The day was bright and a chill breeze swept in from the Pacific. Atop a distant hill eucalyptus glimmered in the white sunlight. Inscribed over the portal of the modest building which he now faced were the words:

DEPARTMENT OF PEACE "THAT THE AGE OF VIOLENCE MAY FOREVER REMAIN HISTORY"

Bullets splattered into the mound in front of the foxhole, sending a dense spray of dust and gravel into the pit. Tom spit out the mouthful of dirt and cursed.

"They comin'?" the soldier next to him asked, waking slightly.

"No." Tom told him gloomily. "But they know where we are."

"Maybe they'll try mortar. Think they'll try mortar?"

Tom shrugged. "Go on back to sleep. I'm watching."

The other was several years older than he, and a corporal, but not very bright. Still, it was better than being alone. The worst thing he could imagine was having to face the enemy utterly alone. If only he could remember what the enemy looked like, it would not be so bad.

He forgot so much. Sometimes it seemed like he had been in combat just a few days. But other times it felt like he had been up there forever, waiting, moving forward, moving backward, thinking that at last he was beginning to get the picture, but not sure, never sure, never sure of anything. If only he could recall something beside the immediate present. Then maybe the situation would start to make a little sense.

He knew why he was fighting, vaguely. It was to safeguard certain inalienable rights, which ones he could not exactly remember. The odd thing was that the enemy was fighting for the same goal—he sensed that intuitively. But who was the enemy? He thought he had known once, but that had been quite a while ago. What did they look like? He would have to ask someone.

An infrared flare blossomed some distance down the valley. Tom adjusted his binoculars and scanned the slope. Nothing. Remotely the monotonous rumble of atomic artillery began pounding through the night. From far away echoed the transient whisper of a jet.

Now his legs were beginning to get cramped. That happened every night, and he knew that no matter which way he bent them the pain would continue to grow. However, there was always the consolation that toward morning they would become numb.

 Prev. P 2/9 next