"Damn! I hated to do this," the sergeant grumbled, "On accounta I just got half dry."

"Wise me up," Kinnison directed. "The more I know about things, the more apt I am to get through."

"This is what is left of two battalions, and a lot of casuals. They made objective, but it turns out the outfits on their right and left couldn't, leaving their flanks right out in the open air. Orders come in by blinker to rectify the line by falling back, but by then it couldn't be done. Under observation."

Kinnison nodded. He knew what a barrage would have done to a force trying to cross such open ground in daylight.

"One man could prob'ly make it, though, if he was careful and kept his eyes wide open," the sergeant-major continued. "But you ain't got no binoculars, have you?"

"No."

"Get a pair easy enough. You saw them boots without any hobnails in 'em, sticking out from under some blankets?"

"Yes. I get you." Kinnison knew that combat officers did not wear hobnails, and usually carried binoculars. "How come so many at once?"

"Just about all the officers that got this far. Conniving, my guess is, behind old Slayton's back. Anyway, a kraut aviator spots 'em and dives. Our machine-guns got him, but not until after he heaved a bomb. Dead center. Christ, what a mess! But there's six-seven good glasses in there. I'd grab one myself, but the general would see it—he can see right through the lid of a mess-kit. Well, the boys have shut those krauts up, so I'll hunt the old man up and tell him what I found out. Damn this mud!"

Kinnison emerged sinuously and snaked his way to a row of blanket covered forms. He lifted a blanket and gasped: then vomited up everything, it seemed, that he had eaten for days. But he had to have the