“The best son of a bitch friend you ever had,” Starbuck said. “Is anything left in your belly?”

“It hurts,” Potter said, rubbing his yellow-white skin where Starbuck had hit him.

“Stand straight!” Starbuck barked.

“Soldier! Soldier!” Potter said as he made a feeble effort to stand to attention. “Jesus wants me for a soldier.” He retched again. “Oh, my God.”

Starbuck pushed him back onto the wall. “Stand up straight,” he said.

“Discipline,” Potter said as he tried to straighten up. “The cure for all that ails me.”

Starbuck took a handful of Potter’s long, fair hair and rammed it back against the shack’s wall, thus forcing the Lieutenant to look into his eyes. “What’s going to cure you, you son of a bitch,” he said, “is looking after your wife.”

“Martha? Is she here?” Potter immediately cheered up and looked left and right. “Don’t see her.”

“She’s here. And she’s been looking for you. Why the hell did you leave her?”

Potter frowned as he tried to remember his last few days. “I didn’t precisely leave her,” he finally said. “I wandered, true, and did misplace her for a time. I was in need of a drink, you understand, and met a friend. Do you notice how that happens? You go to a strange city, incur a thirst, and the very first person you meet is someone you were at school with. The workings of providence, I suppose. Would you mind, sir, very much letting go of my hair so that I can be sick again? Thank you.” He managed to say the last two words before jackknifing forward and spewing up a last pathetic throatful of vomit. He moaned, closed his eyes, and slowly stood up again. “Rinsed out now,” he said reassuringly as he looked at Starbuck. “Do I know you?”

“Major Starbuck.”

“Ah! Starbuck! A famous name!” Potter said and Starbuck tensed himself for the usual attack on his father, a notorious enemy of the South, but Matthew Potter had a different Starbuck in mind. “First mate of the Pequod, aren’t I right?”

“Think of me as Captain Ahab, Lieutenant,” Starbuck said.

Potter gazed momentarily at Starbuck’s legs. “Rather overendowed with pins, aren’t you, for such a role? Or is one of those an ivory peg?” Potter giggled, then winced as another pain lashed at him. “Should I be pleased to meet you?”

“Yes, you damn well should. Now come on, you son of a bitch, we’re going to fight a duel.”

Potter stared with horror at Starbuck, then shook his head. “Not in my line of business, sir. Really not. Don’t mind battle, but not pistols at dawn.”

“It’s swords at dusk. Now come on! Don’t tread in that!” Too late. Potter placed a bare foot in his puddle of vomit, grimaced, then followed Starbuck into the tavern where an emotional Martha threw herself into her husband’s enfeebled arms. Starbuck thought about offering to buy back the Lieutenant’s shoes and shirt, then decided against wasting his money. Potter could be equipped from the thin stores at Camp Lee, and until then he could go barefoot and bare-chested.