Battle Flag. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ permission for a prayer meeting. There had been no chance for such a service since the battle’s ending, and many soldiers in the Legion wanted to give thanks. Hinton gladly gave his permission, and fifty or more Legionnaires gathered beneath some gun-battered cedars. Other men from the Brigade soon joined them, so that by the time the drizzle stopped, there were almost a hundred men sitting beneath the trees and listening as Corporal Waggoner read from the Book of Job. Waggoner’s twin brother had died in the battles on the far side of Richmond, and ever since that death Peter Waggoner had become more and more fatalistic. Starbuck was not sure that Waggoner’s gloomy piety was good for the Legion’s morale, but many of the men seemed to like the Corporal’s spontaneous sessions of prayer and Bible study. Starbuck did not join the circle, but rested nearby, watching northward to where the Yankee defense line showed between the distant woodlands as a newly dug strip of earthworks broken by hastily erected cannon emplacements. Starbuck would have been hard put to admit it, but the familiar sounds of prayer and Bible reading were oddly comforting.

      That comfort was broken by a blasphemous oath from Sergeant Truslow. “Christ Almighty!” the Sergeant swore.

      “What is it?” Starbuck asked. He had been half dozing but now sat up fully awake. Then he saw what had provoked Truslow to blasphemy. “Oh, Jesus,” he said, and spat.

      For Colonel Swynyard was not dead. Indeed, the Colonel hardly appeared to be wounded. His face was bruised, but the bruise was covered and shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat that Swynyard must have plucked from among the battlefield litter, and now the Colonel was walking through the Brigade’s lines with his familiar wolfish smile. “He’s drunk,” Truslow said. “We should have shot the bastard yesterday.”

      Peter Waggoner’s voice faltered as the Colonel walked up to the makeshift prayer meeting. Swynyard stopped at the edge of the meeting, saying nothing, just staring at the men with their open Bibles and bare heads, and every single man seemed cowed by the baleful eyes. The Colonel had always been a mocker of these homespun devotions, though until now he had kept his scorn at a distance. Now his malevolence killed the prayerful atmosphere stone dead. Waggoner made one or two brave efforts to keep reading, but then stopped altogether.

      “Go on,” Swynyard said in his hoarse voice.

      Waggoner closed his Bible instead. Sergeant Phillips, who was one of Major Haxall’s shrinking Arkansas battalion, stood to head off any trouble. “Maybe you’d like to join us at prayer, Colonel?” the Sergeant suggested nervously.

      The tic in Swynyard’s cheek twitched as he considered his answer. Sergeant Phillips licked his lips while others of the men closed their eyes in silent prayer. Then, to the amazement of everyone who watched, Colonel Swynyard pulled off his hat and nodded to Phillips. “I would like that, Sergeant, I would indeed.” Sergeant Phillips was so taken aback by the Colonel’s agreement that he said nothing. A murmur went through the Bible study group, but no one spoke aloud. Swynyard, the bruise on his face visible now, was embarrassed by the silence. “If you’ll have me, that is,” he added in an unnaturally humble voice.

      “Anyone is welcome,” Sergeant Phillips managed to say. One or two of the officers in the group muttered their agreement, but no one looked happy at welcoming Swynyard. Everyone in the prayer group believed the Colonel was playing a subtle game of mockery, but they did not understand his game, nor did anyone know how to stop it, and so they offered him a reluctant welcome instead.

      “Maybe you’ll let me say a word or two?” Swynyard suggested to Phillips, who seemed to have assumed leadership of the prayer meeting. Phillips nodded, and the Colonel fidgeted with the hat in his hands as he looked around the frightened gathering. The Colonel tried to speak, but the words would not come. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and tried again. “I have seen the light,” he explained.

      Another murmur went through the circle of seated men. “Amen,” Phillips said.

      Swynyard twisted the hat in his nervous hands. “I have been a great sinner, Sergeant,” he said, then stopped. He still wore the same hated smile, but some of the men nearer to Swynyard could sense that it was now a smile of embarrassment rather than sarcasm. The same men could even see tears in the Colonel’s eyes.

      “Drunk as a bitch on the Fourth of July,” Truslow said in a tone of wonder.

      “I’m not sure,” Starbuck said. “I think he might be sober.”

      “Then he’s lost his damn wits,” Truslow opined.

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