The colonel fell silent as he unfolded a map. Adam desperately wanted to know why the army did not give Thorne a fighting command, but he did not like to ask the question, but then the colonel answered it anyway. “I’m not one of the elect, Faulconer. I wasn’t in Mexico, I wasn’t at West Point, I didn’t spend my peacetime nights flattering other uniformed fools with damnfool stories about slaughtering Comanches. I was brought into the peacetime army to build barracks, so I’m not supposed to understand soldiering. I’m not part of the mystical brotherhood. Have you ever seen Little George talk about soldiering? He weeps! Goes misty at the eyes!” Thorne hooted his derision. “Damn the weeping until you’ve given someone something to weep about. You can’t win a war without taking casualties, lots of casualties, blood from one end of the country to the other. After that you can weep. But don’t give me all this podsnap about sacred bonds, brotherhood, honor, and duty. We have a duty to win, that’s all.”

“Yes, sir,” Adam said dully. He was not sure he liked what the colonel was saying, for Adam had an idea that war was somehow mystical. He knew all war was a bad thing, of course, a terrible thing even, but when it was touched by honor and patriotism it was subtly transformed into nobility and Adam did not want to think of it as mere uniformed butchery.

He took the glasses that the colonel offered and dutifully trained them westward. He was wondering why the older man had so suddenly appeared at the army’s headquarters to suggest this long ride into Maryland, but Adam, lonely himself, had no idea of the colonel’s loneliness, nor of the colonel’s fears. Thorne, watching his army led by fools, feared that it would be thrown away before it could win the war and he feared that nothing he could do would prevent that tragedy, but still he must do what he could. “One man,” he said suddenly.

“Sir?” Adam lowered the glasses.

“One man can make a difference, Faulconer.”

“Yes, sir,” Adam said, cringing at the inadequacy of his answer and wanting to ask Thorne more about the strange spy who had given Thorne Adam’s name. How was Adam supposed to contact the man? Or the man Adam? Adam had already asked Thorne these questions and received an honest answer; that Thorne did not know, but Adam would have liked to probe the matter further in search of some clue that would tell him how he might prove useful in this campaign.

Thorne took back the field glasses. “I reckon that’s Damascus,” he said, pointing to a small group of houses clustered atop a low ridge some four of five miles away, “and if the rebels were advancing on Washington, which they’re not, they’d be there.” Thorne folded the stiff map and shoved it into a pocket. “Let’s take a late lunch in Damascus, Faulconer, Maybe we’ll be struck by enlightenment on the road.”