FicWad

Jack returns battle-weary and hung-over after an early morning battle in early April. He shipped Jason’s birthday presents from himself and Kerrigan the previous day. Kerrigan gave the boy a book of military history that Jack knows is too difficult for him to read. The idea, according to Kerrigan, is that Jason will read the first chapter, which is certainly within his realm of understanding, and teach himself to understand the rest. Jack had one of his subordinates, who is an expert whittler, carve the boy a toy sword and shield and paint them silver. He also arranged for a uniform to be made for Jason to exactly match his dress uniform. He cannot visit his son, but he is determined to make it up to him. Maire sent him a letter telling him that Jason would be staying at school for his birthday. Jack wishes he could see the boy. Jack writes Maire about their younger son.

Kerrigan sits stiffly on her bed. Jack sits beside her and begins to rub her shoulders, but she shrugs him off. Her husband is coming to visit. Jack packs his duffel and sets out to sleep in a tent with Liam for the night Morietur will stay. Jack leaves before Morietur arrives. He brings woolen blankets, alcohol, a clean uniform, and his weapons. He finds Liam’s tent easily, but Liam is nowhere to be seen. Jack leads Spectre inside the tent and sits on Liam’s cot drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. Liam shares his tent with three other captains, but Jack can tell his son’s bunk apart easily. One of the bunks has pictures of a wife and children next to it. Liam is a childless bachelor. Another bunk is surrounded by books. Liam is illiterate. A third bunk has a pair of rather short trousers on top of it, and so obviously belongs to a short man. Liam is over six feet tall. Liam’s trunk is nearly empty. He owns but one set of civilian clothes, and they are in poor repair. He has a single dress uniform and a single coat. He also has two combat uniforms, one of which he is wearing. He is fairly uneducated, but he can count. The little money he has is in a bag with his playing cards and dice. His only other possessions are a silver ring he made early in his apprenticeship with McAlpine, a small book of pictures of semi-nude women, which is sitting on his bed, and a tin hip flask, which Jack finds to be empty. He looks at Liam’s book and waits. Slowly, the soldiers return. After every battle, they are tallied. The identity of anyone not found is sent to the doctors and morticians. A few brave spies send back the identities and information about those captured.

Liam is the first to return to his tent. He has no horse. The other men must care for their animals before returning. He is shocked to be face-to-face with a Spectre upon entering his tent. Liam ushers Jack’s horse outside and brings him to the stable for the night. He returns with his bunkmates.

“Jack, these are Captains Michael O’Dowd, James McEvoy, and William Fitzmaurice. This is me da’, Senatorial General Jack Shepherd.”

“Jaysus…are ye really his da’?” asks Michael.

“Aye, an’ there’ll be no callin’ me ‘sor,’ or ‘Senatorial General,” or ‘Senator,’ or ‘Prince,’ or ‘Lord,’ or even ‘Mister Shepherd.’ Call me Jack while I’m here. An’ what can I call ye?”

“Michael,” says the shortest of the three, who is stocky, swarthy, and at least a foot shorter than Jack.

“Billy or Billy Fitz. There’s a Major Billy McDomhnaill with the Forty-Third Cavalry, just over the hill, and he particularly hates getting confused with a mere captain. He’s Billy Mick, I’m Billy Fitz,” says a blond, bespectacled man, putting his gun atop his bookshelf.

“Jimmy or Jim,” says a fairly tall, fairly muscular man with auburn hair and broad shoulders.

“Billy, I think I may’ve seen ye before. Where’re ye from?”

“Bridgeton.”

“Ye an’ the rest o’ the Thirteenth. What street?”

“Corner o’ Peddler’s an’ Mason’s, down by Beaker’s Point Wharf.”

“Any chance ye knew the Sparrows?”

“Knew ‘em? I went to school wi’ Brendan.”

“That’s why I know ye. I was a friend o’ their father. Ye must’ve been over the house when I was there or summat.”

“Perhaps. How’s your man Brendan, then?”

“Good. Got hisself a knighthood.”

“An’ his sister? She still the easiest lay in Bridgeton?”

