9

The men around that fire, whom Billy had approached with his questions, had not really had a fixed idea of who he was. They were merely suspicious of him in a very general sense, as they could see he was obviously lying to them, looking for the very regiment to which they belonged, and yet didn't know they belonged to it. But through the excitement of capturing him, and seeing that he was indeed trying to flee from them, they began to speak of him as if he were a criminal, and to treat him so.

But to the rest of the soldiers of Blake's Division, this indeed was something out of the ordinary; and as soon as word spread that an "enemy spy" had been captured, it became the collective obsession of the army society. They had bound the prisoner and tied him to a pole on the cold, soppy ground, so that his pants could never be dry, and his body never warm. There he was, the pride of the 18th Company, 21st Regiment, Blake's Division, which had been the first company in the whole army--the whole army, mind you, which was the same to these men as an infinite cosmos--yes, the first company to capture an enemy prisoner, while no one in that massive army had so much as fired a weapon or seen any sign of the enemy since the day they came off those choppers into existence; that is, since the beginning of the world. Pilgrims came from all about Blake's Division to get a look at the prisoner all night, that night Billy spent with his back to the pole, his arms tied behind him, as the men spread the news from company to company, regiment to regiment, tent to tent and picket to picket; and Blake's Division would hardly would sleep at all that night, but sacrifice a night's sleep to stand about fires discussing the first sign of the enemy, revel in their camaraderie and shared hatred for Billy and his kind (whatever kind this enemy was), and make the pilgrimage to where the prisoner sat bound for the third or fourth time throughout the dusky night. It was a very long journey for some of them, but such trips forced the news into every corner of the division; and by reveille half the men of the division were operating on less than four hours of sleep, as the news spread on and on throughout the army. After in many cases a long and arduous trek, all the more arduous given their constant daily marches, when they finally arrived to see the poor prisoner tied up to that pole, they did not mistreat him in any way, but only stood and looked at him in wonder; and one by one, almost in ritual, they went through his pockets. This was what everyone knew you did with prisoners--robbed them--and Billy had already been stripped of those worn boots, his small arms, his ammunition, belt, sewing kit and extra buttons; but the men weren't so much expecting that there was anything left to steal: they were merely in want of something to do with the prisoner once they arrived, like a man staring at the Grand Canyon after a long journey to get there, growing bored and wondering if he has stared long enough to make the trip worth it. They felt they must do something that one is supposed to do with prisoners once they saw him there, and saw that he was just some poor bastard tied to a pole with a dirty face and frozen trousers; and so they felt some action, any action was certainly in order, now that they had arrived.

Two hours after reveille, when the proper authorities had moved into action to instill discipline on Blake's Division, the prisoner was brought to General Blake's headquarters to be interrogated.