The Nightmare Never Really Leaves

Jane Lane walked down the street after having gotten off the bus. She turned left and headed down the street she, Daria and Daria's fiancee lived in. The street was in an older, but still quite fashionable area of Boston, sprinkled with large mansion-style townhouses. Reaching the gate of one of those houses Jane opened it and entered the front yard. Shutting the wrought iron gate behind her, Jane walked up the well-tended footpath and up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs was a large, late Victorian-era timber door with a large brass doorknob and recently retrofitted with a deadbolt lock. Next to the door was a timber and brass sign that said Woodstock House. She fumbled for her keys and, after getting them right, put them in the lock and opened the front door.

She entered the hall of the old townhouse, which was one of the largest on the block. It had been built in the 1860s and possessed a central hallway, a cedar staircase and three floors, with the front corner rooms possessing turrets that not only increased the available floor space, but also allowed in more light. Jane herself occupied a suite of three rooms in the top right-hand side of the house, with the corner turret room being her painting studio.

As she shut the door she was greeted by a rich, deep voice redolent with the airs of antebellum Virginia. "Good afternoon, Miss Jane," it said. "Is there anything you need any help with?" The richness of the voice always reminded her of the black actor James Earl Jones, and the man who possessed it was easily as imposing as the actor, if not more so, as he also had the gravitas of another black actor, Morgan Freeman.

"Is Daria or Richard in?"Jane asked.

Israel Horton gave a small smile. "Miss Daria and General Rawlings are in the front parlour, Miss Jane." he hesitated, and then said, "It would be a good idea if you went in and saw them."

Jane raised her eyebrows. "Has something happened?"

Horton didn't give anything away. "As I said, perhaps you should go in and see them," he said. "I really do think it would be for the best." He took Jane's portfolio from her. "I'll put these in your suite for you, Miss Jane," he said and, with out giving her a chance to reply, headed for the staircase.

Jane watched him head up the staircase and, reflecting on what he had said, frowned. It sounds like something's happened with Daria and Richard, she thought to herself. I hope it's nothing serious.

While on holiday last summer in Lawndale both Jane and Daria had met Richard John Rawlings, a Virginian Tidewater aristocrat who had been following, as he put it, "the path of a relative" who had taken part in the Confederate invasion of Maryland in 1862 that had ended at Antietam. They later discovered that he was in fact a Confederate general from an alternative reality where the South had won its independence. He was in the Lawndale area following not just the path the Maryland campaign of 1862 had taken in their world but comparing it with the course it had taken in his world, where he had commanded a Confederate infantry division that had fought a battle where Lawndale would one day be situated. But that was not the important thing. The important thing was that Richard John Rawlings and Daria Morgendorffer had fallen for one another. After they had managed to sort out the little problem of coming literally from two different worlds Richard Rawlings had proposed to Daria, who had accepted.

Moving up to Boston to be with his fiancee (as well as studying at Boston University), Richard had bought the house Jane was in and, by the time the lease Daria and Jane held on their old apartment had run out, had managed to renovate and move into Woodstock House, named after both a minor Rawlings family property in the Shenandoah and the area in Oxfordshire, England, the Rawlings family had originally come from. It had impressed Daria that, just up the road from the small manor house Richard's ancestors had held as knights bannerets, lay what was undoubtedly the most impressive, if not the premiere, English country house (apart from Royal palaces): Blenheim Palace, home of his very distant relatives, the Churchill family and Dukes of Marlborough. "I'll have to visit my distant cousins someday," he had said. "Of course, I'll be bringing my lovely bride so that I can introduce her to her distant in-laws," he grinned, causing Daria to blush, something he said she did so prettily he never got tired of seeing it, which only made her blush even harder. Much to Jane's amusement.

Richard's comment, however, had brought to the forefront of Daria's mind a truth she had been repressing: that when she returned to Richard's world with him she would never see her best friend again.(However, Richard had pointed out to her that the big advantage of his assignment was that it was, by its very nature, open-ended.) They would not be completely cut off from one another, though: it as quite clear, especially from the long-distance relationship her favourite aunt Amy Barksdale was keeping up with one of Richard's fellow Confederate generals, that they would be able to write to one another. But it was extremely unlikely that they would be able to see one another. Or so Daria had thought until the day she beat Israel Horton in collecting the mail and found an envelope addressed to Jane in an exquisite and very patrician handwriting, one she didn't recognise but which she was quite certain had come from one of Richard's counterparts.

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She had taken it in to the front room, where Richard sat proofreading and correcting an essay he was writing for one of his post-graduate subjects he was taking at Boston University.

"Richard," she said, handing him the sealed envelope, "do you recognise the handwriting on this envelope? Jane just got it in the mail." Curious, Richard too the envelope and looked at the handwriting on it.

His eyebrows rose. "Oh ho!" he said. Smirking, he handed the envelope back to Daria. "It seems that our Miss Jane has possibly made a conquest, and most likely at our engagement party!"

Daria took the envelope and went to place it where Horton usually left the mail. Arching a quizzical eyebrow, she said, "Are you talking about a certain member of the Lee family?"

"Custis Lee? Most certainly," Richard replied. "That's his handwriting." He turned a highly amused look onto his fiancee. "Looks like she and Custis have been conducting a somewhat clandestine long-distance relationship."

"Surely the authorities back in your world would object to him doing that?"

"Knowing his father and his mother, as I do," Richard replied, "I'd say that they would probably be grateful that he seems to have found a young lady. Of course," he continued, "somehow I suspect Pete may have had a hand in this."

"On the basis that if there were more of you getting girlfriends from our world his own entanglement with Amy wouldn't look so out of place?"

"Probably," Richard said.

"And to think I was thinking I might be getting a Lee for an in-law," Daria said. "At least, if things do get any more serious, Jane and I will still be able to see one another."

Richard got up and moved to hold Daria in his arms. "I know that was worrying you," he said. "But we would have found a way around that. Or I'd like to think so."

Daria looked up at her tall fiancee. "I don't deserve you," she said, and stood up on her toes to kiss him.

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Jane remembered what had happened later that day when she walked in after finishing for the day at BFAC. She had seen a somewhat amused Richard and Daria sitting in the front parlour, both smirking at her as she walked over to pick up the mail. "So, how's Custis doing?" Richard had asked, a question that had caused Jane to drop the mail onto the floor. "By the way, I wholeheartedly approve," he had continued.

"So do I, Jane," Daria added. "But for quite selfish reasons."

"As in we'll be able to see one another if things get really serious between Custis and me?" said Jane as she straightened up and replaced the letters on the small table where Israel Horton usually left them. Her cheeks dusted a faint pink, she turned to face her interrogators. "Well, I just couldn't leave the field up to you Barksdale-Morgendorffer women no, could I?" she asked. "Besides, after Quinn brought him over to talk to me at your engagement party, I, well... Saying that the son of Robert E Lee is cute doesn't really explain things, does it? Besides, he's quite sweet."

Daria, smirking, turned towards her fiancee. "I seem to remember Jane saying that someone else in this room was, and I quote, 'seriously cute'," she said.

Richard raised an eyebrow. "Did she?" he said. "I suppose I could say I'm quite flattered," he continued, turning his grin onto a by now clearly embarrassed Jane.

"Can I go and die of embarrassment now?" she asked.

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But now, something had happened. Something that could be interpreted as being quite serious. So Jane steeled herself and entered the front parlour. There she saw Daria and Richard, sitting together on a couch in the front parlour. Richard looked absolutely miserable, while Daria was sitting close to him and saying, "Dammit, Richard! It wasn't your fault! If anybody is at fault here it's me!"

"What's not who's fault?" asked Jane as she walked over to where they sat.

Daria got up and walked over to where Jane was standing. "Jane, could you please help me to convince this somewhat lunkheaded, at times irritating, but incredibly loveable and loving man that what happened wasn't his fault?"

"What isn't his fault?" Before Daria could reply Richard, his face betraying his misery, looked up at Jane.

"I hit her," he said. "I hit Daria."

For a moment, nobody said anything. Then Jane said, "You what?"

"I hit Daria," Richard replied. "I didn't mean to. That, however, is no excuse."

"You bet it's no excuse!" replied Jane. She was about to say something else when Daria got up and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Jane! Listen to me," said Daria. "It's not what you think it is!"

"Oh? And what is it supposed to be? He just said he hit you!"

"He hit me because he was asleep at the time on the day-bed in his study and I tried to wake him up when I heard him calling out in his sleep!" retorted Daria.

"He was... Oh!" Jane turned to face Richard. "You were having another nightmare, weren't you?" she said.

"A particularly bad one, from what I could hear," said Daria. "However he has refused to tell me what it was about." She shot Richard an irritated look. "I suspect he's trying to 'protect me' from some sort of horror." She went over and, kneeling down in front of him, took his hands.

One thing both Jane and Daria had learned in their time living with Richard was that he suffered from nightmares related to his combat service. They had first heard him having one of them back in Lawndale when they had first met him and all of them were staying at Casa Lane. That nightmare had been related to his participation in the Battle of Gaines' Mill during The Seven Days. Since then they had heard him having nightmares about Sloane Farm, where his division had taken on three Union corps, Chancellorsville and several fights they had never heard of in Northern Virginia. He had also had nightmares in which he had seen his best friend, Jack Harrison, gunned down in front of a position his division had held during his world's version of Gettysburg, even though he wasn't present on that day.

Daria looked straight into Richard's eyes. "Richard," she said. "Although you do think you're doing the right thing in not telling me what the nightmare was about, I do love you deeply, and part of that involves helping my man to face his problems at his side. And, from what you've told me, I'm also quite sure Emma Harrison would have done the same thing. So what was it about? Seeing Jack Harrison?"

Richard gave Daria a small, somewhat sickly smile. "No," he said. "Not this time." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "It was something I had completely forgotten about. An incident on the frontier, back in Texas."

Daria gave him a small smile. "Well, I am from Texas you know," she said, letting an amount of Texas twang into her voice. "So why don't y'all just tell lil' ol' me all about it?" She leaned in and kissed him on the nose.

"That tickles!" But Rawlings soon sobered up. "Daria, my love," he said, "I truly, truly appreciate what you're saying and are ready to do. But there are some things that, well..." He thought for a moment. "Remember that conversation we had the first night I stayed at Casa Lane? The one after the nightmare I had and wasn't able to get back to sleep?"

Daria frowned in thought. "You mean the bit where I could intellectually understand what was causing these nightmares of yours, I'd have to experience something similar in order to understand it?" She frowned at Richard. "I can understand what you're saying, Richard, but surely you can at least talk about some of it? Please?"

"Just leave out the icky bits," Jane said.