“Aye.”

“How’s oul’ Mike Crane doin’, then?”

“He’s still there. Jim, step into the light a mo’. Ye related to the O’Sheas?”

“First cousin to Danny’s lot, an’ to the Pier Street O’Sheas, Kevin O’Sheas, an’ the Devlin an’ Michael Darcys, an’ Maggie an’ Thomas Clearys, an’ Pauline an’ Seachnaill Deegans from me ma’s side. Me ma’ was an O’Shea.”

“Ye have the O’Shea shoulders. Any chance that list includes a Sullivan?”

“He’s a Pier Street O’Shea. First cousin. I grew up across the river in District Twenty, moved to District Thirteen when I was nineteen. He still boxin’?”

“Not that I know of. Pity. If he were, I’d be winnin’ bets left an’ right. Michael, do I know ye?”

“Me ma’ was a Gallagher. Tiny little woman named Deirdre. Her sister Aoife married Tommy O’Shea o’ Pier Street. I’m a first cousin o’ Sullivan on the other side. I’m from Cat’s Corner in Bridgeton.”

“Sure enough, I knew Deirdre Gallagher. That was before she married your da’. Sullivan O’Shea was a lad of ten. Your ma’ was nineteen. What’re ye lookin’ at me like that for? I never slept wi’ her. I was apprenticed to your grandda’. Revolution broke out after I left. Sullivan was fifteen an’ already a boxin’ champion. Ye were about the same age as me Jason is now.”

“See this here? I got it durin’ the last year o’ the Revolution,” he proudly declares, pointing at a medal on his uniform.

“I don’t want to count the things I did. I still don’t know how it happened or how I survived, but believe me, ‘twas somethin’ awful. We’d no guns. To even it out, we’d break theirs. We’d jam ‘em wi’ mud, so when they’d fire, the guns’d explode on whoever fired ‘em. I’m probably personally responsible for killin’ more honest men wi’ me own two hands than the lot o’ ye combined. I brought whiskey.”

“Sor?” asks Jimmy.

“Did I not tell ye to call me Jack?”

“Jack?”

“Aye?”

“Aren’t we not supposed to get drunk out here?”

“Technically, no, but I won’t tell anyone ye answer to, like, for example, meself.”

“Ah.”

“So, who was the fifth man in this tent?” asks Jack, looking at the empty bunk.”

“Yourself tonight. In a week, who knows? Haven’t told us yet. A week ago, ‘twas Paddy Reilly, replies Michael.

“Did he-?”

“Aye. Shot in the chest.”

“Jaysus, no! Not Reilly. I knew his da’, his granda’, his ma’. Hell, when I went to prison for me first murder, his da’ was me cell mate. We broke out together.”

“Who’d ye kill?” asks Liam.

“The king’s right-hand man. Ah, but ye don’t want t’hear me old war stories.”

“I do, da’.”

“Well, d’ye want t’hear the truth or what I tell women in bars?”

“Both.”

“Well, I tell women it was clean, an’ I acted alone, almost got away but for a corner o’ me shirt tail stuck in the door. I tell ‘em they found me the next morning’ in bed tellin’ a girl not quite so pretty as herself the story. I tell ‘em I bravely faced down four score guards alone to get to the man, an’ I tell ‘em I let the baby girl live an’ that she never saw me cut her da’s an’ ma’s throats. I tell ‘em that me an’ aul’ Reilly tied sheets together an’ went into a waiting rowboat at high noon provided by none other than the O’Caseys.”

“What really happened?”

