He had been escorting Frances to the Methodist church. Only they weren’t in Schuylkill Haven. It was Knoxville and sharply cold. Concerned, he told her over and over that she needed a coat or a shawl. He had his greatcoat, but he couldn’t give it to her, though he didn’t know why. Then she was gone and he was shut in a room he could not leave, nauseated by piles of rotting apples riddled with huge worms. Later, he had a more private dream, an embarrassment and a pleasure. Now he stood at the rear of Company C, waiting for the order to advance. The rain had retreated, but looked apt to come on again. Meantime, a breeze swept old wet from the trees speckling the slope. The sodden men in his charge waited in two lines, facing west, peering into the smoke on the next ridge. That was where the Johnnies waited, but to the company’s front, their lines were hidden. The 50th Pennsylvania had drawn a position in the attack that would take them down across an open field and into woods that climbed to the waiting enemy.
