And the funny thing about it, I realized, was that these three men around their fire really believed that they were Union soldiers. There was no playacting here. They were what they were supposed to be. Perhaps they could be anything at all, or the force (if it was a force) that could be shaped into form and matter, could be anything at all. But once that form had been taken, they were, to all intents and purposes, the thing that had been formed. In a little time, perhaps, their solid shapes would be transformed back to its elemental form, available then for another form and being, but until that came about they were Union soldiers who had just fought a battle on this shell-scarred hillside.
"It's all that I can do," said Mike, going back and sitting down. "I haven't even got a clean rag I can wrap around your head. But you find the doc and he'll fix you up."
"Here's a sandwich," said Jed, handing it to me. "I tried to knock the skippers out. I think I got the most of them."
It was an unappetizing-looking mess and the hardtack was as hard as I had read it was, but I was hungry and it was food and I put it down. Jed fixed sandwiches for the others and we all sat munching, not talking because it took a man's full concentration to eat that kind of food. The coffee had cooled enough so that I could drink it and it helped to wash the hardtack down.
Finally we were finished and Jed poured each of us another cup of coffee; Mike got out an old pipe and hunted around in a pocket until he found some crumbled shreds of tobacco with which to load the pipe. He lit it with a brand pulled gingerly from the fire.
"A newspaperman," he said. "From New York, most likely."
I shook my head. New York was too close. One of them might just happen to know a newsman from New York. "London," I said. "The Times."
"You don't sound like no Britisher to me,", said Asa. "They got a funny way of talking."
"I haven't been in England for years," I said. "I've knocked around a lot"
It didn't explain, of course, how a man could lose his British accent, but it held them for the moment.
"There's a Britisher with Lee's army," Jed said. "Free-mantle or some such name as that I suppose you know „him."
"I've heard of him," I said. "I've never met the man."
They were getting just a bit too curious. Friendly still, of course, but too curious. But they didn't follow it up. There were too many other things they wanted to talk about.
"When you write your piece," asked Mike, "what do you intend to say of Meade?"
"Why, I don't really know," I said. "I haven't thought that much about it. He fought a splendid battle here, of course. He made the Southerners come to him. He played their game for once. A strong defense and…"
Jed spat. "That may all be so," he said. "But he hasn't got no style. Now Mac—there's a man who really had some style."
"Style, sure," said Asa, "but he was always letting us get licked. It feels right good, I tell you, to be on the winning side for once." He looked across the fire at me. "You think we won this one, don't you?"
"I'm sure of it," I said. "Lee will be pulling out tomorrow. Maybe he's pulling out right now."
"Some of the men don't think so," said Mike. "I was talking to some of the Minnesota troops. They figure them crazy Rebs will make another try."
"I don't think so," said Jed. "We broke their backs this afternoon. Hell's fire, they came walking up that hill as if they were on parade. They walked right up to us; they walked right into the cannon's mouth. And us blasting away at them the way you'd blast away at targets. We're always being told what a smart general this. Lee is, but I tell you there ain't no general smart who will march his men up a pasture slope into the cannon's mouth."
"Burnside did it at Fredericksburg," said Asa.
Jed spat. "Burnside wasn't smart. No one ever said he was."
I finished my coffee, swirled the little that was left in the bottom of the cup to stir up the grounds, and tossed it at the fire. Jed reached out and lifted the pot.
"No more, thanks," I said. "I must be getting on."
I didn't want to be getting on. I wanted to stay right where I was and yarn away another hour or so with the three around the fire. The blaze was comfortable and the gully snug.
But I had a deep, underlying hunch that I had best get out when I could. Get away from these men and this battlefield before something else could happen. That bit of flying iron had been close enough. Theoretically, of course, I was in the clear, but I had no confidence in this land, nor in the Referee. The quicker out the better.
I rose to my feet. 'Thanks for the food and coffee. It was something that I needed."
"Where you going now?"
"I think, first of all, I'll hunt up that doctor."
Jed nodded. "I would if I were you," he said.
I turned about and walked away, expecting each second that they would call me back. But they didn't and I went Stumbling down the gully in the dark.
I had a crude, half-remembered map in mind and as I walked I figured out what I would do. Not the Taneytown Road that would keep me too close to the battlefield. I'd cross the Taneytown Road and keep on the east until I hit the Baltimore Pike and I'd follow that southeast. Although just why I bothered, I don't know. One place probably was as good as another in this weird place. I wasn't going any where, actually; I was just moving around. The Devil had said that Kathy was safe, back in the human world again but there had been no hint from him as to how a mar could get back into the human world and I wasn't downright sure that I could believe what the Devil said of Kathy, He was a shifty critter and not one to be trusted.
I reached the end of the gully and came out in a valley, Ahead of me lay the Taneytown Road. There were camp fires here and there and I veered around them. But stumbling through the dark, I fetched up against a warm body that had hair and that snorted at me. I backed away and, squinting, made out it was a horse, tied to a still standing section of a small rail fence.
The horse slanted its ears forward and nickered softly al me. It probably had been standing there a long tune and it may have been frightened and I got the feeling that it was glad to see a human being. It wore a saddle and was tied to the fence by a bridle rein.
"Hi, horse," I said. "Howsa fellow?"
It whuffled at me and I walked up and stroked its neck. It swung its head around and tried to nuzzle me.
I stepped back and had a look around and there was no one near. So I untied the reins and got them over the horse's neck and straightened out, then rather awkwardly climbed into the saddle. The horse seemed pleased to be untied and swung obediently as I reined it.
There was a tangle of wagons on the Taneytown Road, but I managed to get through them without anyone hailing me and once clear of the road, I headed the horse southeast and he took off at an easy lope.
We met small groups of men, plodding off somewhere, and had to swing around a battery of guns, but gradually the traffic cleared and the horse finally reached the Baltimore Pike and we went pounding down it, away from Gettysburg.
16
A few miles out of Gettysburg the road came to an end, as I should have known it would, for back there on South Mountain, where Kathy and I had landed in this place, there had been only a cart track and nothing like a road. The Pike and Taneytown Road and all the other roads, perhaps even Gettysburg itself, had been no more than a stage setting for the battle, and once one left the battle area, there was no need of roads.