Galloway divided his force into three. Adam's troop would serve as a screen between the raiders and the bulk of the Faulconer Brigade while Galloway's troop, reinforced with half of Blythe's men, would attack the supply wagons. Billy Blythe would wait with the other half of his troop near McComb's Tavern, where they would serve as a rear guard to cover the raiders' withdrawal. "It'll all be over quickly," Galloway warned his men, "only as long as it takes the sumbitches to get over their surprise." He had his bugler imitate the sound of the call that would order the retreat. "When you hear that played on a bugle, boys, you get the living hell out of there. Straight down the road to the crossroads where Captain Blythe will be waiting for us."
"With a jigger of rebel whiskey for every last man jack of you," Blythe added, and the nervous men laughed.
Galloway opened his watch. "Be another two hours before we leave, boys, so just be patient."
The day darkened toward evening. The troopers' clothes were clammy with a greasy, sweaty dampness. Galloway had forbidden fires so that the smoke would not betray their presence, and thus they simply had to endure the cloying dank as the minutes ticked by. Men prepared themselves obsessively for battle, believing that every small degree of painstaking care counted toward survival. They used cloaks and saddlecloths to keep the rain from their repeating rifles and revolvers as they loaded the weapons' chambers with powder, wadding, and miniй bullets. On top of each bullet they put a plug of grease that was intended to prevent the flame in the firing chamber communicating with the neighboring charges and so exploding the whole cylinder. They sharpened their sabers, the sound of the stones harsh on the curved steel. Those men whose blades rattled in their metal sheaths dented the scabbards so that the weapons were held tight and silent by the compressed metal. Corporal Harlan Kemp then led a score of men in prayer. He put one knee on the wet ground, one hand on the hilt of his sword, and raised his free hand toward God as he prayed that the Lord would bless this evening's work with a mighty success and keep His servants free from all harm from the enemy.
Adam joined the circle of prayer. He felt very close to his men as he knelt with them, and the very act of praying imbued the night's action with a sacred quality that lifted it above mere adventure into the realm of duty. "I do not want to be here," Adam prayed silently, "but as I am here, Lord, then be here with me and let me help this war to a quick and just ending." When Harlan Kemp's blessing was finished, Adam climbed to his feet and saw Billy Blythe standing beside the mare Adam had taken from the Faulconer stud. Blythe ran his hand down the mare's legs, then slapped her rump. "You got yourself some good horses, Faulconer," Blythe said as Adam approached.
"You're in my way," Adam said brusquely, then pushed the tall Blythe aside so he could throw a saddlecloth over the mare's back.
"Real nice piece of horseflesh." Blythe peeled back the mare's lips to examine her teeth, then stood a pace away to give the horse an admiring look. "Bet she runs like a bitch in heat. Specially with a touch of the whip. Don't you find the whip tickles a female up real nice, Faulconer?" Blythe chuckled when Adam made no answer. "Reckon a horse like this would suit me real well," he went on.
"She's not for sale," Adam said coldly. He heaved the saddle onto the mare's back, then stooped to gather the girth strap.
"Wasn't reckoning on buying her from you," Blythe said, then spat a stream of tobacco spittle close to Adam's face, "because there ain't no point in buying things in war, not when they have a habit of dropping into a man's lap. That's what I like about war, Faulconer, the way things come without payment. That's real convenient to my way of thinking. I figure it takes the sweat out of a man's life." He smiled at the thought, then touched a finger to the dripping brim of his hat. "You sure mind yourself now," he said, then ambled away, grinning at his intimates and leaving Adam feeling tawdry.
Major Galloway was the first to mount up. He settled his feet in his stirrups, pushed his repeating rifle into its saddle holster, eased his saber an inch or two from its scabbard, then made sure his two revolvers were in easy reach. "Smoke your last cigars and pipes now, boys," the Major said, "because once we're out of this wood there'll be no more lit tobacco till we wake the sumbitches." His incendiarists checked their supplies: lucifers, flints, steels, tinder, and fuses. Their job was to burn the ammunition, while others of his men carried axes to splinter wheel spokes and hammers and nails to spike the rebels' cannon.
One by one the men pulled themselves into their saddles. A horse whinnied softly while another skittered nervously sideways. Water dripped from the leaves, but Adam sensed that above the darkening canopy of trees the rain had stopped. The evening was young, but the clouds made the sky seem like night.
"For the Union, boys," Galloway said, and the more idealistic of the men repeated the phrase and added God's blessing. They were fighting for their beloved country, for God's country, for the best of all countries.
"Forward, boys," Galloway said, and the column lurched on its way.
To battle.
Captain Medlicott and Captain Moxey sat on the veranda of the farmhouse that served as General Washington Faulconer's headquarters and stared at the evening rain. On the western horizon, Medlicott noted, where it should have been darkest at this time of day, the sky was showing a pale strip of lighter cloud where the rainstorm had stalled, but that evidence of dry weather showed no sign of wanting to move east. "But it'll be a fine day tomorrow," Medlicott grunted. The sweat dripped off his beard. "I know these summer storms." He twisted in his chair and looked through the open parlor door to where the General was sitting at the claw-footed table. "It'll be a fine day tomorrow, General!"
Faulconer did not respond to Medlicott's optimism. The evening was sweltering, and the General was in his shirtsleeves. His uniform coat with its heavy epaulets and expensive braid trimming was hanging in the farmhouse hall along with his fine English revolver and the elegant saber that General Lafayette had presented to his grandfather. The General was staring at some papers on the table. He had been contemplating these papers for much of the day, and now, instead of signing them, he pushed them to one side. "I must be sure to do the right thing," Faulconer said, by which he meant that he must be sure not to make a mistake that could recoil onto his own career. "Goddamn it, but they should be court-martialed!"
Captain Moxey spat tobacco juice over the veranda's railing. "They should be in prison for disobeying orders, sir," Moxey said, emboldened by the privilege of being asked to give advice about the fate of Colonel Swynyard and Captain Starbuck.
"But they'll plead they were merely doing their duty," Faulconer said, worrying at the problem like a dog at a bone. "Our orders are to guard the river crossings, aren't they? And what were they doing? Just guarding a ford. How do we persuade a court otherwise?"
Captain Medlicott waved the objection away. "It ain't a proper ford, sir, not really. Not on the maps, anyway. It's just that the river's running uncommon shallow this year." He sounded very unconvincing, even to himself.
"But if I just dismiss them"—Faulconer now contemplated the alternative to a court-martial—"what's to stop them appealing? My God, you know their facilities for telling lies!"
"Who'd believe them?" Moxey asked. "One pious drunk and a Yankee troublemaker?"
Too many people would believe them, Faulconer thought, that was the trouble. Swynyard's cousin was influential, and Starbuck had friends, and consequently Faulconer felt as trapped as a man who has made a wonderful attack deep into enemy lines only to find that he cannot extricate his forces. Last night he had been triumphant, but a single day's reflection on the night's achievements had thrown up a score of obstacles to the completion of that triumph, not the least of which was that Swynyard had obstinately refused to get drunk. A drunken colonel would have been much easier to court-martial than a sober and repentant colonel, and it was Faulconer's deepest wish to see both Swynyard and Starbuck dragged in front of a court-martial, then marched at rifle point to the Confederate army prison in Richmond, but he did not see how he could make the prosecution case irrefutable. "The trouble is," he said, changing his argument yet again, "that there are too many people in this Brigade who'll give evidence on Starbuck's side."