He opened his one remaining ration can, tore back the layers of thermofoil insulation, and started devouring the warm lamb stew. The dull staccato of automatic fire commenced far down the valley. Somebody screamed.

Tom contemplated his own flashless weapon, trying to recall what he had been taught about its principle of expulsion. That had been so far back. A year? Two? He did not remember.

It was time for the corporal to take over the watch, but Tom decided to give him another ten minutes. Wearily, he raised the binoculars to his eyes, pushed the switch. The battery was about exhausted and he replaced it. Overhead a flare was drifting downward, and he watched as it illuminated the murky battle ground.

"Light up!" the platoon sergeant growled.

The troops had been waiting for a quarter of an hour beside the road. Tom had long since learned the futility of speculation. But conversation was vital and there had to be a topic.

"Maybe they're trying to get trucks for us," he muttered to the soldier next to him.

"Maybe they're plannin' a picnic for us," the other suggested.

"Trucks. Picnics. You guys make everything too complicated," a third soldier remarked. "Every time something happens you figure out a different reason for it. Not me. The way I see it, there's just one cause for everything they tell us to do or don't do, say or don't say, think or don't think. And that's discipline. Look at it that way and you're always one ahead of 'em."

"I like the idea of a picnic," the other replied obstinately. "Only it's supposed to be a surprise, and that's why they don't tell us nothin."

"Okay, you guys. Strip those butts!"

Tom hoisted the straps of his pack onto his aching shoulders and fell into file behind the other two. The heel of his left boot was wearing badly and he could sense the strain on his ankle. He tried placing his weight on the ball of his foot, but that made him limp. Then he had no time for concern with small discomforts, for the column was scattering at the distant whoosh of jets.

Tom, however, got no farther than the ditch.

The soldier who liked picnics had stumbled onto a discarded recoilless rifle shell ten feet from the road. It exploded at the contact. Tom did not hear the jets roar past, for 

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