“I was scared shitless. Sure, I’d never killed anyone so personally. On’y in battle. I didn’t act alone a’ ‘tall. There was forty men conspirin’ t’kill ‘im. Sure, I was the man who actually did it, but guards were bribed, uniforms stolen, an’ signals arranged. I went in at the changin’ o’ the guard. They was eatin’ dinner. I cut his throat from behind, grabbed his wife in her grief, an’, I ain’t told nobody this, promised her I’d spare her an’ her daughter if she’d go at it wi’ me. I fucked her brains out, an’ she brings me dinner an’ drinks, thinkin’ I was a poor starvin’ country boy, which I was. I cut her throat, put her body in her husband’s arms, stuffed an apple in his mouth, took as much whiskey as I could fit in me pack, a coat, for ‘twas winter an’ I’d none, an’ the girl, two years old, an’ I ran like somethin’ fierce. I had the girl under the coat, an’ I’d her mouth tied shut so she wouldn’t scream. I still have a bottle o’ that whiskey I saved as a trophy. Bottle’s bloody empty, been so for years, but I keep it with me war an’ huntin’ trophies in a room upstairs in me house for the memory. If ye’re wonderin’ how I kept it so bloody long wi’ no home, I drank it, left it wi’ O’Casey, who kept it for me in his shop, an’ got it back when I bought a cabin outside Bridgeton. When I moved to the manor, it went wi’ me. I handed the girl off t’ Mickey O’Malley, whose own girl, same age an’ similar name, had been shot by the king’s men for sport. Little Annie O’Malley, well, I suppose she’s not so little now, is really Anabella Saint Claire, the General’s daughter, but she don’t know, so don’t go tellin’ her. As for how they caught me, I was supposed to take the secon’ ferry south along the Tyne, since O’Malley an’ the girl took the first, but they caught me literally red-handed wi’ Mrs. Saint Claire’s blood in a brothel, pants at me ankles, fluthered, effin’ an’ blindin’, an’ playin’ wi’ twin doxies’ diddies.”

“An’ after that?”

“I met Reilly in prison. He was in for assaultin’ an officer o’ the realm an’ impersonatin’ a soldier in the Royal Guard. We left at midnight, right after the last check while the guard was changein’, jus’ like how I killed General Saint Claire, an’ we pretended t’be asleep, put the pillows under the blankets so’s they didn’t notice we was gone ‘till mornin’, quietly an’ calmly slipped out the back wi’ a home-made key an’ the help o’ Reilly’s brother, who was servin’ as a false guard an’ spy, an’ we swam a mile downstream to O’Casey’s boat where Mike an’ Frank Crane were waitin’ for us. They brought us to Bridgeton by boat, came ashore at Pier Street, hid O’Casey’s boat in O’Shea’s parlor ‘till the next night, an’ brought Reilly to the Malones’ an’ me to the O’Caseys’, where Saxen handed me a clay mug o’ poitín an’ a woolen blanket an’ showed me a place by the fire, while Molly, rest her soul, washed all the blood out o’ me one an’ on’y shirt an’ dried it by the fire, this while pregnant wi’ General Ronan, her youngest.”

Meanwhile Kerrigan is cooking dinner for her husband in the little cabin. He leaves his castle very rarely, and he typically drinks heavily when he does. He genuinely detests leaving the comfort and safety of his home. He is continually pacing and telling her that her place is at home with him. She asks no questions. She makes no reply. There is no correct answer. She merely serves steak the way her husband likes and has always liked it and fills his mug of wine when it is empty. She sits with him through dinner and half a bottle of wine. He is far too drunk to walk, but the cottage is small and crowded enough to stumble between the furniture. Kerrigan knows what he will say and do, and she mindlessly goes along with everything she is told, lest Morietur become particularly violent.

Jack and Liam have had a bottle each, yet aren’t visibly drunk. Billy Fitz is laying in bed too drunk to move, and Michael and Jimmy are dancing to Jack and Liam singing loudly and Billy moaning. Michael has not drunk so much since before he was married.

The hours sad I left a maid
A lingering farewell taking,
Whose sighs and tears my steps delayed
I thought my heart was breaking.
In hurried words her name I blest.
I breathed the vows that bind me,
And to my heart in anguish pressed
The girl I left behind me.

Morietur picks up his wife and throws her onto the bed. She defied his wishes by coming out here. She is not a proper wife. She must be punished. She must hurt. He does not love her, for she spurned him. He trusts none, least of all her, for she is weak, and she is a whore. He knows she is not faithful to him. He sees the way other men look at her, and he knows.