"Not helping, Jane," Daria replied. She kept her eyes fixed on Richard's. "Richard, I know we haven't exchanged vows yet. But part of those vows include the words for better or for worse, and in sickness or in health, Until Death do us part. And Jane will tell you I take those sorts of promises pretty seriously. But I can't help you unless I know what's wrong. So talk."

Richard looked at Daria for some time. Just before Jane thought the silence was going to be interminable, Richard sighed. "Daria my love," he said, "I know I told you and Jane about Sloane Farm, and you also know about Chancellorsville and several other fights. But this... Believe me that what that nightmare brought back were memories of things no civilised human being should ever have witnessed."

"I take it you were fighting Indians," Daria said.

Richard nodded. "My first patrol out of Fort Bliss in Texas," he replied. "I thought... I thought that the horrors I witnessed in four years of fighting in the War would have drowned out that particular memory." He looked away and blew a breath out through his moustache. "But I was wrong."

Gently disengaging his hands from Daria's he got up. "And I suppose I had best be working on that paper I'm supposed to give."

Daria stood up with him. "You know I'll not give up until you talk to me about this," she said.

Richard smiled and nodded. "I know," he said. "Just like Em." He reached out and drew Daria into a hug.

Daria looked up at him. "Would she have known what that was all about?"

"Not from me," Richard said. "There were... certain things one got to know about on the frontier that you didn't talk about, because that would make them all too real. And I had best get working on that paper." With that, he let her go and left the parlour.

Daria and Jane followed him with their eyes. "Well!" said Jane. "Guess he really doesn't want to talk about his nightmare!" She looked at Daria. "Did he say something while he was asleep?"

"Not much," Daria said. "I heard him call out Ambush! and, when I raced in to see what was happening, he looked as though he was fighting someone up close. That's how I got socked, by the way: I grabbed his shoulder to shake it and he lashed out." She frowned. "I do want to help him, but dammit! His courtly streak does get in the way sometimes! Plus he's not all that big on unloading his problems onto other people."

"Maybe Custis could help." At Daria's quizzical look, Jane continued; "I forgot to tell you: he's coming up here tomorrow. Said something about having some spare time before he has to go back to Belvior Plantation. So he said he was coming to pay us all a visit."

Daria smirked. "Don't you mean 'pay you a visit'?" she said.

Jane blushed faintly. "Well, perhaps," she said. "But he's known Richard for much of his life. So he might have some idea on how we can help him out."

"Good point."

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"Greetings, General Lee," said Israel Horton as he took Custis Lee's carpet bags from him. "We have a suite of rooms on the top floor ready for your stay with us. I'll put your bags up there and get you settled in."

George Washington Custis Lee looked around the entry hall. "Thank you, Sergeant-Major," he said. "Is General Rawlings in?"

"No, sir he's not," Horton replied. "However, Miss Daria and Miss Jane are both in and they said that as soon as you got settled in they would like to talk to you about something."

Custis' eyebrows rose at that statement. "Well, I had best get settled in then," he said. He followed Horton up to the top floor and was taken to his rooms. As he entered the doorway he looked round the well-appointed rooms, which consisted of a sitting room come study, and a bedroom.

"The bathroom is behind that door," Horton said, pointing to a door on one side of the bedroom. "You share it with Miss Jane."

Custis coloured faintly at that news. "I see," he said. "And speaking of Miss Jane, I had best go on down and see what she and Miss Daria have to say to me." It can't be about me and Jane writing one another, he thought. Jane told me that they had already teased her about that. He smiled to himself as he followed Horton down the stairs. Hmm, I wonder what she's like when she blushes?

Horton led him to a room on the second floor. "This is Miss Daria's study and her rather extensive library," Horton said. "Both Miss Daria and Miss Jane are in here." He knocked on the door and, after hearing a voice call out Yes? opened it and walked in. "General Custis Lee," he said and stepped to one side to let Custis in.

As Custis stepped past Horton he heard Daria say, "Thank you, Israel. Could you please arrange to have some coffee sent up?"

"Of course, Miss Daria."

"Thank you."

As Horton closed the door Custis walked over to where Daria and Jane were sitting at a well-used computer desk, which sat at an angle from an antique roll-top writer's desk which was illuminated with a brass and enamel lamp. "Hello, Daria," he said, stopping when Jane walked up to him. "Hello, Jane," her said as she took his hands.

"Hey, Custis," Jane responded.

"Well, now I'm officially impressed," Daria said as she noticed that Jane, uncharacteristically for her, was not greeting Custis in an energetic manner. "How did you do it?"

"Do what?" asked Custis.

"Tone her down," Daria said. "Usually she's more energetic than this."

At Custis' quizzical look, Jane responded, "I think my amiga here is talking about the way I've usually greeted some of my former boyfriends." She looked at Daria. "It took me long enough at your engagement party to get him to loosen up around me after Quinn brought him over sometime after the formal introduction," she continued. She looked back at Custis. "Besides, he's one of the sweetest men I've ever met." She suddenly smirked and looked back at Daria. "Sort of like your dad."

"Jane, that was too much information," Daria responded.

Custis chuckled and said, "I see what Richard means about getting a sore neck trying to follow the pair of you,". At their looks he continued: "Something about getting pains in his neck while watching the two of you go back and forth line this."

Jane and Daria looked at each other. "Sounds like your man has been dissin' us to his friends, saying we give him..." She looked at Custis. "Did he use the word whiplash in whatever conversation he had with you on this subject?"

"Not conversation, exactly, but he did mention it a couple of times in his letters to me," Custis responded. "Thankfully he also told me what it meant."

Daria and Jane looked at each other. "It sounds like somebody is in dire need of being, shall we say, punished?" Jane said. She smirked at Daria. "Which I shall leave in your oh-so-capable little hands."

Daria rolled her eyes and looked at Custis. "I take back what I said about getting her to tone down," she said.

Deciding to ignore the byplay Custis said, "The Sergeant-Major said that you had something you wished to talk to me about."

Daria's face fell. "Yes," she said. "About Richard."

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"So Richard has been having these nightmares about his military service," Custis said. "And he is reluctant to confide in you about this latest one." He shook his head. "That sounds like the 'Reckless Rawlings' I know. Rather suffer by himself than get others involved." He looked at Daria. "He's luckier than he realises."

"Oh, I think you'll get me to agree, Custis," said Jane. "He tends to share that characteristic with someone else we know." She looked straight at Daria as she spoke.

Daria ignored this comment. "So what do you think?" she asked.

Custis stood up and started pacing. "From what you've told me, and from what I've been learning at your US Army's Staff College, it sounds like he's suffering from..." He tipped his head back in thought. "'Post Traumatic Stress Disorder'." He looked at Daria. "Do I have that right?"

"It sounds like it," Daria said. "But what can we do to get him treatment? We really can't use a nonmilitary psychiatrist and I doubt there are that many military ones who have either the experience or the security clearance to be able to help him!"

Custis stopped pacing and gave Daria a small smile. "Actually," he said, "I think I do know someone who might be able to help." He looked over at her computer. "I take it that is connected to this 'Internet' of yours?"

Daria nodded. "Then, with your permission I'll send this fellow a message. Last I heard he was still at Belvior. I just hope he'll be able to help."

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"So, Custis," Jane said as she and Custis sat down on one of the couches, while Daria sat on one of the armchairs. 'Could you explain to us just what it was like on the frontier? We get all sorts of weird stories about it, especially from Hollywood movies."

Custis shook his head. "Not from personal experience," he said. "I spent most of my US Army career in Washington City in the Chief Engineer's office at the War Department."

"'Chief Engineer'?" asked Daria.

"The head of the Corps of Topographical Engineers," Custis replied. "It's the forerunner of your US Army's Corps of Engineers."

"So you never went to the frontier," Jane said.

"Not before the War," Custis replied. "I did go in '65 to survey the sites of some forts in Texas. But I wasn't involved in Indian fighting the way Richard or my father were involved."

"That's right," Daria said. "I remember reading that your father, or our version of him, went out West with the 2nd US Cavalry." She shook her head. "Damn! I can see what Richard means by his comment that it gets confusing sometimes trying to keep which history is which!"

Custis grinned. "Try doing some study at your army's Staff College and keep things straight!" he said. His face sobered. "However, I'm afraid that most of my impressions of Indian fighting either come second-hand from some stories I heard from old sweats who had served in the Old Army or come in a very lurid form from dime novels about people like Kit Carson."

"Do you know anybody else who knows what it was like on the Frontier?" asked Daria.

"Both Pete Longstreet and Jeb Stuart served out West," Custis replied. "Both at Fort Bliss, if I recollect aright. Same as Richard. But Pete's back in Richmond and Jeb's gone to your world's version of Australia to look at some horses and, interestingly enough, camels."

"Camels?" asked Jane. "Why camels? And why Australia? I thought camels came from Arabia?"

"Believe it or not," replied Custis, "we're resurrecting an old experiment carried out by the US Army in the 1850s when a Camel Corps was formed for service in the Southwest. Although the US Army tried to use them as pack animals we're intending to form a couple regiments of camel-mounted troops to patrol the Texas-New Mexico Territory border as well as forming up a camel-based pack train. As to Australia? We found out, or rather Jeb found out, that some of the best strains of camel come from wild descendants of camels that had been brought to Australia. In point of fact, the Australians of your world are exporting camels to Arabia because not only are they a superior breed, but they're also healthier, since your Australia's strict customs barrier tends to keep out a lot of diseases."

"Well, who'd thunk it?" said Jane. "Selling camels to Arabia."

"Yeah," said Daria. "Talk about selling coal to Newcastle! So why didn't the US Army continue the experiment?"

"The War got in the way, with the US officer, Henry Wayne, joining our side" said Custis. "He is, by the way, leading the formation of our camel outfits. Besides, camels are actually pretty temperamental and stink something chronic. Mules and horses don't like being anywhere close to them and the average US soldier wasn't any fonder of them than the mules were. But I somehow suspect that if we make the idea work the US Army will most likely resurrect the idea so that they can patrol their side of the Texas border." He grinned at the two young women. "Besides, it was Jeff Davis' idea in the first place when he was Secretary of War in Pierce's administration. Since the end of the War he's taken an interest in the project and has driven it along." His eyes took a more thoughtful look. "If, and I do mean if, we get involved in another fight with the United States of my world, having a camel-based force could well be to our advantage in that part of the world. Having a camel-based supply train would be a great advantage."

"So neither Pete Longstreet or Jeb Stuart are available to help us with Richard's problem. And you never served on the frontier," Daria said. "Did you see any action during your version of the Civil War?"

