, it was on the move once more while
before it crumpled motes of blue were carried down the slope to the
riverbank, there to steady and stand fast.

Drew's throat was aching and dry, but he was still croaking hoarsely,
hardly feeling the slam of his Colts' recoils. They were up to that blue
line, firing at deadly point-blank range. And part of him wondered how
any men could still keep their feet and face back to such an assault
with ready muskets. By his side a man skipped as might a marcher trying
to catch step, then folded up, sliding limply to the trampled grass.

Men were flinging up hands holding empty cartridge boxes along the
attacking line--too many of them. Others reversed the empty carbines, to
use them in clubbing duels back and forth. The Union troops fell back,
firing still, making their way into the railroad cut. Now the river was
a part defense for them. Bayonets caught the sunlight in angry flashing,
and they bristled.

"You ... Rennie...."

Drew lurched back under the clutch of a frantic hand belonging to an
officer he knew.

"Get back to the horse lines! Bring up the holders' ammunition, on the
double!"

Drew ran, panting, his boots slipping and scraping on the grass as he
dodged around prone men who still moved, or others who lay only too
still. A horse reared, snorted, and was pulled down to four feet again.

"Ammunition!" Drew got the word out as a squawk, grabbing at the boxes
the waiting men were already tossing to him. Then, through the haze
which had been riding his mind since the battle began, he caught a clear
sight of the fifth man there.... And there was no disguising the blond
hair of the boy so eagerly watching the struggle below. Drew had found
Boyd--at a time he could do nothing about it. With his arms full, the
scout turned to race down the slope again, only to sight the white flag
waving from the railroad cut.

More prisoners to be marched along, joining the other dispirited ranks.
Drew heard one worried comment from an officer: they would soon have
more prisoners than guards.

He went back, trying to locate Boyd, but to no purpose. And the rest of
the day was more confusion, heat, never-ending weariness, and always the
sense of there being so little time. Rumors raced along the lines, five
thousand, ten thousand blue bellies on the march, drawing in from every
garrison in the blue grass. And those who had been hunted along the Ohio
roads a year before were haunted by that o