Then to the east we bore away
To win a name in story,
And there where dawns the sun of day
There dawned our sun of glory.
The place it was within my sight
When in the host assigned me
I shared the glory of that fight,
Sweet girl I left behind me.

Morietur kneels over his wife. He is surprisingly agile for his size. She cannot move, for he has her pinned with one knee on each of her shoulders. She does not dare to scream or to cry, The only window is shuttered and the door locked. In this foreign land, nobody knows what he does behind closed doors, and, though few would help her, mercy save the brave man who would risk his life to help her.

She cannot defend herself or shield herself from the blows. He slaps her so hard he nearly snaps her neck. She accidentally bit her cheek, so her mouth is bleeding profusely. This does not deter him. She is not naïve; she knows it will not make him stop or even slow down a little. She does not fight against him or even struggle at all. If she does not fight, her injuries will be horrific. If she does, they might be fatal. She knows that her husband would not survive her by much if he caused her death, and she knows that a war far greater in scale than the border dispute would break out overnight between Morietur’s three brothers over the succession to the throne of Hell if her husband died. Knowing the possibility of such a dire consequence, she does not dare to fight back. She would rather the innocent not suffer.

Though many a name our banner bore
Of former deeds of daring,
They were of the days of yore
In which we had no sharing,
But now our laurels freshly won
With the old ones shall entwine me,
Singing worthy of our size each son,
Sweet girl I left behind me.

Kerrigan is well accustomed to her husband’s routine. First he thinks of something, yet says nothing about it. Then he throws her and pins her. He hits her, sometimes slapping, other times punching. She then feigns a loss of consciousness for the sake of making him stop. Then he picks her up and shakes her. She lets her head loll forward for dramatic effect and so he believes her. He then leaves her be for some time before he wants sex, at which point, he begins to pace, and she pretends to stir as if waking from unconsciousness. He gently removes her dress, whether exquisite or simple, and helps her with her corset, petticoats, bloomers, and boots. She acts like a love-struck child and helps him with his robes or suit, laying his clothing atop her own on a chair He then gingerly lifts her onto the bed, pretending to be a gentleman all the while. He growls his orders, she does as he commands, hoping all the while for him to fall asleep afterward, which never happens. Something invariably bothers him greatly, though never the sex, which is always exactly what he tells her. Then he makes her stand in the light and hits her hard enough to throw her forcefully into a wall. He then kicks her, usually until she is spitting blood and he hears a crack. Then she again feigns losing consciousness, and he storms out, only to return hours later so drunk that he is seeing triple. Upon his return, he invariably finds her lying on her back asleep and bandaged. He undresses, lays down, kisses her forehead, and pulls her body close to his. She never stirs, but gently wraps her arms around him and buries her head in his shoulder. He does not know that she does not sleep until he is home.

The hope of final victory
Within my bosom burning
Is mingling with sweet thoughts of thee
And of my fond returning,
But should I ne’er return again
Still with thy love I’ll bind me.
Dishonor’s breath shall never stain
The name I leave behind me.

Kerrigan sits bandaging her wounds and waiting for her husband’s inevitable return. She wants badly to rest, but she must remain wakeful for his arrival. With bandaged hands, she goes around to the pump and washes the rude wooden bowls and roughly-hewn cups that serve in place of fine china here. She then fills the iron kettle and builds a small fire to make her tea and warm herself. She cleans the blood from the only fine gown she brought with her to Crosspoint, which she donned especially for her husband’s visit, and from the floors, sheets, and walls. Then, she sits close to the dying embers of the fire gingerly sipping tea with bandaged hands and a bandaged jaw. She sings gently to herself.

My lodging it is on the cold ground,
And, oh, very hard is my fare,
But that which troubles me most is
The unkindness of my dear,
Yet still I cry, “Oh turn, love,
And prithee, love turn to me,
For thou art the man that I long for,
And, alack, what remedy?”