"For the first three years I was President Davis' senior military aide," Custis replied. "As such, I did go to the front at times to help determine what defences should be used and to deliver confidential messages. I did, however get a division in '64, in Anderson's Corps in Northern Virginia when we reorganised our field armies to take advantage of the new coloured units."

"So you did, as you usually put it, 'see the elephant' then," said Daria.

Custis nodded. "But not to quite the same extent as Richard. However, the fellow I contacted at Belvior has seen the elephant, and in a way that, although intense, was somewhat different from the usual experience of my fellows. Saw it in your Vietnam War, as a matter of fact. He said that he was also going to contact someone else who saw action in that same war and went on to study this intriguing field you call psychiatry." He gave Daria and Jane a smile. "Did it on this 'GI Bill' of yours that enabled veterans to go to college. We're thinking of doing something similar back home."

"I thought the Confederate States would be more, well, dedicated to private enterprise," Daria said. "Considering that there's a prohibition in the Confederate Constitution on levying protective tariffs. Or at least there was one in the Confederate Constitution of the Confederacy of our world."

"We had that too," said Custis. "However, we were forced to amend parts of the Constitution after the War when it became clear that we had to industrialise in order to be able to survive on the same continent at the United States. We also managed to get around several prohibitions by the Government going into partnerships with various groups of investors to finance and set up several enterprises dedicated to internal improvements." He gave both young women a grin. "Reality has a way of imposing itself on one, despite what ideology may declare to be the only right and true path."

Daria smiled at Custis' words. "I see you've taken some of your studies at the Staff College to heart," she said. "Although I wasn't aware that philosophy was a part of the curriculum."

"The philosophy's a personal study," Custis replied. "Mind, I'm not a good a scholar as Richard, but I did graduate first in my class at West Point."

"Anyway, while this has been an enthralling discussion," Jane said, "it really doesn't answer how we get Richard to accept any kind of treatment for his nightmares." She looked at Custis. "Do you have any ideas?"

"First: does Richard know I'm visiting?" Jane nodded. "Then I suggest that you let me raise the issue with him in my own time. It may take a while, but it'll happen."

Daria looked at Custis for a while, and then nodded. "So we leave this in your hands," she said. "Do you want me to be present?"

Custis thought for a moment and then shook his head. "But if Richard asks for you to be present, I'll have the Sergeant-Major go get you," he replied.

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"Custis!" Richard said as he walked into the front parlour to embrace his friend. "Jane told me you were coming! When did you get in?"

"Earlier today," Custis said as he returned his friend's embrace. "The Sergeant-Major's put me in a suite on the top floor."

"Yeah," said Jane, who gave Custis a wicked grin. "Apparently I share an en suite bathroom with you." Her grin grew wider as she saw Custis blush slightly at what Jane's tone of voice insinuated.

Richard stepped back and, looking at Jane, shook his head in mock sorrow. "I should be shocked and surprised," he said. "But sharing a house with you has made me somewhat used to your commentaria." Jane said nothing, but her grin grew even wider.

"I understand that you may be in for some retaliation," Custis said. "Apparently you shouldn't have told me what living with Jane and Daria is like. Something about being offended by you saying they give you whiplash."

To Custis' amusement, Richard simply raised his eyebrows. "I cannot be blamed for the interpretation others may choose to put on my word choice," he said in a serene manner as he looked over at Daria and Jane. "Nor can I be blamed for their turn of mind concerning those words."

"Oh, well said, Richard!" Jane said, her smirk still in place. "However, that may not save you from whatever retribution my amiga may have in mind." She shot Daria a wicked look. "You know she has been doing her research on..."

"Jane!" Daria said, her cheeks going a bright pink. Jane said nothing but simply laughed.

Richard simply smiled and turned to face Custis. "I'm not too sure you are aware of what you're getting yourself into here," he said. "And I think we had better take ourselves into the study to avoid any alternative interpretations Jane may put on my words."

"Indeed! A retreat does appear to be called for," replied Custis and both men exited the parlour, leaving Jane smirking at her best friend's embarrassment.

"Jane, I don't know what he sees in you," Daria said. "Nor for that matter, do I."

"Yeah," Jane said. "But once you get to know him... well, he is the sweetest man I have ever met." She looked at Daria. "Do you suppose our experiences with college boys, let alone the kids we knew back in Lawndale, have sort of conditioned us to really appreciate guys like Custis and Richard?"

Daria shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "However, I'm not going to question our good fortune. Guys... no, I correct myself. Men like those two are pretty much a vanished species in our world." She looked at Jane. "And you know what, Jane? I'm actually hoping that some of my good luck in this regard brushes off on Quinn." She gave her best friend a sheepish grin as she said that.

"Well, it does sound you've avoided the sort of relationship Helen has with her sisters in yours with Quinn," Jane replied. "But I wouldn't hold out too much hope for her snagging someone like Custis or Richard. I mean the odds against that happening..."

"Well, Amy seems to have gotten some of my luck in that regard," Daria said. "So why not Quinn?"

Jane shrugged. "It'd be interesting," she replied. She then turned her gaze on the door the two men had exited. "And I do hope Custis will be able to... well, you know what I mean."

Daria said nothing, but simply nodded in agreement.

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Custis looked around the well-appointed study. "Not too shabby at all," he said to Richard. "Definitely puts the Executive Mansion on Shockoe Hill in Richmond to shame, and even compares quite well with Arlington."

Richard grinned. "Would you like a drink, Custis?" said as he indicated the small drinks cabinet in his study.

Custis grinned. "I suppose I wouldn't object to a small whiskey, Richard," he said. "Even though it's summer Boston is still a mite chilly when compared to Mississippi. Or Virginia, even."

Richard grinned and went to pour a couple of shots of whiskey into a pair of tumblers. "I've been here since winter," he replied. "So I suppose I'm used to the cold by now. But I suppose I'll join you in having a small whiskey." He replaced the bottle in its cabinet and handed Custis his glass. He then raised his glass in a toast. "To our sweethearts," he said.

"Indeed," Custis replied and both drank their toasts.

"So, is there a possibility of things getting, shall we say, serious between you and Jane?" Richard asked as he sat himself in an armchair.

Custis paused to think before he replied. "I suppose so," he replied. "She's probably the most interesting young lady I have ever met. Definitely not like the usual run-of-the-mill belles one tends to see in Richmond." He thought for a moment. "She's very much like my mother in quite a few ways: vivacious, intelligent and quite the artist."

Richard nodded. "I do recollect seeing some of your mother's paintings in Richmond," he said. "In the Franklin Street house, I believe. Mostly landscapes, I believe."

Custis nodded. "Plus the occasional portrait," But I understand Jane's got real talent," he said. "She mentions that she's doing well in her studies at Boston Fine Arts College."

Richard snorted laughter. "That's putting it mildly!" he said. "She's got a display in a small gallery here in Boston that caters to the more gifted students from BFAC." He took a sip of his whiskey. "She's the featured artist, I believe. We'll have to take you to see it. I had better warn you, though: although she does brilliant realistic paintings she tends more towards modern art types." He looked at Custis. "Have you worked out what you'll say to your father if things do get serious?"

Custis shook his head. "Still trying to cipher out just how I am going to tell him," he replied. "Bad enough he was the first ever General-in-Chief of the Army of the Confederate States: he's now our Commander-in-Chief." He gave Richard a fishy look. "You try working out how to tell the President of the Confederate States, who also happens to be your father, that you intend to follow the examples set by two of his former Corps commanders in acquiring a lady love from this whole different world, the existence of which he is trying to keep the Yankees from finding out!" Richard grinned and sipped his whiskey.

Custis watched him from over the rim of his tumbler. "I'm given to understand that you've been having nightmares again," he said.

Richard shot him a look. "Sounds like somebody's been talking out of school," he said. "Did you hear this from Daria?"

Custis put down his tumbler. "She's genuinely worried about your well being," he quietly said. "So's Jane and you can add me to the roster as well."

"Did they tell you that I hit her coming out of the last nightmare I had?" Richard asked.

Custis nodded. "And that you haven't forgiven yourself over it. They also said that this one involved some incident on the frontier that you have chosen to keep quiet about." He eyed Richard. "It involved an encounter with the Apaches, didn't it?"

Richard nodded. "Thought I had forgotten about that little incident," he said. "But I was wrong."

Custis shifted in his seat. "You know I've been attending this 'staff college' of theirs?" At Richard's nod, he continued: "They've mentioned something that we may well have to look at ourselves, something called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. From what I've been told it's a natural reaction to being placed in a very traumatic situation, such as a battle or a war of the scale we fought."

"Interesting concept," Richard said. "But what's its significance?"

"Sometimes it manifests itself in particularly vivid nightmares, usually about some particularly nasty incident the person who has this condition was involved in," Custis replied.

Richard said nothing. He had a thoughtful look on his face. "That does make sense. It may well explain why I get nightmares revolving around my combat experiences." He looked at Custis. "But that doesn't tell me how I should go about dealing with them."

Custis looked at Richard. "They do have doctors who can treat disorders of this sort," he said. "They call them psychiatrists."

Richard started. "I hope this doesn't mean that I'll have to be sent to a lunatic asylum," he said. "Nor do I hope you're not suggesting I go there."

Custis shook his head. "They do things differently for conditions like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," he said. "And you're not the only person I know who has suffered from this sort of a problem and wished there was a way to help. My father still has nightmares about some of the battlefields he saw in the War and I've had my own share of bad dreams too." He in his put down his tumbler on the coffee table and leant forward. "However, I do know someone who may be able to help. He suffered from this sort of thing for years before he got it treated. Plus he's a veteran of one of their more unpleasant wars: that misadventure of theirs in Indochina."

"Ah," said Richard. "This 'Viet-nam War' of theirs. Is he one of these, ah 'psychiatrists' of theirs?"

Custis shook his head. "No," he said. "But because of the missions he undertook in Indochina, he is basically in the same boat as we are: he knows too many things that the Powers That Be here want kept secret. However, he also managed to find a physician, a psychiatrist who not only deals with veterans but is also a veteran of that particular conflict himself. He went and studied the discipline on that 'GI Bill' of theirs and also managed to get himself the requisite security clearances to be able to treat people like us."

Richard said nothing. He sat in his chair and thought over Custis' words. Finally he said, "So, should I avail myself of any possible assistance from that angle?"

"I think it may be a good idea," Custis replied. "I'll also ask my... contact to come along as well." He gave Richard a faint smile. "One way of dealing with this disorder is to talk about it, preferably with veterans who may well be best equipped to handle this sort of thing." He hesitated, and then added "Talking with loved ones about what causes your nightmares is, I understand, also of benefit as then they can understand what you're going through."

