d so that its scarlet length, crossed with
the starred blue bands, made a tossing splotch of color, to hold and
draw men's eyes. And now he was shouting, too, somehow his words
carrying through the uproar in the woods.

"Rally! Rally on colors!"

"Forrest!" A man beside Drew whooped, threw his hat into the air. "The
old man's here! Forrest!"

They were pulled together about that rider and his waving standard.
Lines tightened, death-made gaps closed. They steadied, again a fighting
command and not a crowd of men facing defeat. And having welded that
force, Forrest did not demand a second charge. He was furiously
angry--not with them, Drew sensed--but with someone or something beyond
the men crowding about him. It was not until afterward that rumor seeped
out through the ranks; it had not been Forrest's kind of battle, not his
plan. And he now had five hundred empty saddles to weight the scales
after a battle which was not his.

Drew leaned against a bullet-clipped tree. Men were at work with some of
the same will as had taken them to attack, building a barricade of their
own, expecting a counterthrust from the enemy. He wiped his sweaty face
with the back of his hand. His throat was one long dry ache; nowhere had
he seen a familiar face.

Somewhere among this collection of broken units and scrambled companies
of survivors he must find his own. He stood away from the tree, fighting
thirst, weariness, and the shaking reaction from the past few hours, to
move through the badly mauled force, afraid to allow himself to think
what--or who--might still lie out on the ridge under the white heat of
the sun.

"Rennie!"

Drew rounded a fieldpiece which had been manhandled off the firing line,
one wheel shattered. He steadied himself against its caisson and turned
his head with caution, fearing to be downed by the vertigo which seemed
to strike in waves ever since he had retreated to the cover of the
woods. He wanted to find the horse lines, to make sure that he had not
seen Boyd on the field just before the bugle had lifted them all into
that abortive charge.

It was Driscoll who hailed him. He had a red-stained rag tied about his
forearm and carried his hand tucked into the half-open front of his
shirt. Drew walked toward him slowly, feeling oddly detached. He noted
that the trooper's weathered face had a greenish shade, that his mouth
was working as if he were trying to shape soundless words.

"Where're the rest?" Dre