck was surprised. “Never,” he said dismissively.

“Not in the matter of God,” Potter allowed, “nor, perhaps, in his eccentricities, but otherwise? Yes, you do. Single-minded Starbuck, not yielding an inch, tougher than boot leather. You despise weakness.”

“This ain’t a time to be weak.”

“I can think of no better time,” Potter said dryly. “The weak are liable to fall out and be spared the slaughter. It’s you strong ones who’ll march gallantly into the Yankee guns. Don’t worry, Starbuck, I’ll be with you, but I have to tell you there’s a jug of whiskey in my pack in case things get too bad.”

Starbuck smiled. “Only one?”

“Alas, only one, but it’s marvelous what one bottle will achieve.”

“Just keep some for me.”

“A sip, maybe.” Potter walked on, following the hearse with its dusty plumes. “I am astonished at my forbearance,” he said after a while. “I have a whole jug and I haven’t unstoppered it.”

“So you are strong.”

“Temporarily, maybe.”

“Jackson says that strength comes from God,” Starbuck said.

“He would, wouldn’t he?” Potter said, casting a sidelong look at his Major. “Do I detect a soul in trouble?”

Starbuck glanced to his right to see a stretch of the Potomac showing between heavy trees. The march was taking them northward along the Potomac’s southern bank, but soon, he knew, they must cross the river and thus pass into the North. “I was just thinking about God last night,” he said evasively. He wondered if he should mention the murderous attempt on his life, but decided it would all sound too fanciful. “Hell,” he said after a while, “when you’re going into battle you’re bound to think about God, aren’t you?”