Tim unbuckled his belt, slid off his bolstered pistol and held it toward the man. “I’ll surrender my sword to the officer who commands this battery,” he said.
The lieutenant nodded. “As you wish it, sir,” he said, raising his voice above the rattle of musket fire and pointing to a man who was stripped to the waist and covered with grime and sweat. “There’s Captain Chichester. Surrender your sword to him.”
The Confederate captain turned as Tim walked toward him. The Captain nodded respectfully. He reached for his pistol and handed it to a boy not more than twelve years old who stood by his side. “Guard this prisoner,” he said, “and mind you don’t shoot him by mistake.”
Tim walked with the boy to a place near a bombproof shelter where empty powder barrels were thrown helter-skelter on the sand. “I’ll sit on one of these,” he said to the boy. “I’m tired.”
The boy stood nearby, serious and manly, but frightened too. He pointed the revolver at the ground and looked at it to be sure he knew how it worked. With his chin down he looked back at Tim.
Tim sat on the barrel, looking off through the smoke, the racket of battle in his ears, the screaming of soldiers, the thunder of cannon and the chatter of rifle fire. His spirit was chilled. Fitch was dead. He wondered whether Red and Kautz were lying lifeless in the moat, or were they prisoners too? He thought of the Rebel soldier he had wounded, was it yesterday? The man had said, “The war is finished for me now.” And now, Tim thought, the war is finished for me too.
A huge siege gun was fired close by, shaking the earth and sending a puff of acrid smoke rolling along the sandbags at the top of the parapet, making the gunners cough and choke. All at once the firing stopped, the last musket cracked. The smoke of the battle rose above the fort and thinned as it was blown away. The sun filtered through the gloom and there were voices in the silence, loud at first, then soft, like the voices of schoolboys when the teacher comes into the room.
Captain Chichester, his shirt draped loosely around his shoulders, walked toward Tim through the thinning smoke.
Tim stood up, reached for his sword and handed it to the captain. The man’s sand-colored hair and eyebrows were dusted with powder that ran in streaks down his tanned face. His blue eyes reflected a sleepless night and a morning of battle. “No cause for Yankee shame today,” he said.
The powder monkey stood by his captain now, handing him his pistol, looking up at his face.