Why can’t it stop? Stop ... yes ... this muck ... those arms in the sand, those flies on Robinson’s arms ... dust, all that heat, arms, hands, wrists, arms ... we got away ... we got away ... got to get away from this ... I’m comin, back, Jean ... I’m going mad, Chuck and I. "No, Zinc, I’m all right. Okay, the shelling’s stopped ... I’ll drive ... we’ll make it out of this!" What, what was this? It was Paris ... and they were stripping her in the street, the beautiful Princesse de Lamballe ... they were hacking off her breasts ... they were hacking off her legs ... Do you speak French? May I help you, mademoiselle? Long live the guillotine! _Vive la révolution!_ Dennison saw his dad lying on the floor of his little Renault: he was seriously wounded: nobody was helping him: his tank lay on its side. Dennison was urinating on the floor. He would not drive the tank again: he would refuse to drive any tank: what could they do? They could do their damnedest and he would go AWOL. But now, now the shelling had stopped, just cut itself off, leaving a ditch of silence. He tried to figure out the cessation: it seemed to him it was his duty to figure it out: he must unravel enigmas, supply answers. That was what life was for. The bent springs in the cushion bored into his back and he leaned forward and wet his lips with his tongue. Fingers and arms trembling, he cupped his head in his hands, closed his eyes. Miraculously--he felt he was a boy, playing the game he used to play, playing soldiers on the living room floor: he had his troop in line and rolled something against them and they reeled and fell, the entire line fell. And something else: the half-frozen needle of a phonograph was spinning music for their skating on Beebe Lake, light-hearted music. The chimes of the library tower struck ten o’clock in solemn notes. A girl was skating with him, Cathy Bowers: her slip-on sweater hugged her, they hugged each other, circling the lake quickly, their skates scraping softly. But it was over ... The barrage was over; yet he could not stir; he began to count the minutes on the chronometer; the greenish face of the chronometer was trying to say something; he inched forward a little, inched more, pushed the brake lever. Presently, he considered all of the dials: Got to check, got to see where the shell hit us, got to estimate ... estimate the damage ... got to climb out ... put on my flash ... climb ... He signalled Zinc with his flash; Zinc responded; together they left the bus, the air acrid with smoke, as if burned in a filthy oven, raw with slugged mud. At the bow, with dimmed lights, they stooped over the starboard tread. Then the port tread. Plates had been torn out and the entire tread had been folded back like a strip of hide: there was no power there: they could do nothing to restore mobility. Dennison motioned Zinc inside the cab. "I’ll destroy our maps," he said. "What? Couldn’t hear you." He could not repeat himself.