se I could not bear to have questions asked. So, when I had played
the Federal, if I had presented myself in a blue uniform, I could not
have answered questions, and the requirement to report to my company
would have destroyed my whole plan.

Yet it was just possible that I had succeeded in obtaining civilian's
clothing, and had joined the Federals as a pretended recruit, just as I
had joined Company H later. This was less unlikely when coupled with the
thought that possibly my first experience in this course had had some
hidden influence on my second.

But why is it that I cannot recall my first service as a Confederate?
The question disturbs me. My peculiar way of forgetting must be the
reason. When, as Jones Berwick the Confederate, I became Berwick Jones
the Federal, there must have come upon my mind a phase of oblivion
similar to that which clouded it when I became a Confederate again.

Yet this explanation is weak. No such thing could occur twice just at
the critical time ... unless ... some power, mysterious and profound....
What was Dr. Khayme in all this?

And another thought, winch bewilders me no less. On my musket I had
carved J.B. I was Jones Berwick as a Federal. Then I must always have
been Berwick Jones when a Confederate. How did I ever get to be Berwick
Jones? How did I ever become Jones Berwick? Which was I at first? Had I
ever deserted? Had I ever been a spy? I doubt everything.

My mind became clearer. I could connect events: the first Manassas, or
Bull Bun; the helping of Willis; the meeting with the Doctor; the return
to Willis; the shore and the battle of the ships; the _Merrimac_; the
line of the Warwick; the lines at Hanover; the night tramp in the
swamp; crossing the hill; a blank, which my double memory knew how to
fill, and the subsequent events of my second service in our army.
Nothing important seemed lacking since the battle of Bull Run. Before
that battle everything was confusion. My home was still unknown. The
friends of my former life, so far as I could remember, had been
Federals, if Dr. Khayme and Lydia could be called Federals.

Yet I supposed my home was Charleston. My memory now began with that
city. There were but two great gaps remaining to be filled: first, my
life before I was at school under the Doctor; second, my life at home
and in the Confederate army before I pretended to desert to
the Federals.

I am Jones Berwick and I am Berwick Jones? What an absurdity! Let rea