Swynyard shook his head. “Courage isn’t like a bottle of whiskey, Nate. You don’t empty it once and for all. You’re just learning your trade. The first time in battle a boy reckons he can beat anything, but after a while he learns that battle is bigger than all of us. Being brave isn’t ignorance, it’s overcoming knowledge, Nate. You’ll be all right the next time. And remember, the enemy’s in just the same funk that you are. It’s only in the newspapers that we’re all heroes. In truth we’re most of us frightened witless.” He paused and stirred the damp leaves with the toe of a boot from which the sole was gaping. “And the Yellowlegs ain’t cowards,” he went on. “Something went wrong with them, that’s for sure, but there’ll be as many brave men there as in any other battalion. I reckon they just need good leadership.”

Starbuck grimaced, hoping Swynyard told the truth, but still unwilling to leave the Legion. “Maybe I should go and see Jackson?” he suggested.

“To get those orders reversed?” Swynyard asked, then shook his head in answer. “Old Jack don’t take kindly to men questioning orders. Nate, not unless the orders are plumb crazy, and that order ain’t plumb crazy. It’s perverse, that’s all. Besides,” he smiled, trying to cheer Starbuck, “you’ll be back. Maitland won’t survive.”

“If he wears all that gold into battle,” Starbuck said vengefully, “the Yankees will pick him off in a second.”

“He won’t be that foolish,” Swynyard said, “but he won’t stay long. I know the Maitlands, and they were always high kind of folk. Kept carriages, big houses, and acres of good land. They breed pretty daughters, haughty men, and fine horses, that’s the Maitlands. Not unlike the Faulconers. And Mister Maitland hasn’t come to us because he wants to command the Legion, Nate, he’s come here because he has to tuck one proper battlefield command under his belt before he can become a general. Mister Maitland has his eye on his career, and he knows he has to spend a month with muddy boots if he’s ever going to rise high. He’ll go soon enough and you can come back.”

“Not if Faulconer has anything to do with it.”

“So prove him wrong,” Swynyard said energetically. “Make the Yellowlegs into a fine regiment, Nate. If anyone can do it, you can.”

“I sometimes wonder why I fight for this damn country,” Starbuck said bitterly.

Swynyard smiled. “Nothing to stop you going back North, Nate, nothing at all. Just keep walking north and you’ll get home. Is that what you want?”

“Hell, no.”

“So prove Faulconer wrong. He reckons that a punishment battalion will be the end of you, so prove him wrong.”

“Damn his bastard soul,” Starbuck said.

“That’s God’s work, Nate. Your’s is to fight. So do it well. And I’ll put in a request that your men are sent to my brigade.”

“What chance is there of that?”

“I’m a Mason, remember,” Swynyard said with a grin, “and I’ve still got a favor or two to call in. We’ll get you back among friends.”