The rest of the men began the long walk back to camp, part of Robert wishing he had gone with the men in the boat.

“What are your intentions, Major?” Sergeant Burns bluntly inquired.

“Nothing.”

Burns stared at Robert for a moment, then resumed walking and muttering curses.

“What can you prove, Sergeant?” Robert reasoned.

“Nothing, now that the bastard is in the lake.

“We don’t even know if this is about the west wall,” Corporal Anders broaching the thought each man was avoiding. It was nice to know the Corporal understood Robert’s logic, but Robert needed these men to understand the situation correctly.

“I do not condemn this thinking. I just say it is wrong. We all suspect Lieutenant Pace may have bombed the wall. There are too many questions and damn few answers. What I know is that the pellet you found on the wall, corporal, was a form of animal dung. Something like a deer, but larger. It was not evidence of a mine.”

The men remained stubbornly silent as they walked, determined to find blame in Pace.

“If we make any accusations, we will only drive a madman back on the offensive.” Robert looked directly at Sergeant Burns. This was the basic truth of their situation.

“Oh, that is a certainty,” Burns nodded angrily.

“Then we must work to make it later rather than sooner. Mistake this not gentlemen, we are in no condition to wage war and we are driven from the field of battle with heavy casualties. Our true priorities are food, the cold, and once we are on firm footing, a pissant lieutenant bent on murdering us all.”

“Insane men follow no rules, Major.” Burns remained firm in his opinion. “Food and weather will only concern him after killing us all.”

“All of us?” Anders argued. “The guards?”

“They are witnesses.” Robert stopped walking and sat on a large rock under the canopy of trees. He gestured for the other men to sit. “Of course you are correct, Sergeant Burns. Sane men do not desire battle, nor do they desire power over defenseless. What does the Lieutenant profit by lording over us? What can our deaths gain him?”

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None of the men had an answer.

“He wants the power of God; the ability to decide life and death. This is a boy who dreams of becoming a general in a man’s army. If he cannot go to war, he will create a war.”

“You kill a rabid dog before it can bite you.” A torchbearer observed.

“As it stands, he will build slowly to another action. If we push him, Pace will only attack us all the faster.” Robert relit his cigar, then puffed on it a few times. “Say we choose the direct approach, Sergeant; how will we pick our assassin? By lottery? This person will die for the deed while we who benefit watch the execution.”

“Why are you saying this, Major?” The Irishman stayed annoyed.

“What do we actually know?” reasoned Robert. “We know the object Corporal Anders found was dung.”

When no one responded, Robert gave a slight smile. “We know Lieutenant Pace was on the wall when it collapsed. What kind of fool commits that kind of suicide, certainly not a man with ambitions to rule an island of prisoners? Did anyone see the Union troops run from the wall prior to the collapse?”

No one responded, displaying expressions of puzzlement or disgust.

“I thought not. If they did not run, then I ask what kind of fool lights a fuse then stands in the very location of the impending explosion?”

“A dead man floating in the lake, Sir.” Anders refused to back away from the argument. “We cannot ignore the burns.”

“How did he get burned? How did he get those cuts? Who shot him?” There was no anger or malice in the questions asked in quick succession. “We have no way to know the answers. We do not know what happened to that man. Those cuts could have come from rock shards when the wall collapsed, or perhaps battered by logs. Who knows? Yes, he was shot, but by whom? The only facts we know are he was a Union soldier, and he ended up in the lake. Hell, maybe the Robber King bit him on the leg.”

“Do not assume?” Corporal Anders asked.

“Yes. You are reacting with instinct. You are soldiers. Use your minds.”

“So, we do nothing,” Sergeant Burns spat in disgust.

“We seem to do nothing.” Robert agreed.

“Seem?” Burns raised an eyebrow.

Robert stood. “Dawn is coming. We should get to camp, I need time to think,” The men followed silently.

Only a fool did not prepare for a coming storm. At present there was one Union guard for every five prisoners and while numbers favored the Confederates, the weaponry was on the Union side.

Fighting the Union forces on open ground was an invitation to mass death. This left the woods as the only visible battlefield. Smoke might help to even the odds, but the South was going to lose more sons were a battle fought on Coal Island.

Robert was still mulling over his options when the procession stopped at his hut. He pulled from his thoughts long enough to notice Lieutenant Pace standing in the shadow several yards away.

The Lieutenant said nothing, only watched the men for a short time then turning away and disappeared into the night. Something seemed wrong with the man. Robert paused, one hand on the lintel of the cabin door, looking past the pitched roof at the Lieutenant as he moved into the night.

It was as if the Lieutenant became a different man when the sun set.

Putting Pace from his mind, Robert entered his hut, stoked the fire, then sat with his legs stretched to the heat. His mind returned to the one question that nagged him: what man would willingly stand on a wall he knew was going to collapse?

A man who did not care about death.