the tallest of the three, dropping him to the ground. “Get up, you son of a bitch!” Truslow shouted. The man shook his head, then squirmed in the mud as Truslow kicked him in the guts. “Get up, you slime-bellied bastard! Up!”
“I can’t!”
“Stop it!” Starbuck called the order to Truslow, who turned in astonishment at receiving a direct reprimand from his officer.
“I ain’t letting these sons of bitches lose the war because they’re gutless weaklings,” Truslow protested.
“I don’t intend to allow that to happen either,” Starbuck said. He walked over to the man from A Company, watched by a score of other stragglers who wanted to see just how the tall, dark-haired officer could succeed where the squat, fierce sergeant had failed.
Truslow spat into the mud as Starbuck approached. “You plan on talking reason to the sumbitch?”
“Yes,” Starbuck said, “I do.” He stood above the fallen man, watched by the whole of K Company, who had paused to enjoy the confrontation. “What’s your name?” Starbuck asked the straggler.
“Ives,” the man said warily.
“And you can’t keep up, Ives?”
“Reckon I can’t.”
“He always was a useless sumbitch,” Truslow said. “Just like his pa. I tell you, if the Ives family were mules you’d have shot the whole damn lot at birth.”
“All right, Sergeant!” Starbuck said reprovingly, then smiled down at the wet, miserable Ives. “You know who’s following us?” he asked.
“Some of our cavalry,” Ives said.
“And behind the cavalry?” Starbuck asked gently.
“Yankees.”
“Just hit the no-good bastard,” Truslow growled.
“You leave me alone!” Ives shouted at the Sergeant. Ives had been emboldened by Starbuck’s gentle and considerate manner and by the support of the other stragglers, who murmured their resentment of Truslow’s brutality and their appreciation of Starbuck’s reasonable tone.
“And do you know what the Yankees will do to you?” Starbuck asked Ives.
“Reckon it can’t be worse than this, Captain,” Ives said.
Starbuck nodded. “So you can’t go on?”
“Reckon I can’t.”
The other stragglers murmured their agreement. They were all too tired, too pained, too wet, too desperate, and too unhappy even to think of continuing the march. All they wanted was to collapse beside the road, and beyond that thought of immediate rest they had no cares or fears.
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