The postmaster looked at the addressee’s name, then at the forged initials, and finally up into Delaney’s face. He said nothing.

“He’s an old friend,” Delaney explained airily, “and this might be my last chance to write to him.” There was a risk that the postmaster was not a Northern supporter at all, but that was a risk Delaney had to run, just as he had to risk that the provosts did not check the basket of mail a third time.

“You’re all leaving then?” the postmaster asked.

“By tomorrow,” Delaney said, “the army will be gone.”

“Where?”

“Over the hills and far away,” Delaney said lightly. Sweat trickled down his cheeks. “But I imagine,” he went on, “that the Federals will be here soon?”

“Like as not,” the postmaster said with a shrug. He weighed the letter in his hand, then ostentatiously put it in the drawer rather than with the other mail from the Confederate army. “It’ll be delivered,” he promised, “but I don’t know when.”

“I’m obliged to you,” Delaney said.

Once outside the post office Delaney had to lean against the wall. He was shaking like a man with the fever. Dear God, he thought, but he had no stomach for this kind of thing. He felt a sudden need to vomit, but managed to hold it back. Sweat poured off him. He had been a fool! He had been unable to resist flamboyance. He had deliberately tried to impress a man he thought was a Northern sympathizer, but he knew the risk had been stupid and the thought of the hangman’s noose made him gag again.

“Are you unwell, Major?”

Delaney looked up and saw an elderly minister in Geneva bands watching him with a sympathetic, but wary, look. Doubtless he feared Delaney was drunk. “It’s the heat,” Delaney said, “nothing but the heat.”

“It is warm,” the minister agreed, sounding relieved that it was not liquor that had caused Delaney’s distress. “Do you need help? A cup of water, maybe?”

“No, thank you. I shall manage just fine.” Delaney suddenly looked up as a rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. There were no threatening clouds in sight, but the sound of the far-off storm was unmistakable. “Maybe the rain will break the heat,” he said to the minister.

“Rain?” The minister frowned. “That isn’t thunder,” he said, realizing what Delaney had meant. “Those are guns, Major, those are guns.” He stared west down main street to where the green fields and heavy trees and lines of rebel tents showed. “Harper’s Ferry,” the minister said, “it must be Harper’s Ferry. God help all those poor men.”

“Amen,” Delaney said, “amen.” For the fighting had begun.

The guns slammed back on their trails, spewing smoke sixty feet ahead of their muzzles and scattering flaming scraps of wadding onto the grass where small fires flickered from the previous shots. The sound of the guns was huge, so huge that it was more than just a sound, but a physical sensation as though the very earth was being buffeted in space. The shells screamed across the valley to leave little smoke trails from their burning fuses, then exploded to gouts of dirty gray-white smoke above the farther ridge. The smoke trails twisted in the wind, became feathery and tenuous, then another battery fired and the grass in front of the muzzles flicked flat again as another set of smoke trails whipped across the sky. Cannon barrels hissed as the wet swabs were thrust down the muzzles. On the far ridge a Yankee battery returned the fire, but the Northern guns were outnumbered and the rebel guns were well laid and their fuses well timed, and so the Northern gunners died man by man as the shell fragments hissed among them.