The pain and fear and exhaustion that comes with fighting a battle is not nearly as bad as the sheer powerlessness of arriving in its aftermath. Daryl would rather be staring down the barrel of a rifle than walking through the carnage he was not here to prevent. The bicycle he rode with pounding heart toward the sound of gunfire now lies abandoned a few yards from the docked Susan Constant. Torches have already been lit to illuminate the fallen and wounded men on the pier and ship.
Thomas leaps from the dirt bike he was riding, and it clatters onto the wooden planks of the dock. Abruptly falling into his role as a field medic, he unzips his backpack, pulls out his emergency kit, and joins the nurse who is already at work. An ensign jogs down the dock to greet the stunned and arriving Captain McBride.
"How many dead?" McBride asks hollowly while Daryl listens.
The ensign nods to the James River. That father-to-be, Junior Lieutenant Harry Merriweather, lies face down in the black water. His body, riddled with bullet holes, floats slowly south. The sailors have dropped a rowboat. "Get him," the captain tells Lieutenant Alvarado and Merry, who have just arrived on their bicycles. The two men nod and board the dropped rowboat. "Who else?" McBride asks.
"Several wounded," the ensign replies, "but only one other dead."
When a howl goes up from Thomas on the deck of the Susan Constant, Daryl can guess who the second victim is.
"Laura?" McBride asks.
The ensign nods. "They tried to take her. I think they planned to kill all the men and take the women. Take our ship and supplies. It was so dark. It was so sudden."
"Did ya get 'em all?" Daryl asks. "Any escape?"
"We didn't see any escape," the ensign replies. "We've counted fourteen raiders dead."
Daryl glances at McBride, who nods. There were eighteen men left behind at those apartments. Three ended up with their heads on pikes. The one who was left to guard the place Sarah killed. That leaves fourteen.
McBride closes his eyes and breathes in. When he opens them, he says, "I made Harry stay. I thought the mission was too risky for an expectant father. Kelly will be a widow, and that child will be fatherless because of me."
Daryl wants to tell the captain he can't do that shit. That there's no point in second guessing himself. That McBride clearly had the young man's interests at heart. But he knows it would be useless to say anything. He knows the way a man's conscience devours itself when the people he cares about dies. So instead he just walks on, boards the ship, and tries to help treat the wounded. He's no trained medic, but he's seen enough battles and been in enough binds to pick up a thing or two along the way.
[*]
There's something in her bed. Carol instinctively reaches for the knife she isn't wearing and groggily realizes it's just Sweetheart. She sighs. "Hey, Sweeite. What's wrong?"
"Dada?"
"Dada's on a trip. He'll be home tomorrow night. Remember?"
"No Dada?"
"No, not tonight, but he'll be back."
Sweetheart squirrels under the blanket and Carol turns on her side and drapes an arm around her. It's not long before the little girl is back to sleep, her chest rising and falling rhythmically, but Carol feels uneasy. The last trip to the salt ponds was an unexpected and dangerous adventure, after all. It's a long while before she, too, drifts back to sleep.
[*]
The wounded are patched. So are the bullet holes in the ship. Harry and Laura's bodies are tightly wrapped in burlap and put deep in the hold. They'll be brought home for burial in the Jamestown cemetery that has seen so few unnatural deaths. Sailors weave through the raiders dead bodies, collecting guns, ammo, and knives.
Sarah and Santiago go to one of the ship's cabins to sleep. Thomas paces the deck, blaming himself for Laura's death, because he insisted on the raid, because he wasn't here to protect her.
McBride leans over the ship's rail next to Daryl, who is staring down at the blue-black water that gently slaps the side of the docked ship. The captain runs a hand through his red hair. "I don't know how I'm going to tell Kelly. And Harry's mother. She's half senile, but…she'll understand this." He stands straight. "You better get some sleep. I'm sending you and Santiago and Sarah early in the morning with the cart and horses back to the apartments to pack up that loot."
"I'll come too," Thomas says as he stops abruptly in his pacing behind them. He steps toward the ship's rail. "I need to bury Laura's brother's head. She would have wanted me to."
McBride nods. "I'll give Harry's widow and mother my portion of the finder's fee. Will you two consider doing the same?"
"'Course," Daryl murmurs.
"It's the least I can do." Thomas grits his teeth. "I insisted on the raid. If we hadn't – "
"-If we hadn't," Daryl interrupts. "They still woulda come here."
"But Laura wouldn't be dead. I'd have – "
"- Can't know what would of happened," Daryl insists, which is true, though he does think fewer would have been wounded had he been here.
"I'll talk to Lieutenant Alvarado," McBride says, "and Merry and George and see if they'll give up their finder's fees, too. Will you talk to Santiago and Sarah, Thomas?"
"Yeah," Thomas mutters. "Sure." His blue eyes glisten with the tears he's been holding back for the past two hours.
"With all those finder's fees, all that ammo," McBride continues, "Kelly will be able to afford to take some time off work to grieve and to be with the baby when it comes. She'll be able to support Harry's child and his mother for a time. Until she's ready to work again."
"'S the right thing," Daryl agrees.
"Now get some sleep, gentlemen," the captain tells them. "You've got a lot of loading to do tomorrow."
[*]
The next morning, when they return to the apartment complex, Thomas buries the heads while Santiago, Daryl, and Sarah search the apartment complex thoroughly. They clear the men's bedrooms of sturdy work boots, alcohol, and ammo. They pluck the vegetable garden clean. "I think they did a better job maintaining this when they had slave masters," Santiago says. Still, there are enough fresh vegetables to serve a hundred people.
"But they did a better job of scavenging without them," Sarah notes.
By the time they leave, the cart is overflowing, and there's even loot on the bench beside Sarah and the floor around her feet as she drives the horses, which pull the heavy cart slowly. Thomas walks ahead of the horses, his rifle in hand. Their packs stuffed full, Daryl and Santiago walk behind the cart to make sure nothing falls out. They pass an open bottle of whiskey between themselves as they walk, because, as Daryl always says, "What don't come back, don't come back."