Jack and Liam run out of alcohol, so they venture abroad in the crisp night air to obtain more libations. They walk into the only bar where Jack knows the innkeeper. They are in uniform, so few locals look for more than a split second, but one pair of bleary, blue eyes in the corner stays fixed on them

I’ll crown thee with a garland of straw, then,
And I’ll marry thee with a rush ring;
My frozen hopes shall thaw, then,
And merrily we will sing.
Oh turn to me, my dear love,
And prithee love, turn to me;
For thou art the man that alone canst
Procure my liberty.

Morietur sits in a dark corner. He is famous, but his short temper is infamous, so nobody bothers him. He is on his seventh or eighth glass of gin. He does not know. He sees the two men enter. He has no doubt of who they are, though he cannot read their uniforms. One is Jack. He does not know if he is seeing double or if there are really two men. He watches until they leave.

But if thou wilt harden thy heart still
And be deaf to my pitiful moan,
Then I must endure the smart still
And tumble in straw alone,
Yet still I cry, “Oh turn, love,
And prithee, love turn to me,
For thou art the man that alone art
The cause of my misery!”

Jack, realizing that he is being watched, slyly glances over to see who it is without turning his head, so as not to arouse suspicion. Morietur knows Jack is in the area, so his presence in a bar ought not to be any surprise. Jack immediately recognizes the one man whom he fears personally, his best friend’s husband. Though it takes him a moment, he realizes that Morietur should be back with Kerrigan at the cottage. He sees that Morietur is drinking alone and fears the worst.

“Liam, take the whiskey an’ go ahead. I’ve a bit o’ business.”

“What business?”

“I think I forgot the bullets for me revolver.”

“Won’t Morietur kill ye goin’ in there an’ meddlin’?”

“He ain’t there. He’s in the bar we jus’ left.”

“Be careful, sor.”

“Don’ call me ‘sor.’”

Jack and Liam part ways, and Jack heads for the little cabin. The door is unlocked, and he finds Kerrigan bruised and bandaged sitting at the little table sipping her tea. She looks up in terror expecting to see Morietur back early. Jack steps back and clutches the doorframe in shock.

“Jack, what are you doing here? What if Morietur returns?”

“He did that to ye?’

“He did. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“I’d not like a cup. Let me see that. D’ye want blood. I could help ye.”

“No, Jack, for he will know you were here. I would love the help when he leaves tomorrow, but I will be fine until then. I make it appear far worse than it is to appeal to his sense of guilt.”

“So ye aren’t dyin’?”

“No, Jack, I am not. I was actually quite lucky.” Jack takes out a cigar. “No smoking in here. If you must smoke, do so outside and around the corner so Morietur will not notice. I will see you tomorrow afternoon when he continues eastward.”

“Eastward? Ye mean into-”

“Yes, he is going into the territory of our enemies.”

“What for?”

“He has personal business. Someone important, I forget precisely whom, broke a rather serious law while visiting upon business. Since he stayed at our home, we are responsible for his court appearance. Since I was not home at all while he was there, it falls solely on Morietur to find him and bring him to trial. He will not stop on the return trip. Now leave before he finds you here.”

“By the way, I love your singin’.”

“Thank you, Jack.”

Jack does not like the way things are. He grabs his ammunition from the trunk and leaves quietly, walking slowly back to Liam’s tent. When he arrives, only Liam is awake. He tosses Jack a bottle.

“’Twasn’t about the gun, was it?”

“’Twasn’t.”

“’Twas about her.”

“’Twas. I wanted to see if she was alright.”

“Was she?”

“She wasn’t, but there’s naught I could do.”

“She’ll be fine, da’, sor.”

“How many times do I have to tell ye not t’call me ‘sor?’”

Kerrigan finishes her tea and extinguishes the last of the fire. She lays down in bed and extinguishes the candle. Just after she does so, Morietur returns to the cabin. He falls from object to object and finds her in bed where he expected to find her. He kisses her forehead and rests next to her. He has no suspicions, and she is surprised. She will not be able to fool him forever. She wakes early and sits reading a book Morietur brought from home for her. It is an epic about the first Demon to journey to the North Sea in Hell. She was there when the events unfolded. The names were changed, and it was not nearly so dramatic when her husband proclaimed that there was no more land, so he and the men would fish if she would be so kind as to build a fire and set up their tent.

