Alfred didn't camp with us every night. Like he said, he was trying to get to know the other men. Whenever I saw him, he was with one or two or three other people, talking and laughing as if they were old friends.

I wasn't bothered by this, though. I mean, it's not like Alfred had some sort of obligation to me. I was just one man among many. There really was no reason for him to take a special interest in me.

It was about another week and a half before Alfred joined me and William. By then, we were starting to become more used to the march. Sure, we were still tired by the end of the day, and sleeping on the ground wasn't nearly as comfortable as sleeping in a nice warm bed, but it wasn't awful.

Alfred trotted over to us as we set up our tents, his ever-present grin on his face. I'd noticed that he always seemed full of energy, whether it was early in the morning or late at night. I often wondered about this, about how he could march for several hours a day and still look like he was ready to take on the entire British Empire single-handedly, but I always figured that it must have been his youth, or maybe that he was naturally athletic.

Alfred placed his bag and rifle on the ground next to me and began setting up his own tent. "Hey! How's it been going?"

William shot him a tired smile. "It's been alright. Could be nicer, but who's complaining?"

"You are," I muttered, sitting back as I finished setting up my tent. "If you're not complaining about how hard the ground is or how there was a rock poking into your back all night, you're moaning about how much you miss Lydia."

"Hey!" William protested, an injured look on his face. "I don't complain about everything!"

"No, but you complain about the same things over and over."

Alfred looked from me to William. Finally, he asked, "Who's Lydia?"

William smiled. "Lydia's my wife."

"You have a wife?" Alfred asked. He crawled closer to us, his tent only half set up. "What's she like?"

William leaned back on his hands and stared up at the sky. His eyes had that faraway look that they got whenever he was thinking about Lydia. "Lydia…She's just a wonderful woman. She's sweet, and kind, and funny, and…perfect, I guess."

"Do you have any kids yet?" Alfred asked.

William laughed and shook his head. "Not yet. We were trying, but then the war started. But who knows? Maybe I'll go back home to a baby."

Alfred's eyes were shining. He turned to me excitedly. "Are you married, too?"

I shook my head. "Not yet."

William sighed dramatically and draped an arm around my shoulders. "It's a tragedy, Alfred! I fear he's doomed to remain a bachelor his whole life."

I glared at William while Alfred started snickering. "You're hilarious," I said. "A true comedian."

"See, this is why you're not married," William said, wagging a finger in my face. "You're much too serious about everything."

"That's not true!" I protested. "I just haven't found the right person yet."

"That's what they all say," William replied, smirking.

I rolled my eyes and pushed William's arm off my shoulder. "If that's what you want to think," I said.

William laughed before turning to Alfred. "What about you, Al? Got anyone special waiting for you?"

Alfred smiled and shook his head. "Nope. I, ah, haven't been in Philadelphia long enough."

"What about back in…Uh, where are you from, anyway?" William asked.

"I'm from Boston," Alfred replied.

"Boston, right. So was there anyone there?"

Alfred just shook his head again. "Nope, no one."

I stared at him for a few moments. Finally, I decided to ask him something I'd been wondering about for a while. "Alfred, why did you move to Philadelphia, anyway?"

Alfred stared at me, a slight frown on his face. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you just seem…really young to want to move so far away," I explained. "I mean, you look like you can't be any older than eighteen. Why would you leave your family and the city you grew up in?"

Alfred didn't say anything. He stared at the ground, at the tents, at his hands, at everything but me. He fidgeted, cleared his throat, then finally said, "There were just too many memories there."

"Bad memories?" I asked.

Alfred nodded slowly. "When I grew up, it was just me and my older brother. Everything was fine when we were younger, but…I started getting a little…rebellious when I got older, I suppose. We didn't agree on a lot of things, and he was making too many decisions for me, so I just…left."

"Don't you have any other family members you could have gone to?" William asked.

"No," Alfred replied. "It was just me and Eng – Arthur."

I frowned. Eng? What was that supposed to mean? I glanced sideways at William, but he didn't seem to notice anything off. Just as I decided to ask about it, though, Alfred turned back to his tent and finished setting it up. "So, when's dinner?" he asked. "I'm starving!"

He had changed the subject deliberately. I was almost sure of that. But I was also sure that I wouldn't be getting any more information out of him, and I was right. As soon as we'd had our meal, Alfred bid us good-night and crawled into his tent, and the next morning he packed up his gear before I could completely wake up.

"I'll see you two later!" he said hastily, and I only had time to raise a hand in farewell before he ran off, catching up to another soldier and talking to him earnestly.

"There's something he's not telling us," I murmured to William.

William yawned before replying. "Well, what do you expect? I wouldn't want to tell someone I had just met my entire life story either."

"I suppose you're right," I said, mostly to placate him. But I still wasn't convinced, and I was going to find out more about Alfred, no matter what.