Richard looked at Custis. "So you think I should have Daria sit in on this? I was hoping to... shield her from some of the more, ah, unsettling aspects of this."

"I think that at some stage that would be a good idea," Custis replied. "She's a lot stronger than you give her credit for." He shook his head. "Your intentions, however, do you honour, but I think she may well surprise you at how much of her strength she is willing to give you to get through this issue."

Richard thought about what Custis had said. Then he nodded his head. "But I'll speak to Daria about this myself," he replied. He drained his whiskey and got out of his chair. "And I suppose we had best go back into the front parlour and prepare ourselves for whatever plans our respective ladies will have laid for us this evening. With, I may add, some assistance from the Regimental Sergeant-Major?"

Custis drained his glass and stood. "Lead on, General Rawlings!" he said. He suddenly grinned. "Bit like old times, eh?"

"But at least this time we won't have any missiles flying in our general direction." Together they exited the study.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Israel Horton opened the front door to Woodstock House. "Can I assist you gentlemen?" he said to the three men he saw on the front porch.

One of them, a small, wiry man, handed Horton a card. "We're here to see General Rawlings on a personal matter," he said.

Horton took the card and looking at it, raised his eyebrows. He then looked at the three gentlemen. "If you will please come in?" he said, stepping out of the way so that the three men could enter. After they had entered he closed the door and indicated the door to the front parlour. "If you could wait in here," he said, "I'll go and see if the general is available." They followed him into the front parlour and sat down on the couch and armchairs Horton indicated for them. "Would you like some refreshments while you're waiting?" he said.

The small man looked at his companions. "Some coffee would be nice, thanks," he said.

Horton nodded. "Then I shall arrange to have some sent up for you," he said. "In the meantime I shall inform General Rawlings of your arrival." He turned and exited the room.

The youngest of the three, a black man, looked around the parlour. "I knew that he was quite well-off," he said, "but I didn't realise he was this well-off!" He looked at the smaller man. "How is he paying for it all?"

"Capital transfers between his world and ours," said the smaller man as he sat in an arm chair. The other two followed his lead. "Usually in specie and some bullion. In 1860 values, at last count, he was worth some four hundred and fifty million dollars, which works out to be roughly ten billion dollars in our currency."

The black man looked at the older man in astonishment. "My God!" he said.

"I should add that the only person who's richer than Rawlings in the South is Senator Wade Hampton the Third," said the older man. "But I understand that he's catching up on him." He looked around. "I should add that he's basically funding his part of his mission himself, using his own resources and the compensation package he got from our Government over what happened on Belvior Plantation in his world."

The third man, a tall, thin white man, looked around. "But that won't necessarily help him with what I suspect is PTSD," he aid. "Only time and some treatment can help."

"I hope you can help Richard," said an semi-monotone alto voice from the doorway through which they had come. They all turned to see a petite, auburn-haired young woman, quite attractive when one gave her a second glance past her lack of makeup, her oval glasses and her fairly deadpan expression, standing there. She was dressed in a white, long-sleeved blouse and a dark-green skirt that brushed the floor. Around her neck was a velvet choker with a cameo on the front and on the ring finger of her left hand she wore a ring that consisted of emeralds set in a true lover's knot and edged with fine white diamonds.

All three men, led by the small, wiry man, stood as she came into the room. "I take it you have some connection with General Rawlings?" he asked.

The small woman gave him a Mona Lisa-like smile as she walked in. "I'm his fiancee," she said, walking over to where the three stood. "Daria Morgendorffer," she said, extending a hand. "And I take it you're all connected with the military in some way."

"How do you determine that, Ms. Morgendorffer?" asked the black man.

"You all have a military air about you," she said, looking at all three. "Living with Richard has taught me what that looks like. "And you're...?"

The small man took Daria's hand and shook it. "Benjamin Willard," he said. "These are my colleagues, Doctor James T. Davis and Colonel Kyleton Armalin, United States Marines." As each man was indicated they came over and shook Daria's hand. "Doctor Davis was in the Marines during the Vietnam War, while I was in Special Operations. Colonel Armalin is currently serving at Belvior Plantation, as am I."

Daria ran her eyes over the three men. "I won't ask what you're doing there," she said. "But as I said, I hope you'll be able to help Richard with his nightmares." She looked around the room. "Are you all being seen to?"

"I understand that coffee is being sent up while the butler goes to find General Rawlings," Willard said.

Daria gave another Mona Lisa smile. "Israel is pretty good about that sort of thing," she said. "Far better than I am. I'm still getting used to being a hostess. But I can rely on the Sergeant-Major to make sure everything is handled properly."

"He was a Sergeant-Major?" Armalin said. "I thought he was ex-military just by looking at him."

"Late of the Confederate States Coloured Troops," Daria said. "He was Regimental Sergeant-Major in his outfit, which served under Richard's command in what was 1864 in his world."

"So you're aware of General Rawlings' origins and what he's doing here?" Willard said.

Daria nodded. "Stumbled across it almost a year ago, when myself and my best friend first met him in Lawndale. That's where we our families live."

"I thought the name Morgendorffer was familiar," Armalin said. "Is your mother a Helen Morgendorffer?"

Daria nodded. "I got the impression from my Aunt Amy Barksdale that Mom had stirred up something of a hornet's nest asking after Richard," she said. "She can get a little overprotective of her daughters." Suddenly she smiled broadly, something that emphasised her understated beauty to all three men. "She's come 'round, though, and is looking forward to the wedding. As am I."

Davis stepped forward. "You've mentioned his nightmares," he said. "Could you give me an idea about what they look like from your point of view?"

Daria indicated past him. "Why not ask him yourself?" she said. They all turned around to see Richard standing in the doorway to what appeared to be a study.

Richard halted at the door and rapidly sized up the three men. "General Willard, Colonel Armalin," he said. "I gather you were the people Custis was talking about." He indicated Davis. "I take it this gentleman is a 'psychiatrist'?"

Willard indicated Davis. "General Rawlings, may I introduce you to Doctor James T Davis? He was in Vietnam. Saw some action during the Tet Offensive back in 1968 with the Marine outfit that went into hue City after the Viet Cong who had taken up positions in there. So you could say that he's the one of us who saw action that was closest to what you saw in your version of the Civil War."

"Ah," said Richard. He came over and held out his hand. "What made you take up this field of medicine, Doctor?" he asked.

"Mostly my own experiences with PTSD," Davis replied. He took Richard's hand and shook it. "I underwent some counselling myself and decided to study the field at college." He reclaimed his hand and looked at the other two men. "Originally I was going to be a journalist when I got out of the Marines, but life determined that I take a somewhat different path."

"Joker here helped me through some pretty harrowing times," Willard said. "Especially after I came back from my last mission in Vietnam."

"'Joker'?"

"My sig in Vietnam," Davis replied. "The squad I was in called itself 'The Lusthog Squad.'" He shrugged his shoulders. "Call it young man's bravado."

"Something I'm only all too familiar with," Richard said. "Especially the boast that many in the Confederate Army made in the early years of the War that one good Southern man was worth any ten 'Yankee hirelings.'" His face took on a sombre cast. "That view was pretty rare after the first two years of fighting. Anybody who saw what the Federals withstood at places like Sloane Farm and Fredericksburg never doubted Yankee courage afterwards."

Daria looked at Davis. "Do you want me to be present for this?" she asked.

Davis thought for a moment and then said, "Since this isn't quite a standard psychiatric consultation, I don't see why not." He gave a smile. "More of a veteran's support group, in a way. And sometimes having loved ones understand what the veteran went through does help." He looked at Richard. "That is, if you want her to be present."

Richard looked troubled. "I... honestly don't know," he said. "Daria's aware of my fights in the War, although she only knows some of the details behind Sloane Farm and my wounding at Chancellorsville." He looked at her. "The nightmare I had... the one I hit her... was... somewhat more..." He looked at the others. "It was my first patrol from Fort Bliss, Texas, against the Apache." His face grew slightly more haunted. "I saw some things in my time on the Frontier that do scar a man."

"Sounds like some of the things I saw in Vietnam," said Willard. "Especially on my last mission there. That one still gives me nightmares." He looked around. "And if we're going to be trading war stories, so to speak, we may want to sit down for this." Just then a servant entered the room bearing coffee and some biscuits and cake.

"Ah!" said Richard. "Please set those down on the coffee table in the study, if you will." He led the others into his study and over to the conversation area while the servant put down the tray with the coffee, cups and snacks on it on the coffee table. "Thank you," he said to the servant. "We'll take care of things from here. Oh, and please make sure we're not disturbed."

"Certainly, General," said the servant. He exited the study, closing the door behind him.

Armalin watched him leave. "Is he an ex-soldier too?" he asked.

Richard nodded. "And one of my people from Mount Folly,' he replied. "He's as trustworthy as anyone in this room." They all sat down while Richard poured the coffee. After they had all been served he sat down on the couch next to Daria, who took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "So," he said. "Who goes first?"

"I suppose I had better get the ball rolling," Davis said. He looked at the others. "James T Davis, sig "Joker", United States Marine Corps. I saw action at Hue City and Khe Sanh." He looked at Daria and Richard. "You may have seen a portrayal of me in a film called Full Metal Jacket."

Daria started. "That was you?" she asked. "But I thought the character was fictional!"

"Not quite fictional," Davis replied. "There were two of us who were tagged with the name 'Joker': me and Gus Hasford. You could say that the character is a blend of the two of us.

"Anyhow, I first saw action at Hue. I had met Gus at boot camp and was surprised to run into him. He was acting as a correspondent for the Marine newspaper. Much of what you saw in the film did happen, except it was... well, as Ben Willard here can tell you, Vietnam was a pretty surreal place during the war."

"How much in the film and the book was real?" Daria asked,

"A lot of it. I can recognise some of the stuff that happened when I was around, and I can pick out some of the stuff that happened to Gus," Davis replied. "In the book, where the character gets knocked out by an RPG concussion blast... that was Gus. I saw what happened to Lieutenant Harding, out platoon commander. Yes, he was killed by one of our grenades and yes, I do suspect it was a fragging. Couldn't prove it, though." He sipped his coffee. "And I did see our squad leader go nuts and attack a VC position with a BB gun. He actually survived, but got medivaced back to Saigon. Heard they shipped him back Stateside wrapped up in a rubber jacket so he wouldn't hurt himself."

"And the sniper?"

"That was Gus. Rafter Man was a combination of a few characters in our platoon." Davis took a bigger swig of his coffee. "One guy went nuts, panicked and ran out in front of a tank." He grimaced in memory of the event. "We had to peel him off the road surface by his webbing. That alone gave me nightmares for quite some time afterwards."

"I daresay," Richard said. "Sounds like the fighting you were involved in was pretty intense."

