The Enemy

By RICHARD WILSON

It was a totally new kind of war, and yet not really a new war at all.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Infinity October 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

At dusk the sergeant leaned over the parapet, weary, looking south toward the enemy lines. For him this was the worst part of the day. The fighting was done until tomorrow and the enemy casualties were being brought in through the gate below. Their bodies were piled in awful abandon on the big flat-bed trucks.

A phrase from another war came to his mind. Walking wounded. There were no walking wounded in this war. They came in on the trucks, still and tangled, or they didn't come in at all.

He couldn't have merely wounded one of the enemy, as soldiers used to. The thought of inflicting such an injury, in the old conventional way, was obscene. To strike through the breast into the heart.... He shuddered with a trembling that came up through the thighs and contracted his stomach.

The lieutenant had come to stand beside him.

"You shouldn't watch, if it bothers you," the lieutenant said.

"It's all right, sir," the sergeant said. He looked down again.

"We had a good day. Three hundred, the colonel said."

"That's good." The sergeant laughed sardonically. "Are we winning?"

"It's hard to say. We're not losing."

"Aren't we, sir?" The sergeant spoke bitterly. "Aren't they? Aren't we all?"

"Look, sergeant—" the lieutenant began. Then he shrugged. The sergeant was older than he was by seven or eight years. There was no need to give him an orientation lecture. He reached in his pocket and took out a fresh pack of cigarettes. He opened it. "Have one. A shipment just got in."

"Thanks." The sergeant took a cigarette. He stared at it and the fingers holding it trembled. "Look at it," he said hollowly. "Look at the freakin' 

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