Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 9

Commander-in-Chief's orders are for us to retreat back over the Potomac at once. He still hopes we can find a way to relieve the forces trapped at Fort Frederick."
    "But sir, our dead—!" I cut myself off, biting my lip. What did it matter? Fairview was dead as ashes, regardless as to whether I retrieved his body and buried it. He was reborn into a baby somewhere in the world, undoubtedly far beyond my reach. I should let go.
    I could not let go.
    I looked over at the General. He was staring at one of the returned soldiers, who had been bayoneted in the gut and looked as though he would not live out the night. The General said, "I've resigned."
    "Sir?" As I spoke, I stared, stupid with sleeplessness.
    The General turned his attention toward me; his face was grey with weariness. "I've resigned my commission. The Commander-in-Chief has accepted my resignation. He agrees that I can do better work for the Dozen Landsteads in the diplomatic office."
    I did not know what to say. I wanted to tell the General, "You're a fine officer" . . . but that would be a lie, and he would know it.
    As I struggled for speech, he smiled – a half-smile, implicitly acknowledging my dilemma. "You're to take my place."
    "Sir?" Truly, I must be asleep.
    "I did not fail to hear you the day before last, Colonel Rook; I simply failed to heed your words of wisdom. These men" – he gestured toward a group of cripples who were hobbling past us – "have paid the price for my folly. They'll be in good hands with you, I know."
    I was silent. Two days before, this would have been glorious news – news that would have made both me and Fairview shout with joy.
    But since then, I had witnessed Fairview shot dead after his own promotion, and I had learned what it meant to be the man who stands in the shelter of the General's rock. It was a privilege I feared I could no longer bear. Not without Fairview there to help me accept the burden.
    Doyle's white spaniel, which had been pawing away at a bush next to the boulder, came out and quietly sat at my feet. She had followed us down during the retreat, clearly puzzled by her inability to wake Doyle. Now she watched, her head turning back and forth, as the first of the Mippites' ambulance wagons reached the crossroads at Ammippian Springs. Nearby, a handful of medical men were moving forward. We had lost many of the Yclau doctors and assistants at Spy Hill, and the colonial stretcher-bearers had sneaked off somewhere during the morning to lick their wounds, but the Commander-in-Chief had returned the Yclau ambulance corps, and those men were now kept busy transferring the wounded from the Mippites' ambulances to ours.
    It took me some time to realize that the men accompanying the Mippite ambulances were all dark-skinned.
    I had only a moment to understand the implications of this – the colonial stretcher-bearers had gone back to the bloody battlefield to retrieve our wounded – and then I stopped one of the wagons by raising my hand. I had recognized the man lying in it.
    Biddle was wrapped in bandages covering half his face; I would not have recognized him, except that he still wore his engraved wedding watch in his pocket. As I spoke to him, he stirred.
    "Sir?" he said in a breathless manner, almost too low-voiced to be heard. "Oh, sir, Colonel Rook – no one will tell me. Did we win the battle, sir? Did we win?"
    I could feel the eye of the stretcher-bearer upon me. As it happened, it was the head stretcher-bearer. I gestured toward Biddle and raised my eyebrows.
    The head stretcher-bearer shook his head and drew a circle on his forehead with his thumb. Biddle was entering into death, then. No wonder no one had been willing to tell Biddle the truth. I leaned over and said, in the most cheerful voice I could force, "Not to worry, Biddle. All is well. Your sacrifice, and that of your comrades, was not in vain."
    Biddle gasped with relief. "Thank you, sir," he murmured. "Thank you. My woman will be proud to hear that. When I write her the news—"
    "I'll write her myself," I promised. "You get some rest now." I stepped back; the head stretcher-bearer's concentration transferred back to his charge. As I watched Biddle placed in the wagon reserved for the dead, it occurred to me that I had never asked the head stretcher-bearer his name.
    I turned away, shaken by my encounter with Biddle. So many of the men I had known were gone. Canton, killed in the first minute of the battle, whose last long