"Hue was like that," Davis replied. "But then, pretty much all of South Vietnam was like that during Tet. Hardly a safe place anywhere, even on base. Plus you didn't really know if you could trust the locals. There were a few times we had passed by a house in Hue only to be shot at from behind. And when we broke in... Well, it wasn't pretty."

"And the bit where the troops are singing the Mickey Mouse Fanclub Song?" Daria asked.

"Oh, that sort of thing did happen," Davis said. "One of the few complaints I do have about the film, and others like it, was that in places they weren't surreal enough. There were some weird things that happened over there that people here just won't believe happened. Plus some of the contacts..." He shifted in his seat. "I had mixed with some Aussies," he said. "Real hard cases, the Aussies. Managed to pacify their entire sector in Phuoc Tuy Province by a combination of aggressive patrolling and basically being somewhat better than we were at the 'hearts and minds' stuff." He took a sip of his coffee. "Anyway, they taught me a little trick of theirs, which was to carry my weapon in such a way that the muzzle tracked where my eyes tracked. Saved my life when I ran into a Viet Cong fighter: a young woman." He looked around. "The only reason I'm here is because she carried her AK at high port while I was tracking with my weapon muzzle. When she moved to bring her rifle down I shot her." He took a drink from his coffee. "Still see her face, especially at night."

"Sort of like an encounter I had with an Apache brave out of Fort Bliss," Richard said. "Except it was knives and tomahawks."

"Could you tell us about it?" Davis said.

Rawlings shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "It's really not fit for mixed company," he said.

Daria squeezed his hand somewhat harder than she did last time. "Richard, you should well know by now that I'm not exactly a shrinking violet," she said. "Besides, I reckon I may well have been somewhat desensitised by what Hollywood usually does with movies these days." She looked around. "I'm actually surprised that we're not totally dysfunctional as a society, what with all the violence and gore one sees in movies."

"Thankfully it's only a minority who are adversely affected by all the violence," Armalin said. "But even so, I still see some in the Corps who I wonder about their reasons for joining." He indicated Davis. "I gather you were conscripted into the Corps during Vietnam."

Davis nodded. "Ben Willard here, though, he was Regular Army," he said. "Although he did retire out of the Service for a while before they recalled him to take command of things on our side of the Divide."

"So you know all about that," Richard said.

Davis nodded. "Don't worry," he said. "I've got all of the requisite clearances to handle that sort of information. Suffice it to say Ben here isn't the first patient I've had who has some hot secrets." He looked at Rawlings. "I take it your encounters were a little more, shall we say, 'up close and personal' than mine were?"

Rawlings looked at the others. "You could say that," he replied. His face took on an even more haunted look. "I could literally smell his breath and the sour odour of his sweat as we struggled. Obviously I prevailed, otherwise I wouldn't be here, and my scalp would be decorating some brave's quarters."

"I remember seeing you practising with a Bowie knife and a tomahawk at your world's version of Belvior," Armalin said. "You impressed me with your skill."

"Learned it on the Frontier," Richard said, "after my first encounter with an Apache brave on my first patrol out of Fort Bliss. An Apache renegade from the Mescalero Apaches we had as a scout taught me how to use a tomahawk with a knife." He gave a sickly smile. "Saved my life on more than one occasion."

"So Bedford Forrest told me when he saw me watching you," Amarlin said.

"You met Nathan Bedford Forrest?" Daria said to Armalin. The Marine nodded. "What was he like?"

"Not really what I expected," Armalin replied. "He treated me as an officer who just happened to be black. I later found out that he had enlisted several of his own black slaves in his outfit on the condition that win; lose or draw he'd free the lot of them."

"Interesting. What happened to them?"

"Eight of them wound up serving in what he called his 'Special Forces,' which was an escort company some ninety men strong," Armalin said. "One of his teamsters deserted, but the remaining thirty-nine stayed. Kept his word, too."

"Forrest once said of them 'Finer Confederates never fought'," Richard said. "As the good colonel over there is aware, racism does exist in the South, but it's not as bad as what there is in the Southern states of your world."

"Not so in your face, as it were," Armalin said. "Plus it's just accepted as the way things are. They make no real distinction between black and white soldiers in their army, though: I saw that first hand. And the distinctions between whites and servants seem just as equally based in class as in race."

Richard nodded. "You won't see any of the white farmhands, if we have any, sitting at the same table as myself and my estate manager at Mount Folly back in my world," he said. "Nor at any of the larger family properties in the Shenandoah. On some smaller farms, however, the field hands sit at the same table as the farm manager, but with whites at one end and blacks at the other, and even then seated in order of importance." He grinned. "The black field hands are just as insistent on that kind of seating order as well."

"Interesting," Daria said. "So what do they make of blacks mixing with whites?"

"Depends on the situation," Richard said. "They would not object to, say, Colonel Armalin here sitting with us as he is demonstratably of the same, shall we say, social standing as myself or General Willard. But they would object to a black field hand mixing with whites, because they would them believe that the black hand considers himself to be better than his fellows. And that doesn't even go into the finer shadings of distinction between people." He sipped his coffee. "However, things are beginning to change. Change slowly, but change. You may not be able to see them, but for those of us who grew up in that world, we can see small changes in the way things are in the South, and the more thoughtful amongst us can see that these are harbingers of greater changes to come."

"Surely you fought your war to try and keep things the way they were?"

"Some of might have," Richard said. "However, those of us who had put some thought into things knew that the very war we had fought to try and preserve the Southern way of life would change the very thing we were trying to protect. The best thing we can do is to basically limit the more negative aspects of that change and try and accentuate the more positive aspects. Such as our decision to emancipate the slaves in '63. Granted, we made the decision in relation to a manpower crisis we were having, but having made the decision, like the decision to secede, we knew that there was no going back to the way things were. Again, we knew that there would be some negative aspects to our decision, but we are trying to limit their effects."

"Well, as interesting as this discussion is," Willard said, "I think we had better get on with why we are here. And if General Rawlings is not yet comfortable with telling us some of his stories, I suppose I had better tell some of mine." He settled back into his chair."Benjamin Willard, currently Major-General, United States Army, and ex-Captain, United States Special Forces in Vietnam." He looked at Richard. "You may not be too impressed with what I was doing in Vietnam: I have to admit that, as I grew older, I wondered at the morality behind my missions. Whether I saved more lives than I took has haunted me to some extent for around thirty years, now."

Daria's face paled. "You were in the Phoenix Project, weren't you?" she asked.

Willard nodded. "My missions... well, lets say that they were concerned with dealing with individuals in the South Vietnamese administrative structure who were strongly believed to be assisting the Viet Cong in their efforts to destabilise and overthrow the Government in Saigion. Often with extreme prejudice."

Richard looked at Willard. "You were basically an assassin," he flatly said.

"That's one way of putting it," Willard said. "My last mission, the one I had before I was finally rotated out of Vietnam... well, it was a choice mission, and like some of Joker's life it, too, was made into a film. Which did a pretty good job of depicting a lot of the surreal atmosphere surrounding a lot of the Vietnam War." He sipped a coffee. "The film was Apocalypse Now."

Daria started. "But I thought Coppola was simply transferring onto the canvas of the Vietnam War the basic storyline for Heart of Darkness," she said. "You don't mean to tell me that..." She trailed off.

"The core of it was real sure enough," Willard said. "Except that some of the names and locations were changed to protect the guilty, with Heart of Darkness overlaid as an additional smokescreen." He sipped his coffee. "I did meet someone very much like Kilgore on another mission. His name's not all that important, but the depiction of Kilgore and his outfit... well Coppola did take some dramatic license. But basically it was true."

Daria paled. "And Kurtz...?"

Willard nodded. "His name wasn't Kurtz," he replied. "But he was a special forces colonel who had joined up with the Montagnards and taken off into Cambodia in order to fight the war in his own manner." He again sipped his coffee. "The film actually downplayed some aspects of his compound. I do know he had read Conrad's book, as well as histories of the Belgian Congo and decided that the methods used by the Belgian colonial administrators there could be... modified for use against the Viet Cong."

"So there were dead bodies..."

"And severed heads," Willard said. "And strings of hands. The interrogation room... Well, the less said about that the better. Just think of the worst excesses of the Inquisition combined with those of the Gestapo and using what was then modern equipment." Willard took another sip of his coffee. "By the time I, ah, 'terminated his command'..."

"Don't you just love euphemisms?" Daria said.

"Quite," Willard said. "By the time I terminated his command, I had come to the conclusion that killing him was like killing a mad dog. And the worst part about it was, that I am pretty much certain that at some level, he was aware of what was happening to him and welcomed what... I had to do."

"Surely you could have court-martialled him?" Richard asked.

Willard shook his head. "I read the briefing materials they gave me before I left," he said. "The man was a highly-decorated war hero and had been on the inside track to make general. Court-martialling him, particularly by that stage in the war, was never an option. Far better, both for his reputation, his family and, not incidentally, for the reputation of the United States Army post-My Lai, that he disappear on a mission somewhere near the Cambodian border and be declared missing in action."

"How close was the end of the film to what happened?" asked Daria. "And did you go up the Mekong River?"

Willard nodded. "Of course there was no such river as the Nung in Vietnam," he said. "And I left the boat some way downstream from his compound and worked my way up the opposite bank, crossing the river above his compound and working my way back towards it." He took a sip. "I was expecting to be captured by his Montagnards: they were particularly effective bush soldiers, so I worked being captured by them into my... well calling what I was doing a plan would be crediting it too much."

Armalin nodded. "You were improvising as you went along," he said. "I suppose I can understand why you did that." He too, sipped his coffee. "And I've heard just how good the Montagnards were, or at least stories from some Vietnam vets who were still in the Corps when I was a young Second Lieutenant."

"Most of the stories don't really do them justice," Willard said. "And they hate the Vietnamese with a pretty fierce passion, which is understandable since the Vietnamese don't particularly like them all that much either. They consider them in the same way that, I suppose people in General Rawlings' world would consider North American Indians."

"Ben, do you mind if, for the sake of the group dynamic, I insist that everybody here uses either first names or sigs?" Davis said. "It will make things a bit easier than using ranks."

Willard shook his head. "No objection from me, Joker," he said.

Richard thought for a moment, and then shook his head. "Nor from me," he replied.

Armalin, however, looked a little unsure. "I'm not too sure about that," he said. "After all, I'm still a serving officer of the United States, and General Willard is, to some extent, my superior officer."

"Think of this as being in the mess," Richard said. "I do know you've experienced our mess traditions at Belvior Plantation on our side of the Divide."

Armalin thought for a moment, and then nodded. "That works for me."

