Widening his ports, Dennison observed a Sherman ejecting shoelaces of black smoke; as he drew nearer flames spouted and enveloped the tank completely. _Go on_, came the signal. Dennison leaned back in his seat and wet his lips with his tongue ... destroy ... shall we destroy? I suppose there’s a lot of tall grass in Wisconsin. She wants ... The terrain is solid ... no road ... fields ... Gex is a mile or so in front ... the radio was crackling ... Landel at the dials ... the Lee rolled and rolled again ... they passed under trees ... they passed a giant barn with two cows visible in a stall ... there were no hedgerows ... they passed a country school ... they passed a row of burning homes and rolled into Gex ... Gex ... Gex ... what about the guys who had burned to death in that Sherman? Gex ... God, it was raining hard. An awkward four-legged windmill was batting at the rain. "Gex, Gex!" exclaimed Landel, and closed his eyes and hung on, worried that the gas indicator was so low. Gex was smoke and paved streets and ravaged buildings, a man fleeing, a gunnysack over his shoulder. Girders jabbed out of ripped apartments. Burning beams smoked in cottages. In a hotel fire escapes were twisted. Again more smoke ... A squad of riflemen sniped from a smashed grocery. "Get them," Landel ordered. Their guns began to pound and Dennison wormed his bus closer and closer to the grocery: the bow crushed its windows and wall: the bow seemed to be raiding for meat and potatoes. Gunfire shredded the glass counters. Machinegun bullets cut down the store’s sign: it fell. Bullets tore into a refrigerator. No riflemen escaped. A narrow street, trees along one side ... Dennison read _bakery_ and _meat market_ and wondered when he would sidle up to a counter and order a loaf of whole wheat..."four center-cut pork chops." And in the coffee shop, how about liverwurst and beer? What a way to enter a town! Gex: who wanted Gex? What would the USA do with Gex? Right now, a beefsteak was worth more! "Who’s that guy?" he yelled on the intercom. A helmeted GI blocked a doorway in a ruined building and flagged the tank; other GI’s spewed from an aperture left by a shell; Dennison hesitated to stop the Lee under the riddled wall, yet he obeyed. Inside de-ribbed apartments he saw a fireplace, book shelves, shoes on a carpeted floor, clothes on wardrobe hangers, a toilet ... on a brass plate: Dr. Horace Kreutger, _Child Specialist_. A church dome glistened in a sewage of light. The helmeted GI in the doorway was signalling ... _Starboard ... sharpshooters ... balcony ... port_. Dennison sent the bus to the port, crawled over garbage in an alley, saw a piece of sky, and then the sharpshooters on a grilled balcony.