He fished in his pocket for an apple and ate it. Somewhere they had K-rations on board. Without lighting the cab (it was dark now), he brought out the rations and the canteen. They ate and slept. Fired guns and ate. Cheese, K, chocolate bars. Without tasting anything they ate everything. The radio was out because the battery was low. Water was oozing over the floor: the bus had sunk that far. They had to sit with their shoes on the dash or on the walls of the tank. As their hearing returned to normal they talked a little. It seemed to them that the radium hands of the chronometer were glued to the dial. There was no shelling except in the distance. It was colder. Raising his jacket collar, Zinc thought of home: home and steam radiators, his dad smoking his pipe, the neighbor kids ... yeah, they poked fun at my hair ... Red ... Red ... banter across his dad’s grocery counter ... why you little Jew pissant, how the hell are you? Heah, runt, reach me a box of saltine crackers ... no not that size ... the giant one.... At school they pestered him, name, age, color of hair ... His dad had said, over and over, get yourself a job, boy, the sooner the better. Life had been stupid until Millie came along, Millie and his boat. Millie wouldn’t fail him: her letters (he tapped his pocket), kept him going. Eyes on his machine gun slot, he mouthed chocolate and it adhered to his teeth and stuck between them and clotted his palate (the bar had threads on it from his pocket); he tongued the piece down with a sticky tongue. He imagined himself thumbing a magazine, the fold-out of a naked girl: someday, soon, he’d have time to read the Sunday comics; someday he’d find a 32-footer in the classifieds, Buick engine, cabin good condition, sleeps 4, galley, 2-way radio--terms ... a price he could afford ... someday he’d open a deli and make damn good money. Somehow the lull in the shelling became threatening: it was ugly, heavy, a part of the armor plate, part of the menace of the emplacement. Dennison hunched his legs, unzippered his trousers, and picked lice from among his hairs. He searched with the help of his flash. On his belly the engine scar seemed to have a thicker scab; he tested the scab and scratched it soothingly. He wanted to masturbate but something prevented him, perhaps the eye of the compass. He swayed, let himself sag, when he shoved back against the cushion the bent spring bothered him. Apple cores floated on the water. Change, that was it: war was change, if nothing else, the slap of rain, slug of wind, whistle of death. Fear had its changes too. Fear was possessive. Then change was possessive. Change ... you ate and slept and that was change. Your scrotum shrank between your legs. Another change. Your genitals crawled inside your body. Your penis crawled in. Sometimes shellfire drove them in, penis and scrotum. Sanctuary.