“What is your name?”
“Lieutenant Bradford, Seventh Connecticut Volunteers.”
“Maybe we’ll meet again on a happier day,” the captain said. He turned and walked away with two swords swinging and rattling at his side.
As Tim followed the boy past the bombproof the boy spoke. “All Yankees aren’t bad,” he grinned, “but most are devils, sure enough.”
“You come from Charleston, lad?”
“I come from Beaufort, sir,” he said with a sudden frown. “It was the Yankees chased us away.”
They left the shadow of the bombproof and walked through the sally port, and there, guarded by half-a-dozen men, were forty or fifty Yankee captives. There was Dawson, hatless, with his corn-colored hair shining in the sun, his face like death. An ugly welt ran across his cheek.
One guard laughed when he saw the unarmed boy with the tall Yankee. “Big fish this time, little Billy,” he rasped. “Give him over to me.”
Tim nodded to the boy and went to Dawson. “Glad to see you still alive,” he said.
Dawson looked sullenly at Tim. “I’m tired,” he said with bitterness. “I’m glad to be out of it, if you want to know the truth.”