It couldn't have been long after the incident, two hours at most. Yet he opened his eyes just the same, as if nothing had changed. Quite odd, considering the last thing he could vividly remember was a blinding, suffocating pain in his windpipe. Surely, he had died. But there was nothing; no pain, no…anything.
Slowly, the man began to move, easing himself from lying on the ground into a reclined sitting position.
"The bloody hell is this about?!" he shouted in surprise; on the ground next to him was…him. Clearly, very dead, with two neat bayonet punctures to his vitals.
"Nasty bastard," he murmured, still trying to delay the inevitable onset of confusion. "I was fucking sober when this started so what is this goddamned madness?" he snarled, looking around at his surroundings.
Men were still gathering dead and wounded soldiers from the Cowpens battlefield, but none of them appeared to take any notice of the bedraggled Dragoon officer.
"You!" William called to a young man some twenty paces away. "Get over here and help me up!" he ordered.
The man paused and looked straight him, straight through him, and then turned away to continue his work.
"How dare you turn your back on an officer!" William seethed, moving to grab a nearby stone to pelt at the unsuspecting subordinate officer, but couldn't quite get a grasp on the object.
"What…what is this?!" He looked down after missing the stone twice to see his hand pass right through the pebble.
"Who's idea of a good joshing was this?!" William hollered! "Blighters, I was not drunk last I left, nor was I drugged-" he swallowed the rest of his raving into disbelieving silence. If he wasn't in Paradise or Eternal Damnation, then where was he? South Carolina most certainly, but to William Tavington, ghost stories were rants and overdone tales shared by men too drunk to believe in anything logical. But then, inebriated follies and lies always hid a smattering of truth in their wake…
