March awakens aboard a hospital ship, the Red Rover with Sister Mary Adela tending to him. Who had saved him? What is the tragic irony of her message written upon her turquoise scarf?

Zannah was the only person to escape and she came back to save March.

When Zannah reached the Union lines, she tried to explain who March was, but no one could understand her because of her muteness. She tore off the turquoise scarf March had given her and used a burning stick to write, "capn March, yoonyin preechr, he cum from plase cal concrd, he a gud kin man" (p. 205).