“Nothing,” Blythe said.

“Nothing? Hell, I make him up to captain and he rewards me by getting blind drunk.”

Blythe stretched out a cramped leg. Then he leaned forward and snatched a burning stick from the fire and used it to light a pair of cigars. He handed one to Starbuck. “I guess I’m going to have to tell you the truth, Major.”

“What truth?”

Blythe waved his cigar toward the flickering camp fires. “These men here, they ain’t an ordinary battalion any more than you’re an ordinary major. They don’t know much about you, but what they do know, they like. I don’t say they like you, because they don’t even know you, but they sure as hell are intrigued by you. You’re a Yankee for a start, and you ain’t inclined to follow the rules. You make your own rules and you fight your own fights. They like that. They don’t want you to be ordinary.”

“What the hell has this got to do with Potter?” Starbuck interrupted.

“Because men going into battle,” Blythe went on as though Starbuck had never spoken, “don’t want their leaders to be ordinary. Men have to believe in something, Major, and when God chooses to stay in heaven they’re forced to believe in their officers instead. In you,” he prodded the cigar toward Starbuck, “and if you show you’re just an ordinary officer then, hell, they’ll lose their faith.”

“Tumlin,” Starbuck said, “you’re babbling.”

“No, sir, I am not. I’m telling you that an ordinary officer would fall back on army regulations. An ordinary officer would humiliate Potter and that, sir, would be a mistake. Hell, give Potter a scare, put the fear of God in the bastard, but don’t bust him back to lieutenant. The men like him.”

“Let him off?” Starbuck asked dubiously. “That’s weakness.”

“Hell, Major, no one thinks you’re weak after what you did to Case. Besides, Potter did you real proud with the wagon.”

“He did that, right enough.” Or rather Lucifer had done the battalion proud for, on his exploration of Winchester’s side streets, the boy had glimpsed a magnificent hearse parked inside a shed. The shed had been locked tight by the time Potter’s detail arrived and the owner swore there was nothing inside but baled hay, but Potter had forced the lock and revealed the black-painted vehicle with its etched glass windows, velvet curtains, and high black plumes in their silver holders. He had filled the hearse with ammunition, then, lacking horses, his men had dragged the quaint vehicle northward. “He sure did us proud,” Starbuck admitted again, then pulled on his cigar. In truth he did not want to punish Potter, but he feared to send the battalion a signal of lenience. “I’ll give him hell,” he said after a while, “but if the bastard does it again I’ll break him down to cookboy. You want to go find the son of a bitch and send him to me?”

“I’ll do that,” Tumlin said and shambled into the night.