"Anyway, as to the Montagnards," Willard said. "Excellent trackers and jungle fighters. However, some of their habits can be a little unsettling."

"How did you manage to survive?" Armalin asked.

"Because I was obviously an American rather than a Vietnamese," Willard said. "If I had been Vietnamese, I am under no illusion they would have simply cut my throat and brought my head back to... well, we'll call him 'Kurtz', since that was the name of the character that depicted him.

"Kurtz pretty much knew why I was there. However, he let me live. Initially put me in a cage and then transferred me to a modified container. As happened in the film. He didn't throw a severed head in with me, though. I did see him do that with a high-ranking Viet Cong they had as a prisoner there."

"So... How did you manage to kill him?" asked Armalin.

"After a while he let me roam freely through the compound, knowing I was there to kill him," Willard said. "I took advantage of a festival the Montagnards were having to slip into the old temple building he was living in and... well... carried out my mission. In the days leading up to it, though, he did have me brought to where he was sleeping and he did read snatches of news reports and... Pretty much as you saw in the film."

"And the Motagnards? What happened to them?"

"I managed to get them to disperse after I killed Kurtz," Willard said. "I could have replaced him, but I basically told them to go home. Then I called in an air strike to destroy all traces of the compound, made my way back to the boat and went back down river." He sipped his coffee. "Of course, when I got back to Saigon I was pretty much a basket case. I was medivaced back Stateside and spent some time in a nice little psychiatric institution. After I got out I took my discharge at the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and basically went on the Reserve list." He sipped his coffee. "I heard that the Cambodians had massacred Kurtz's people. And I suppose that news may have... contributed to my little episode."

Davis leaned over and looked Willard in the eyes. "Ben, you know that what happened to the Montagnards is not your fault," he said. "You did what you could to make sure that they could get out of there before calling in the air strike. What happened afterwards was out of your hands."

Willard sighed. "I know, Jim," he said. "But I'm still going to feel some guilt for what happened."

"At least you can sleep at nights," Davis replied. He looked around at the others. "Well, Ben and I have led off on this little exercise," he said. "Who's next?"

"Before we go on," Armalin said, "I'm a little curious to know if you... saw something in Kurtz that you recognised in yourself."

Willard looked at Armalin and slowly nodded his head. "I suppose you could say that I really gazed into the abyss with my mission to terminate Kurtz's command," he replied. "And I saw the abyss staring right back at me through his eyes. And I suppose I did see just what I could become in Kurtz. I could easily have taken his place leading his Montagnards, joined him in the abyss. Become the new Kurtz. But I managed to make that decision to refuse to take that final step into the abyss and become Kurtz, something that I managed to hold on to while I was in that asylum: a lifeline to my own humanity, as it were." He gave Armalin an assessing look. "I would suggest that you might want to consider that sort of thing yourself. Let my example, and Kurtz's example, be a kind of warning about what the Agency types call 'flexible ethics and moral standards'." He sipped his coffee. "Take it from someone who was there: that sort of thing does not mix well with the qualities the Armed Forces values in a soldier."

Armalin nodded. "I think I'll take your advice on that," he said. He looked around. "Kyleton Armalin, Colonel, United States Marines. Most recently I saw service in Iraq, but before that in Afghanistan chasing down Taliban and Al Qaeda members while helping to train the locals." He took a sip. "I have to admit I thought I was pretty tough, but I soon found out that the local Pathan fighters in Afghanistan were even tougher."

"How so?"

"It's winter," Armalin said, "and here we are rugged up to the nines in our winter anoraks and we see local fighters wearing only a little more than what they normally wore in summer running across the snow in either sandals or light shoes. Plus they were a lot harder to dig out of their positions than anybody else I ever encountered. Plus I also saw just what they do to any of our people, or any of the local forces, they capture." Armalin closed his eyes and shuddered. "You could say that I found out about the truth behind the reports we got from Russians who had fought in Afghanistan back in the '80s, not to mention British accounts from the late Nineteenth Century."

Willard gave a small smile. "Found out the truth behind Kipling's lines, I take it," he said.

"Kipling?"

Willard's smile grew somewhat grimmer. "Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem called 'The Young British Soldier'," he said. "It was basically about what someone could expect to encounter in the British Army of his day. It included these lines:

'When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,

And the women come out to cut up what remains,

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.'"

He gave the others a grim smile. "I've spoken to some Russian Afghan War veterans," he said, "and they all said they understood what Kipling was getting at." He turned his gaze on Armalin. "I take it you saw something along those lines in Afghanistan?"

Armalin nodded. "It was one of the locals," he said.. "A Tadjik. We came across his remains and gathered them up to be taken back to Kabul for identification and to be handed over to his relatives. It was quite clear from the look on his face, let alone the wounds, that he had been tortured to death, but the autopsy indicated that he was still alive when they had carved him like a joint of meat." His face had paled somewhat. "The Brits who were with us weren't all that surprised, though. I gather they had read those Nineteenth Century accounts of what things were like in Afghanistan. One of them said that it was clear they had given the poor S.O.B. over to the women. I wasn't all that sure what he meant by that, but your quoting those lines just gelled it for me."

Richard nodded. "Not too dissimilar from what we encountered on the Frontier against the Apache and Comanche," he said. "Except I suspect that they were, shall we say, more refined in their tortures than these Afghans you mention."

"What makes you say that?" asked Armalin.

Richard gave a grim smile. "I found out from some old sweats who had been on the Frontier a lot longer than me that the Apache learned some of their techniques for inflicting pain from the Spanish and Mexicans when that part of the world had been a part of New Spain and the Mexican Empire," he said. "They were very effective with knives and lances."

"Lances?"

Richard stirred a little in his seat and looked at Daria, who gave his hand an encouraging squeeze. "What I am about to relate..." He looked Daria in the eyes. "You sure about this?" he asked. "It still gives me nightmares and is guaranteed to give you bad dreams."

Daria responded with a small smile and another squeeze of his hand. "Richard," she said, "I want to be able to help you. And the only way I'll be able to do that is to know just what's behind these bad dreams you've been having."

Richard sighed. "Well," he said. "My turn then." He looked at the others. "Richard John Rawlings, Lieutenant-General, Army of the Confederate States and formerly Lieutenant with the brevet rank of Captain, Company H, 8th United States Infantry."

"Brevet rank?" asked Daria.

"It's sort of an acting rank," he said. "I had the rank and responsibilities of a captain, but was paid at the rate of a Lieutenant. It was a fairly common feature of the Old Army, especially in outposts like Fort Bliss. When I resigned from the Old Army after my father's death, I was promoted to Captain as my retirement rank."

"I see," Daria said. "So, in a sense, you did leave the Old Army, as you refer to it, as a Captain."

Willard grinned. "Did you go onto the Retired list, or did you simply go inactive?"

"We really didn't have an inactive list," Richard replied, "so you could say I went on the retired list. However, if there was an emergency of sorts, such as the War, the various States would scour the lists for officers to commission in their own military forces. As did happen in the War's early days. I was offered a Major's commission in the Virginian forces, and was later made a Colonel commanding the 22nd Virginia Battalion."

"It's just that if you were on the equivalent of the inactive list for the antebellum US Army, you'd probably outrank even the Joint Chief of Staff simply on seniority," Willard said.

"You're a VMI graduate, right?" Armalin asked. At Richard's nod, he continued, "I thought only graduates of West Point were offered commissions in those days. How'd you get yours?"

"I can truthfully say that my father had a hand in that," Richard replied. "He'd served in the War of 1812, initially as a Second Lieutenant in the Thirteenth United States Infantry. He was at Queenstown when he caught the attention of a then US Colonel named Winfield Scott. He was later assigned to Brigadier-General Scott's staff as a full Lieutenant and was at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, where he was wounded alongside his chief. He later served with Scott in Florida and on the Trail of Tears, left the Army as a captain and, when General Scott was assembling his staff for Santa Anna's War..."

"What War?"

"Santa Anna's War, also called the Mexican War," Richard replied. "Although the Whigs and other opponents called it 'Mr. Polk's War.' As I was saying, when General Scott assembled his staff for the Mexico City campaign he asked my father to come back with the rank of Major. He served as one of his senior staff officers, and met most of our side's commanders when they were junior officers serving in his army. Met quite a few of the North's commanders too.

"Anyway, a couple of years after the Mexican War ended, General Scott paid my father a visit at Mount Folly. I was home from VMI at the time and met him then. I must have made a favourable impression and that, combined with his regard for my father, got me an offer of a commission in the Third Infantry from General Scott himself." He looked at the others. "It was a different time, then, and a different way of doing things. However, I also got from my father a, shall we say, more sympathetic way of viewing things, especially Indians." He took a sip of his coffee. "It was my father who began questioning the idea of chattel slavery, and he had started the process of freeing our people in Virginia. I just basically continued the process."

"So you got your ideas from your father?" asked Davis.

Richard nodded. "The War actually gave me a way of putting those ideas into practice," he said.

"So what was it like, your first patrol?" Davis asked.

Richard shot Davis a look. "You're not going to let it go, are you?" he asked.

"Best thing for you is to get it all out of your system," Davis replied. "Besides, it will give your fiancee some idea of what was responsible for at least one of your nightmares."

Richard sighed."All right," he said. He looked at the others. "You have to realise that at the time I was a freshly-minted Second Lieutenant, just out from the East and going on my first ever patrol..."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

New Mexico-Arizona Territory, Somewhere Near Fort Bliss, Texas.

Second Lieutenant Rawlings looked around at the magnificent, but desolate area of the San Andreas Mountains. "Lord, but this is magnificent!" he said.

His sergeant, an Irishman named James O'Rourke, nodded, and then spat a chaw of tobacco onto the ground. "It's pretty, right enough," he said. "Also pretty lousy with Apache, too." He looked at his young officer. "That straight-razor of yours ain't gonna be much use if we do run into any hostiles," he said. "You'd have been better off with a tomahawk and a knife, sir." He patted the tomahawk and Bowie knife he carried slung through his waist belt. Slung across his back was a Model 1842 percussion cap musket and hanging from his waist belt was a bayonet, a Bowie knife and a holstered revolver. An additional brace hung from his saddle in a pair of saddle holsters. His uniform was a dark blue frock coat with provision for brass scales to be fitted to the shoulders (frequently they were, however, lost or broken.) On his head, instead of the felt shako stipulated by the 1851 Regulations he wore the old Mexico War cap the army had used before the uniform changes had come in. His trousers were sky blue with a dark blue side seam one-eighth of an inch wide running down the outside leg.

