It took a flash of West Point tradition for the division band to be massed at the camp gate when the 432nd rolled off shortly before sunset. The division commander was there; the band oompahed and he impassively took the salute from the startled doctors in the command cars. A few of the enlisted men of the battalion rolling past remembered vaguely about crossing the arms and sitting at attention. There wasn't a man there who was not, though they'd hoot at the word, inspired by the ancient tradition of the field music and the ancient greeting they were exchanging with the tough old pro who was sending them on their way. They rolled for six hours, until their tailbones were bruised and their bladders ready to burst, along highway and detour and miserable blacktop. It was dark soon, but the sound of some of the bridges they rumbled over scared them silly. K-rations and canteen water staved off the boredom, and so did banter when they crept through the towns. They arrived eventually at the field the engineer officer had spotted from his division plane and stiffly went about turning the field into a five-hundred-bed hospital. It took cursing and coaxing, and five men, utterly out of condition, doubled up clutching at brand-new hernias while they manhandled the tons of canvas and pegs and poles. Another was doping off in the dark and a truck backed over him, killing him. The casualty rate for the operation was one per cent, which was not bad. While the tents rose in the headlights' glare the officers in their jeeps and command cars were spreading out to the stricken communities. One of them found Hebertown, two miles away. * * * * * The young lieutenant, for a few hours not wearily grinding through his period of drafted service, said to Chief Brayer, "We're prepared to take over your entire medical load. Who's in charge on the medical side?" The police chief said to one of his men wearily, "Get Dr. Soames. Good news for him." But Soames had seen the jeep and medics in it. He burst in and roared: "Tench-_hut_!" Automatically the lieutenant popped to. "Suck in that gut!" Soames snarled, and then broke into relieved, hysterical laughter. "My God, you looked funny as hell," he wheezed at the officer. "Haven't had so much fun since we bribed the cooks to serve the division surgeon fricassee of haemoangioma!" The lieutenant looked a little green and asked stiffly, "How many cases have you, doctor?" "Ninety-five, shavetail. Take 'em away. We're all beat to our socks here. The town medics, the emergency people they flew in--we're beat." Dr. Soames sagged into a chair and seemed to lose interest. The lieutenant went outside to his jeep and told the signal corps man with the SCR 6300: "Ambulance-fitted trucks for ninety-five cases. I'll check 'em over and get them classified." * * * * *