Morietur groans awake, his head pounding,. He does not know where he is and looks frantically about. His wife marks her page, sets the book down on the table, and sits by his side for some time before building a small fire and starting the tea. She fixes eggs, sausage, and toasted apple bread for breakfast and brings it to her husband, who is sitting in bed. She eats nothing, for her jaw is very sore from the previous night. She shows none of her pain in her eyes or gestures, though she aches terribly. She opens the shutters and begins to sweep the floor and wash the breakfast dishes at the pump in the alley. She goes back to the stable and mucks the stalls, grooms the horses, feeds them, gives them water, and leaves Spectre the last apple from the apple bread. She then washes herself in the ice cold water with lye soap and returns inside to dress. The pump is well-hidden from the street, and Kerrigan is a modest and industrious woman. It is only dawn, and the majority of her chores are finished. She ordered her men not to disturb her until dinner unless she was in imminent danger, so she is free to return to her husband’s side until his departure.

Morietur, having a dreadful headache, sits at the rough table drinking tea from a rude oaken cup, scowling while his wife dresses herself. She sits in the other chair and returns to her book. She loves to read classic tales, and Morietur brought trades for those she finished. He begins to pace, and she, sensing his anxiety, fills his flask and packs his dirty robes away in his pack. Outside, she hears children, boys still in short pants and girls in knee-length dresses, not yet old enough to don the longer garments of their elder siblings, playing unseen by her in the streets, alleys, and gardens of Crosspoint, and she smiles to herself, thinking upon her own children in the bygone days of their youths.

A trumpet sounds, and Jack, Liam, Michael, Billy Fitz, and Jimmy all fall out of bed, still dressed, and scramble outside. Billy searches for his glasses in all of his pockets and realizes that his revolver is atop the bookshelf. After ten minutes of searching blindly, he finds his glasses at the foot of his cot. He tidies up the tent quickly by throwing the empty bottles into his trunk and pulling up all the blankets, hoping to fool the Colonel. He manages to return to his place before his absence is noticed, but he sees Liam drinking and snatches the bottle. Liam curses him, but, as he tosses it into the makeshift stable, he assures him that he will be grateful. Jimmy mutters that he hasn’t drunk like that since before he was married, and he swears he never will again. Michael leans against the stable wall trying desperately to remember what happened the night before. Jack and Liam shared half a bottle of whiskey before Billy threw the rest into the stable. The Colonel comes over, and, upon seeing Jack, asks why he did not announce his visit, assuring that better accommodations could have been made. The Colonel looks into the tent, and Billy has his fingers crossed behind his back all the while. His makeshift cleaning worked, and they ride off to battle leading their men on foot, save Liam, who marches off with his subordinates, lacking a horse.

The battle rages, and the offensive goes badly for the Thirteenth Bridgeton Light Infantry. Billy loses sight of his comrades and wanders back crestfallen that he alone survived. Jimmy turns up missing at the end of the day, having been captured. Michael is relieved to find Liam keeping a wounded Lieutenant company.

“Ye’ll be fine, Boland. Stay wi’ me. Ye won’t lose that leg, I promise, an’ ye’ll go home a war hero when ‘tis over, an’ ye’ll marry Molly Mae, an’ ye’ll be sittin’ by the fire watchin’ your children play, jus’ ye wait.”

“Liam?”

“O’Dowd, ye’re hit.”

“Not badly. Have ye seen Fitzmaurice or McEvoy?”

“Nay. I think they got McEvoy.”

“Killed him?”

“Worse.”

“Stay here, Liam. If the Colonel asks, ye didn’t see me. Ye either, Boland.”