Richard, by contrast, wore the officer's version of the uniform coat, with two sky-blue shoulder straps edged with gold embroidery proclaiming his rank. On his head he wore the officer's version of the old cap that the Army had worn in Mexico. Around his waist was a scarlet silk sash and over it he wore a black patent leather belt which supported an infantry officer's sword and, safely holstered, a Colt revolver.

Like the rest of the infantry patrol they were mounted on mules, a common way for infantry on patrol to get about in mountainous country. Since the end of the Mexican War the Congress had resumed its abstemious ways and, as usual, the Army had to make do with what it, and its dynamic Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, could squeeze out of Congress' tight fist.

Richard shrugged. "Don't really know how to use them Sergeant," he replied. "But I suppose my pistol here should make up for that." He patted his brand new Colt revolver: a graduation present from his father.

"Up to a point sir," replied O'Rourke. "Apache are pretty good at getting up close and personal." He kept looking at crags and rocks, all of them likely places where an Apache brave, or group of braves, could be hiding.

"Surely we don't have all that much to fear from the Apache," Richard said. "From what I heard things are pretty peaceful here. Especially after Major Steen of the First Dragoons managed to negotiate with the Apaches a right of way for the Overland Mail. I've even heard some Apache make a fairly decent living supplying the Apache Pass stagecoach station with wood and other necessities."

O'Rourke spat another stream of tobacco onto the ground. "That may be, Lieutenant," he said. "But still, things can get pretty tense between the Apaches and the greasers round about here."

"Greasers? I take it you mean the Mexicans living in the territory?" Richard asked.

"Greasers, dagos, lubricators, all the same to me, sir," O'Rourke replied. "They hate the Apache and the Apache hate 'em right back. And we get to be the meat in the sandwich."

"What do you mean?"

"We're here basically to keep the peace," O'Rourke replied. "Or so they say. However, the Apache ain't all that sure if they can trust us, and the greasers... Well, I did the long walk south of the Rio Grande in 1847-48, first with ol' 'Rough and Ready' and then the walk into Mexico City with General Scott. And I can tell you the greasers don't exactly love us. Especially the locals here, since they reckon we stole this land from them when we beat 'em in Santa Anna's War."

"And the Apache?"

"They tend to see us as another set of trespassers on what they believe to be their country," O'Rourke replied. "Plus they resent us for interferin' with what they see as justified retaliation on the greasers."

"Meaning?"

O'Rourke shrugged. "The greasers..."

"Mexicans, Sergeant, please," said Richard.

O'Rourke shrugged again. "Suit yourself, Lieutenant," he said. "The Mexicans, both here and on the other side of the border, know that the Apache have a real weakness for hard liquor, especially whiskey and tequila. So they frequently will get a band of them all liquored up and then kill the men and take the women and children as, well, slaves for want of a better word. Their relations hear about that and put together a war party to retaliate on the nearest ranch or settlement, killing everybody, maybe take the children and, after looting the place, burnin' it to the ground." He spat. "And we get the job of goin' after the band what's done that, or try an' stop 'em before they hit the gr.. Er, Mexicans." He looked around. "And a pretty thankless job it is too."

"Meaning, I take it, that neither side thanks us for doing our job," Richard dryly replied.

O'Rourke grinned. "You catch on pretty quick, Lieutenant." He suddenly looked more alert as he spotted something behind Richard. Richard turned around and saw one of the privates come towards him at a great pace on the back of his mule. "Looks like somethin's up, Lieutenant," O'Rourke said as he unslung his musket and examined the priming.

The private halted his mule. "Lieutenant Rawlings, sir," he said, saluting.

Richard returned the salute. "What is it, Private?" he asked.

The private turned around on the back of his mule and pointed back the way he came. "We found some of the locals who went missin' after that last Apache raid," he said. "They're up there."

O'Rourke made to move towards where the private had indicated. "Well' we had better go see to 'em, Lieutenant," he said.

Richard kicked his mule to follow the sergeant. "Are they still alive, Private?" he asked.

The private shook his head. "No, sir. But they's treated 'em like they usually do."

"What do you mean?"

O'Rourke looked at Richard. "I'd better warn you, sir, that what you're about to see ain't pretty."

"What do you mean by..." Richard's voice fell as they rounded the corner and saw the area where the dead captives had been placed.

It was quite clear how they had been killed.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Daria's face paled. "They were tortured to death?" she asked.

Richard looked at her and squeezed her hand. "It was pretty common practice on both sides of the Frontier, especially amongst the Apaches and the Mexicans," he said. "One practice was to bury the captives in a row of holes in such a way as only their heads were sticking above ground. Then, using a lance, they would ride along the row and pluck the eyes out with the lance tip. After that was done they would then ride back along the row and simply pierce their heads with the lances."

"And the ones you found?"

Richard looked at the others. "They had all been tortured with methods Sergeant O'Rourke told me the Apache had picked up off the Spanish and Mexicans, usually by having it done to them. The legacy, you could say, of the Inquisition. Then, whenever they had some captives, they would return the favour," he said. "A couple of them had been flayed alive and then roasted over a slow fire, which was still smouldering when we got there. A couple more had been tied to a frame by their hands and feet and used for lance practice. The Apaches made sure that they didn't kill them outright. Later on, we found another captive further down the trail who had been picqueted."

"'Picqueted'?" asked Armalin.

"Basically they suspended him by one thumb, usually his left, and then placed a sharp, stone-headed lance, attached to a post, as the only thing he could rest his foot, usually the right upon in order to take the weight off his thumb," Richard said. "Then they left him to die." He took a sip of his coffee. "This was a variant, though. Normally, they leave a stake with a tip on it that is sharp enough to cause pain, but not sharp enough to actually pierce the foot. Interestingly they didn't scalp them, probably because these were captives and not people they had killed in combat."

"I forgot you would have seen people who were scalped," Armalin said. "So what did you do with those dead Mexicans you found?"

Richard shrugged. "The only thing we could do. We buried them where we found them and marked their graves. It was a little further on, however, that we ran into trouble..."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Richard took the offered hip flask from his sergeant and, tilting his head back, took a big swig of cheap whiskey. "I can scarce believe that human beings can do that to one another," he said, handing the flask back.

"Both the Apache and the greasers tend to return the favour to one another," O'Rourke said as the small column rode along the trail. "And our own people ain't innocent either." He looked back towards where they had left the last captive they had found: the man who had been picqueted. "Though I must say they really didn't like Senor Velaquez back there."

"How could you tell?"

O'Rourke shrugged. "The fact that they had removed the skin from the soles of his feet before they picqueted him was something of a giveaway, sir," he replied.

Richard shuddered at the memory of what he had seen. Then, looking around, he saw the glint of sunlight reflecting off metal. "Sergeant, don't move, but I think we're being watched," he said in an undertone.

O'Rourke snorted. "We've probably been watched ever since we..." he began when, suddenly, a shot rang out and O'Rourke slid out of his saddle.

Richard drew his revolver and then his sword. "Ambush!" he yelled out. More shots rang out and they were joined by the noise of air being cleaved by flying arrows.

To their credit, Richard's men reacted like the veterans they were. They immediately kicked their mules into motion and, drawing their revolvers, started firing back at those Apache who had exposed themselves to fire. He saw a couple of them tumble off of the rock outcrops they had taken position on, but saw several more launch themselves at his soldiers, landing on top of them and tumbling them out of their saddles. He was about to sabre one of the Apache who had knocked one of his men off of his mule when he felt a solid impact knock him out of his saddle.

He found himself on the ground, slightly dazed and with an Apache brave straddling him and doing his best to try and kill him. The brave, however, while holding down Richard's sword arm had missed the pistol and was instead trying to throttle him with one hand. Richard brought his pistol up, somehow managed to cock it single-handedly, pressed the muzzle against the Apache's side, and pulled the trigger. The Apache's grip grew slack and he fell forward onto Richard, who managed to struggle his way out from underneath the dead Indian warrior.

Looking around, he noticed that his men had started to coalesce into groups of two and three, fighting dismounted and standing back to back. Several of them had managed to unsling their muskets and return fire. At the ranges they were shooting the buck and ball load (consisting of some buckshot stacked on top of a musket ball) proved to be quite effective. They did not, however, have any time to reload, so they simply dropped their muskets and used their Bowie knives and tomahawks in close-quarters combat. Richard soon found his officer's sword a hindrance, but as he did not know how to use a Bowie knife, let alone a tomahawk, tried to use his sword to the best effect he could.

Suddenly, shots rang out from behind the Apaches. They looked around and then started running into the hills. Richard looked around and heard the drumming of hooves on the ground. Then, a squadron of cavalry, led by an auburn-haired and bearded young officer not much older than Richard himself, flanked by a trooper on one side and an Apache scout on the other, rode up to where Richard and his men were standing.

The officer pulled up in front of Richard. "Bit of trouble, Richard?" he asked in a voice that combined the accents of aristocratic Virginia with that of the Virginia Piedmont.

"You could say that, Jeb," Richard replied. He reached out for Stuart's offered hand. "Glad to see you," he replied.

Lieutenant James Ewell Brown Stuart grinned through his well-groomed, close cropped beard. Pointing back over his shoulder the way he and his troopers had come, he said, "We were just down that-a-ways when we heard shots and came to investigate." He swung down off his horse and looked at Richard. "Looks like you had a bit of a close call yourself."

Richard looked down at where the brave that he had killed lay. "You could say that." He then started shaking.

Stuart looked at Richard and then turned around. "Who's got whiskey on them?" he asked. "I know someone's probably carrying." An infantry private raced up to where the two officers stood, pulling a flat bottle of whiskey out of his knapsack as he ran. He handed it to Stuart who said "Thanks," opened the bottle and handed it to Richard.

Richard closed his eyes and took a massive swig from the bottle that left him coughing. "Easy there," Stuart said. "Don't want you leaving the Service just because you've taken a liking to strong whiskey." He looked at Richard's head. "Give me the bottle for a moment." Richard gave him a strange look but handed Stuart the bottle and was immediately taken aback when Stuart turned him around and poured it on the back of his head. "Looks like you took a bit of a tumble there," he said. Richard hissed and swore beneath his breath as the whiskey stung the cut on the back of his head.

Stuart stepped back and closed the bottle. "First action, wasn't it," he said.

Richard nodded. "First time I've killed someone, too," he replied. He looked around and, to his horror, saw some of his men go up to the Apaches they had killed and start taking scalps. He moved to stop them, but was halted by Stuart.

"Leave them," he said. "Soldier's pay isn't all that good, and a genuine Indian scalp fetches a fair bit back East. They'll take the heads as well, in order to boil the flesh off 'em and to sell the skulls to collectors back East as well." He chuckled. "In fact, we're lucky we're not on the Santa Fe or Oregon Trails, or we'd be losing men to desertion."

