But why could I not have joined it as a recruit?
Simply because Jones Berwick was in the Confederate army; I could not have easily gone North to enlist.
But could I not have clothed myself at once as a Union soldier, so that there would have been no need of desertion?
No; I could not have answered questions; I should have been asked my regiment; I should have been ordered back to my regiment. I remember the difficulty I had met with when I joined, or when Berwick Jones joined, Company H. I had been compelled to lay aside the Confederate uniform, and join as a recruit dressed in civilian's clothing, merely because I could not bear to have questions asked. So, when I had played the Federal, if I had presented myself in a blue uniform, I could not have answered questions, and the requirement to report to my company would have destroyed my whole plan.
Yet it was just possible that I had succeeded in obtaining civilian's clothing, and had joined the Federals as a pretended recruit, just as I had joined Company H later. This was less unlikely when coupled with the thought that possibly my first experience in this course had had some hidden influence on my second.
But why is it that I cannot recall my first service as a Confederate? The question disturbs me. My peculiar way of forgetting must be the reason. When, as Jones Berwick the Confederate, I became Berwick Jones the Federal, there must have come upon my mind a phase of oblivion similar to that which clouded it when I became a Confederate again.
Yet this explanation is weak. No such thing could occur twice just at the critical time ... unless ... some power, mysterious and profound.... What was Dr. Khayme in all this?
And another thought, winch bewilders me no less. On my musket I had carved J.B. I was Jones Berwick as a Federal. Then I must always have been Berwick Jones when a Confederate. How did I ever get to be Berwick Jones? How did I ever become Jones Berwick? Which was I at first? Had I ever deserted? Had I ever been a spy? I doubt everything.
My mind became clearer. I could connect events: the first Manassas, or Bull Bun; the helping of Willis; the meeting with the Doctor; the return to Willis; the shore and the battle of the ships; the Merrimac; the line of the Warwick; the lines at Hanover; the night tramp in the swamp; crossing the hill; a blank, which my double memory knew how to fill, and the subsequent events of my second service in our army. Nothing important seemed lacking since the battle of Bull Run. Before that battle everything was confusion. My home was still unknown. The friends of my former life, so far as I could remember, had been Federals, if Dr. Khayme and Lydia could be called Federals.
Yet I supposed my home was Charleston. My memory now began with that city. There were but two great gaps remaining to be filled: first, my life before I was at school under the Doctor; second, my life at home and in the Confederate army before I pretended to desert to the Federals.