The camp was louder the next morning than Nathan Carter had expected.
Bugles carried through the thin fog in broken calls. Hooves struck frozen ground with dull, hurried thuds. Orders were shouted, arguments flared over supplies, and somewhere a man cursed loudly at a pair of ruined boots.
This was what war actually looked like.
Not arrows moving across a map in a history book, but confusion, exhaustion, and constant strain.
Nathan sat on the edge of his wooden bed and slowly pulled on his boots. The motions were not unfamiliar—this body had done it countless times before—but he deliberately slowed himself down.
Someone recovering from a collapse should not look too capable.
That much, at least, he understood.
The tent flap lifted while he was tying his laces.
Nathanael Greene stepped inside.
The general had changed into a coat better suited for routine duties. A stack of folded papers rested in his hand. His expression was steadier than the day before, but the fatigue was more evident. He clearly hadn't slept much.
"How do you feel?" Greene asked.
"Clearer than yesterday," Nathan replied, looking up. His tone was controlled. "But my head still feels heavy."
It was the truth.
Waking up in another body felt like surviving a violent concussion.
Greene nodded and did not press further. He set the papers down on the table and studied Nathan the way one might reassess an old weapon—deciding whether it was still fit for use.
"You don't need to leave camp today," he said. "The surgeon recommends rest."
Nathan felt something shift inside him.
This was an opening.
If he said nothing, this so-called recovery period would turn into isolation and observation—until he was either declared "fully recovered" or judged unfit to continue with the army.
Neither outcome was safe.
"Father," Nathan said, deliberately slowing his speech, "before I collapsed yesterday, I was thinking about something."
Greene looked up.
"About what?"
"The British deployment."
The air in the tent changed—not with tension, but with attention.
Greene did not interrupt, but he leaned forward slightly.
Nathan chose carefully.
Not Cowpens.Not Guilford Courthouse.
Those were too distant, too much like prophecy.
He needed something immediate, verifiable, and low risk.
"Yesterday evening," Nathan continued, "I overheard an officer mention increased British patrols around Newport."
Greene's brow tightened. "Why would that catch your attention?"
"Because they're too frequent," Nathan said. "It doesn't feel like reconnaissance. It feels like confirmation."
This wasn't historical knowledge.
It was logic.
Greene was silent for a moment before asking, "Confirmation of what?"
Nathan had been waiting for that.
"They're confirming whether we've shifted supplies inland," he said. "If we haven't, they'll assume we're forced to hold the coast."
Greene's fingers tapped lightly against the table—a habit that appeared whenever he was thinking.
"Go on."
"British officers—especially men like General Sir Henry Clinton—tend to read stillness as weakness," Nathan said, keeping his voice steady.
The statement itself wasn't dramatic.
But in this era, few people articulated it so plainly.
Greene did not deny it.
"If we maintain our current supply routes today," Nathan continued, "they're likely to attempt a probing advance within three to five days."
Greene's gaze sharpened.
"You're certain?"
"No," Nathan corrected immediately. "But it fits their pattern."
He avoided the most dangerous phrasing—I know what they'll do.
Greene stood and walked toward the tent opening, looking out at the fog that still clung to the camp.
After a long pause, he spoke again. "And if your judgment is wrong?"
"Then we've only adjusted a supply line early," Nathan replied. "The cost is limited."
The words were quiet, but they struck precisely where they needed to.
Greene turned back.
"What do you suggest?"
Nathan finally allowed himself to breathe.
Greene hadn't asked how do you know.
He had asked what should be done.
That was how a general thought.
"Move part of the supplies inland," Nathan said. "But not too openly. Let them think we're hesitating."
Greene studied him for several seconds.
"You didn't speak this way before," he said.
Nathan felt a brief tightening in his chest.
"I didn't truly understand that I was on a battlefield before," he answered slowly. "Before I collapsed, something became clear to me—if I don't understand where I'm standing, then surviving doesn't mean much."
This wasn't analysis.
It was a son's realization, shaped by war.
It was safe.
Greene didn't question him further.
"I'll have the supply routes reviewed," he said. "But this won't be credited to you. And it won't be treated as your decision."
"I understand," Nathan replied at once.
What a general needed was usable information—not a suddenly enlightened prodigy of a son.
Greene picked up his coat and headed for the exit, then paused.
"When you're stronger," he said, "you may attend council with me."
There was no emotion in his tone.
But Nathan felt his heart strike heavily in his chest.
This wasn't a reward.
It was a trial.
Three days later, it happened.
A small British detachment made a probing advance from the direction of Newport. The movement was tentative and brief. Misjudging its supply objective, the unit withdrew soon after.
It wasn't a victory.
It could barely be called a clash.
But it confirmed one thing:
Nathan's judgment—at least this time—had been correct.
Greene did not mention the incident in any formal setting.
But that night, in the dim light of his tent, studying a map, he said to Nathan:
"You have an eye for patterns."
It wasn't praise.
It was acknowledgment.
And Nathan understood that once such acknowledgment began, it rarely stopped.
Because war has never refused someone who is useful.