After the camp had gone to bed, Private Chadwick relieved the guard, and carried little Billy to his own tent, where Captain Mosely was waiting.
This rough old soldier gave little Billy a lecture that was the more severe because it was delivered in a kindly tone. At the end he informed little Billy that the next day a squad of picked men from the conscript camp was to go to the front in charge of Private Chadwick, the enemy having shown a purpose to make a winter campaign.
"Would you like to go?" the captain asked.
Little Billy seized the captain's arm. "Don't fool me," he cried. "If I am fit to go, let me go. That 's what I am longing for."
The captain felt about in the dark for little Billy's hand, and grasped it. "You shall go," he said, and walked from the dark tent into the starlight outside.
The nights are long to those who sleep with sorrow, but, after all, the days come quickly, as little Billy soon found out. The next morning he found himself whirling away to Virginia, where some cruel business was
