"Are we going back?"

"Sure. There ain't no troops up there. That's what we came to find out. Maybe a few snipers is all."

They started crawling the way they had come. But this time it was more tedious because of the abrasions and bruises that had been incurred. Dawn was a pastey gray in the sky behind them when they at last neared the lines.

"Something funny," the sergeant muttered suspiciously, rising to his knees.

"What's wrong," Tom asked wearily.

"I don't know. Wait here." Tom waited till the sky threatened to become light, then began following. He continued along the route which he felt must lead to the lines, but after some minutes began to feel a sense of panic. The landmarks were all wrong and the cloud-strewn sky gave no indication of direction. Then, from the other side of a low, rocky hillock came the unmistakable sound of approaching troops. Running forward to the edge, he stopped abruptly as he found himself face to face with the enemy.

Suddenly all the hate and guilt he had ever known exploded into his awareness. The face before him was a meaningless blur, but he did not need to know the enemy to loathe him. His carbine was in his hands, the safety off, the barrel lowered, the trigger squeezed—but the rifle failed to fire.

The cry of the enemy was a wordless oath of anger, the bayonet a glinting sliver of death, the pain in his side the ultimate peak of agony. But as he fell back onto the rocks, he sensed something beyond rage in the bright young eyes of his destroyer. He sensed hope—the possibility of peace and even of happiness—for those anger-maddened eyes had been his own.

He woke upon a bed in a small white-walled room. It was too soon yet to try to think things over. So he consciously relaxed and contemplated such immediate and basic pleasures as breathing and observing the distant sun-gilt eucalyptus through the single broad window. For the present, the experience of life itself was sufficient.

When at last an attendant entered, followed by a nurse, Tom felt like talking. He was frustrated in this by a thermometer, which the woman allowed to remain in his mouth throughout the entire check-up. When she had finally concluded her routine, Tom said: "I'm feeling pretty good, doctor. Is it all right if I leave?"

"I'm just a mere psychotechnician," the man 

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