Armed only with his revolver and wearing civilian clothing, Michael sneaks around enemy lines to find Jimmy, whose horse was found without him. Knowing what the
enemy would do to a captured officer and personally knowing Jimmy’s family, Michael is determined to find where they are keeping him. He finds an enclosed area and hears pleading in Irish. He jumps the gate on his horse and shoots the guard. He sees his friend in a building tied to a chair with one officer holding pliers and another Jimmy’s left hand. Jimmy’s dirt-covered face is streaked with tears. Michael knows that Jimmy would never cry, so the agony he must be enduring is great. Michael shoots first the officer with the pliers, then the other officer. He quickly unbinds his friend using the dead officer’s knife and mounts his horse, offering his hand to his friend’s good one.

“Michael, ye-”

“I’m crazy. I know. Hold on as best ye can.” They ride straight to a field hospital in their own territory. As soon as he dismounts, Jimmy faints. Lieutenant Boland is recovering in bed with Liam by his side. A civilian doctor greets Michael and inquires about his shoulder. Michael will not leave Jimmy’s side. He pens a letter to Sullivan O’Shea, a mutual cousin, about Jimmy’s condition and asks, but does not order, a terrified Corporal with the field hospital, to mail it for him.

“Dear Cousin Sullivan,

“I’m writing to you because I know you can read. Your cousin Captain James McEvoy was captured briefly during an offensive. I cannot give you tactical details, you understand, but I can tell you that he was tortured by enemy officers. He lost a lot of blood, but he will survive. Tell his wife what happened and that he loves her.

“My Regards,

“Michael O’Dowd”

Liam, miraculously unscathed, tells him that Jack will hear of the rescue and that he is going to find Billy, or Billy’s bones, as the case may be. Most of the injured and dead were from the Thirteenth Bridgeton Infantry. Billy is the only man who has not been found. Liam finds a set of errant hoof prints and finds that they lead into the woods. He follows them to a very lost Billy, who, having gotten separated in the smoke and confusion, sought shelter amongst the trees where he could hide. He throws his arms around Liam and follows him back to the tent. The right lens of his glasses was shattered by a stray bullet, but he is otherwise uninjured. Out of the many captains in the Thirteenth Bridgeton, they are the only two who were not injured, though some, like Michael, received only minor injuries.

Jack, himself worried, forgets that Morietur may not yet be gone. He eats dinner with the remainders of the Thirteenth, who elect to dine at the field hospital with their fallen brethren-in-arms. Liam tells jack of Michael’s heroism and Jimmy’s ordeal, and Jack writes a mental note for a medal each. Jimmy is sitting and conscious. The only nail left on his left hand is the middle one, so he raises it in the direction of the enemy lines and shouts, “Ye bastards ain’t got ‘em all!”

Billy cannot see anything without his glasses, which is just as well, since Jimmy does not want him knowing what happened just yet. Brendan Sparrow, who had come to the front upon the army’s pleas for a few spare doctors to replace those wounded themselves while they recover, fondly greets his old schoolmate.

Jack excuses himself and heads back to town. He sees the cottage door open, yet he freezes when he looks inside. Kerrigan is bleeding worse than most of the battle-wounded. Her paper-thin, lily-white skin is an array of swollen, purple hues. One of her eyes is swollen shut, and her breathing is ragged. She coughs and spurts blood. The dinner dishes lay dirty and in disarray all over the floor. Jack is frozen to the spot and clutching the door frame for balance. Morietur’s steed, actually an ink black draught horse with a bald face pattern and stocking leg patterns, named Holocaust, is tied to the hitching post nearby waiting for his master to set off.

Morietur is shouting again in archaic Demon, and Jack is thankful he cannot understand what Morietur is saying. Jack sees Morietur hit Kerrigan with the fire poker, and he runs around to the water pump to be sick. For all the war injuries he has seen, for his brother brutally beaten, and for seeing Bridget do the same to Mike, Jack never thought he would be so sickened as he is by what he has just seen. Jack brings Spectre to his stall and hides there until he sees and hears Morietur ride off and hopes he is not too late. His dinner and Morietur distant memories, Jack takes a swig from his hip flask and ventures into the cabin. He puts Kerrigan on the bed and finds a local boy to run for help on the promise of a few copper coins. Jack rolls back his sleeve, draws his knife, slices his flesh, and hopes to see his dear friend wake.