"Desertion? Why?"

"A lot of men join the Army simply to come out West so that they can then desert and go off to California for the gold rush," Stuart replied. "They're having real trouble in California keeping men on post. Many of them just up and desert to the fields." He looked at Richard. "And they don't go looking for them, since it's more trouble to do so than its worth." He looked around, and then looked back at Richard. "Seems we've driven them off. Might as well get the boys back together, bury our dead, and get the wounded, including you, back to the post."

"I'm not that badly injured, Jeb," Richard said.

"That bleeding scalp of yours says otherwise." Stuart walked over to one of the dead Apaches and, taking a pocket knife, cut off the sleeves. He then walked over to Richard and, after dousing both sleeve and wound with water from a canteen he had also liberated from the dead Apache, wrapped the shirt sleeves around Richard's head.

The sound of an approaching horse made both men look up. Coming towards them was the sergeant of Stuart's squadron halted in front of them and saluted. "The Apache have scattered, sir," he said to Stuart. "The boys managed to get a couple of their horses as well. No prisoners, though."

Stuart looked around. "Have the squadron assemble back here," he said. "We take care of our wounded and bury the dead. Collect any weapons from the dead and put them on the backs of any spare animals. No use leaving perfectly good guns for the Indians to take."

The sergeant saluted. "I'll see to it right away, Lieutenant," he said and rode off.

Stuart looked at Richard. "So, your first action," he said. "And, except for the scalp wound, you cane through pretty much unscathed. You could tell the ladies back at the post that you nearly got scalped but managed to fight off your attacker." He looked at Richard's sword. "And I suggest that next time you leave that thing back in your quarters and learn to carry a brace of six-shooters and a knife and tomahawk. Be much more use in a fight than that straight razor."

"And I wouldn't know how to use them, Jeb," Richard replied.

"We'll fix that." Stuart looked over to where the scout was sitting. "Chato!" he said and waved him over. "Think you could teach Lieutenant Rawlings how to fight with a tomahawk and knife?"

The Apache came over and looked Rawlings over. "He's big, and seems to move well," he said. "He could learn, and that way perhaps keep his scalp."

Stuart chuckled. "Well, once we get back to the fort and Lieutenant Rawlings has recovered from his wound, you teach him how to fight, si?" The Apache said nothing but simply nodded. "Then that's settled." He then walked over to the dead Apache, knelt down and took the tomahawk out of his dead hand. He examined it and, nodding to himself, placed it on the ground while he rolled the dead Indian over. He then looked at the knife that was still in its sheath and thrust through the belt, removing the knife and sheath from the belt and then examining the blade and knuckle guard. Finally he nodded and, getting back up, picked up the tomahawk and walked over to Richard. "Here," he said, handing both weapons to him. "They're good quality and you won't have to go and see the traders for a set."

"Jeb, I really..."

"Richard, don't argue. Just take them. If you won't one of the others will, and you need them." Reluctantly Richard took the offered weapons and, observing how the Apache carried his, placed them in his waistbelt. "Now, let's get you back to the fort, and to the attentions of a certain young lady."

Richard looked at Stuart and snorted. "Jeb, she's eleven going on twelve," he said. "A bit young, don't you think? Besides, it's just a childish attachment."

Stuart chortled laughter. "Believe me, that one was never young. Or childish."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Daria raised an amused eyebrow and smirked. "I take it that when you got back to Fort Bliss a certain someone was ready to wait hand and foot on you?" she said.

Richard turned an amused look on his fiancee. "You could say that," he drawled. "In fact, she pretty much placed herself at my beck and call, telling me not to overly exert myself and fetching me drinks of water and wetting cloths to place upon my brow. Much to the amusement of both my fellow officers and their families, not to mention the enlisted men." He grinned. "I daresay you could learn all about that little episode from Jeb Stuart and Pete Longstreet. They both witnessed the sad events surrounding my, ah, recuperation from my terrible head wound."

Daria chuckled. "My, my," she said. "Sounds like somebody was the object of a crush." She snuggled in against her fiancee. "Something which I can understand completely." She smirked. "I suppose you could say that Emma and I both have good taste when it comes to men."

"Modesty forbids me from replying to that remark," Richard replied. He leaned over and gave her a brief kiss. Straightening, he looked at the others. "Well, I suppose you now understand the sort of thing we encountered on the Frontier."

Armalin's lips shaped a silent whistle. "I knew the Afghans could do some horrific things to prisoners, but what you saw does take the cake," he said. "Skinning someone alive and roasting him over a slow fire... I'm not surprised you get nightmares over that!"

"I can guarantee that I saw worse done to the Apache by the Mexicans in the area of the New Mexico Territory we patrolled out of Fort Bliss," Richard said. "And the Apache would go and return the favour."

"Sounds like in some ways it was worse than in Vietnam," Davis said. "At least you didn't have the Mexicans shooting at you."

"Which was a plus," Richard said. "The Apache were bad enough."

"Well, anyway, I can make a diagnosis and suggest a course of treatment, if you like," Davis said.

Richard squared his shoulders and gave Davis a level look. "Fire away," he said.

"You are, unsurprisingly, suffering from a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," Davis said. "Thankfully for you your condition isn't as acute as some of the cases I've seen over the years, most likely due to the fact that you were able to have sufficient 'down time', so to speak, to be able to work your way through many of the issues about what you've seen and done that, naturally arise. Unlike some veterans with PTSD, you aren't violent; you have to have one of the most equitable and affable temperaments I have ever seen. That said, however, I for one would not like to see you pissed at something, or, for that matter, someone."

"I see," said Richard. "And... and my striking Daria?"

"A natural enough reaction to being awakened suddenly from a situation where you believed you were in a life-or-death struggle," Davis replied. "Especially during a nightmare."

"Ah, about nightmares," Richard said. "I get them often enough, as Daria will testify to. And if I wake up from one I won't go back to sleep because the damned thing will simply just come back."

"We can do something about that," Davis said. "There's a psychiatrist here in Boston who's an old CIA hand. We met when I was going to get my clearances. I'll write you a referral to him, and have General Willard add a note telling him about your situation and that everything you tell him is pretty much Top Secret. He's had to treat CIA agents in the past, so that's nothing new to him. As for the nightmares, I'll write you a prescription for a mild anti-anxiety medication that will help you sleep a lot better. I'd also recommend having a cup of Chai herbal tea at night, as that has a calming effect."

"No problem," Daria said. "I'll make sure we get some in and that he drinks it. In fact, I'll probably have some myself."

"Good." Davis stood up and, reaching for the satchel he had carried in, took out a prescription pad and wrote out a script. Tearing it off, he handed Richard the prescription. "Thought I might need the pad, so I brought it with me." he said.

Richard took the script. "I'll go and have it filled out later today." He looked around. "Has everybody finished with their tea and coffee, or should I call Israel and have the remnants cleared away and some light refreshments brought in."

Willard and Armalin both got up. "Thank you, General, but I suppose we had better be getting ready to head back to Belvior tomorrow," he said. "I promised the colonel here a brief tour of Boston before heading back."

Richard stood up with them, as did Daria and Davis. "Thank you for your assistance, gentlemen," he said. "The both of us are truly in your debt."

Willard waved Richard's thanks off. "Just think of it as helping out a fellow veteran," he said.

"Then, if nobody objects, I'll have Israel clear this away and I'll show you all out," Richard said. He went over to an intercom that had been discreetly placed up against the wall and, pressing a button, spoke into it. In the meantime, Willard, Armalin and Davis walked over to Daria.

"Miss Morgendorffer, I'd like to say that you showed a lot of fortitude to stay in here and listen to some of our stories," Davis said. "I just hope your fiancee will now be able to confide in you a lot more now that you've shown him what you're made of."

"What, you mean besides bones, flesh, various bodily organs, tubing and strategically-placed fat reserves?" Daria smirked. Then she sobered. "Thank you for being able to come and get Richard to open up a bit more about his military experiences. Maybe now he'll feel that he's able to talk to me without his social programming getting in the way." She smirked again. "Besides, I'm looking forward to getting James Longstreet or Jeb Stuart to tell me about how my distant cousin fussed over his scalp wound."

"And I daresay that they both would take a great deal of pleasure in relating that particular story," Richard said as he came over. "Gentlemen?" He went over to the study door and, opening it, ushered his guests through into the front parlour and then to the front door. Opening it he gave a small bow. "Once again, thank you all for coming."

"No need to thank us, General," Willard said. "Like I said, we're all veterans who have some idea about what each of us went through."

"Oh, before I leave, General," Armalin said, "perhaps you can clarify something for me. I haven't been unable to find out at Belvior on your side of things if the United States has recruited the Ninth and Tenth Regiments of Cavalry."

"The Ninth and Tenth?" Rawlings thought for a moment, and then grinned. "Ah!" he said. "You're referring to the two Negro... er..."

Armalin grinned. "No need to apologise, General," he said. "I've spent enough time at Belvior to know that you people usually don't use that word in a derogatory manner, and that you get rather annoyed at people who do. Not like the rednecks in my own world."

"Thank you. In answer to your question, they have and last I heard they were on the Texas border being worked up by their commander, Brigadier-General Grierson. As are the Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth US Infantry."

"Thank you, General. Just something I needed to know in order to satisfy my curiosity." With that, the group all made their farewells and left.

Daria came over and put an arm around Richard's waist. "Interesting," she said. "I wonder why he asked after those units?"

Richard shrugged. "Perhaps he's curious about how the US Army in my world treats its coloured troops," he said. "And wants to compare that with, maybe, how the South treats its coloured troops."

"How does the South treat its coloured troops?" Daria asked.

"The same as any other soldier," Richard said. He turned to lead Daria inside. "The Confederate Congress passed laws stating that we treat black soldiers in exactly the same way we treat white soldiers doing the same jobs, even down to pay grades." He closed the front door behind them. "No coloured officers, though, but that's largely due to the differences in education."

"Will there be?" asked Daria. "And will Afro-Americans get a decent education in your South?"

"It's a little early to be answering all of those questions," Richard replied. "But there are quite a few of us, even before we found your world, who were convinced by our experiences in the War that the South had to change, if it was to survive as an independent nation. And those questions are a part of the answer: that we must make use of all of the talents of all of our people, black and white, in order to prosper. Especially considering that we are next door to the nation we won our independence from, and with no ocean separating us, as was the case with the United States and Great Britain." He looked into the parlour. "And now, I just would like to sit on a comfortable couch with my fiancee, have some nice warm tea and listen to some music." He looked down at Daria. "You can choose the music."

Daria smiled and snuggled in close against him. "Something quiet, I daresay." They both headed into the parlour.

Fin. (For Now.)