The General spoke and stopped, letting his breath slack off. Then, after a moment, he said, “So there you are, that’s it. Will you do that, boy? Do you know now you’re general of the army when the General’s left behind?”
The boy nodded mutely.
“You’ll run them through for me then, boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. And, God willing, many nights from tonight, many years from now, when you’re as old or far much older than me, when they ask you what you did in this awful time, you will tell them—one part humble and one part proud—‘I was the drummer boy at the battle of Owl Creek,’ or the Tennessee River, or maybe they’ll just name it after the church there. ‘I was the drummer boy at Shiloh.’
Good grief, that has a beat and sound to it fitting for Mr. Longfellow. ‘I was the drummer boy at Shiloh.’ Who will ever hear those words and not know you, boy, or what you thought this night, or what you’ll think tomorrow or the next day when we must get up on our legs and move?”
The General stood up. “Well, then. God bless you, boy. Good night.”
“Good night, sir.”
And, tobacco, brass, boot polish, salt sweat and leather, the man moved away through the grass.
Joby lay for a moment, staring but unable to see where the man had gone.
He swallowed. He wiped his eyes. He cleared his throat. He settled himself. Then, at last, very slowly and firmly, he turned the drum so that it faced up toward the sky.
He lay next to it, his arm around it, feeling the tremor, the touch, the muted thunder as, all the rest of the April night in the year 1862, near the Tennessee River, not far from the Owl Creek, very close to the church named Shiloh, the peach blossoms fell on the drum.
The End
