Landel’s eyes were bloodshot; he, too, was filthy, mud-spattered; he raised an arm, stopped, resentful of his crewmen, aware, by their attitudes, they had marked him off. "Couldn’t find help ... shrapnel hit me..." Why should I make excuses: can’t they see? "What happened to 9?" "Tank’s done for," Dennison yelled. "You guys just walk off and leave it?" "Naw, we put it in mothballs!" Zinc cracked. Landel took a long look at him. "Shell hit us ... we lost a tread," said Dennison. "Lost a tread," Zinc repeated, smiling, knowing that sleep was going to knock him out at any moment. "I’ll get us another machine," Landel yelled. Pain was flashing through his head; he walked to a pew and sank down on it, moaning. Far off, he heard Dennison say something about getting washed, getting something to eat, Landel wasn’t sure. Okay ... okay ... am I crackin’ up? There were slits in the floor, cracks, slits ... a cockroach was busy ... there had been swarms of cockroaches in Panama, cockroaches, fever, heat. Arm hooked over his eyes, lying on the pew, he sank into a fitful sleep. Dennison and Zinc found a wash basin and some soap, and then ate, ate without exchanging a word, nine of them at a table made out of a door, an army cook doling grub: the men humped over their food, jaws mechanical: stew ... canned peaches ... bread ... coffee. Dennison hoped that food would stop a cramp in his belly. His eyes fixed on a fork: it seemed to him that the tines were moving, the handle was forming a half circle. Something peeled off in his mind: he felt he was at home: the fork had a "D" on it: Mama was humming in the kitchen: there were candles on their dining table: he felt about in his pocket for a pack of matches to light them. More GI’s jammed the church, most of them yammering for food. "Jesus Chriz ... if it ain’t Dennison! Hiya!" "Hi, Pete ... Hi, Vic ... ," Pete and Vic were tankmen out of Sherman 446, grizzled, smiling, punch drunk; they had participated in attacks with Dennison, always helpful: both were New Yorkers, Vic had been a physics major at NYU, Pete was a cutter, in a suit shop, in Harlem. "How did you guys make out?" Pete asked. "We lost our bus." "9?" "Yeah." Dennison was biting a section of a peach. "What’s news about the minefield?" Zinc asked. "We lost twenty-three," said Vic, squeezing himself in at the table. "Twenty-three tanks?" yelled Dennison. "Twenty-three men," Vic said. "Wounded ... dead ... don’t know how many..." Elbows on the table he covered his face with his hands. Near him a pot of stew was puffing. "It’s been a hell of a day!" said Pete, standing behind Dennison. "They had their minefield planned ... they know they’re licked but they make us fight on and on. Dumb. All that waste of life." He picked his nose mournfully, his bleary eyes on the crowded church, the milling GI’s, the men at the door-table. "Bretten’s ours," said a lieutenant at the table. "We took it a couple hours ago."