They rested a few minutes and then began creeping along, patrolling the main street, under radio orders, their guns silent, the enemy nowhere. Stopping at a barricaded intersection, where trees had fallen under bombing, where heaps of rubble smoked, the radio announced the official take-over of Gex. They were radio-ordered to park with other machines under trees fringing a town garden: roses and shell holes, benches and crushed benches, paths that stopped suddenly: a small bronze figure was still upright under branches: the three men crawled from their cab and sat on a low stone wall, faces black, clothes grease-caked, bloody. Zinc showed Dennison a gashed hand. "How did you get hit?" "Oh ... I dunno." "Need some iodine?" "Umm." "Open your hand." "Can’t." "Open it, Isaac." Zinc grinned boyishly. Tenderly, Dennison opened Zinc’s hand; he found an emergency kit in the Lee and cleaned the wound: all of the time he felt the fresh air on his face and realized he was breathing something worth breathing. He promised himself he would soon have something to eat. "Shall I bandage it tighter?" "No ... like it is." "Okay now?" "Yeah ... but awful tired." "Me too." "Where’s Landel?" "Gone for water." "Ah." A little later, Zinc said: "I’m gonna marry Millie when I get back." "What?" Dennison cried. "Nuthin’." Landel offered them water from a thermos. "I’ve had some ... it’s okay." Zinc drank, Dennison drank, then it went the rounds once more. "I’m beat," Landel said. They nodded. That night, after grub, they slept in a handsome 17th century residence near the park, in a bedroom on the second floor, under elegant drapes, elegant table cloths, in mahogany beds: a silent place, gilded wallpaper, ormolu furniture, golden carpet. Before falling asleep, Zinc washed and scrubbed with perfumed soap in a basin painted with forget-me-nots. In his sleep he thought of his boat, an ephemeral boat, but it was his boat ... he dreamed of a wedding ceremony, people tossing rice ... his injured hand relaxed ... but his face burned and his head throbbed violently from time to time. Landel slept uneasily in his bed, a feverish night: he had gulped down aspirin from the emergency kit, then he added codeine, a double dose in the night: tomorrow, he asked himself, tomorrow? He was unsure. How could he continue? For Dennison it was a problem to relax: he floated on his mattress, under the layers of drapery: his subconscious was uncomfortable: he heard his mother say: "I think we’ve had more snow this year than we’ve had for years." Of course this was played back a number of times. In another dream a man whispered: "Jeannette ... Jean..." She was sitting on the grass by a lake, a picnic basket beside her, a blue scarf around her head: her eyes were marvelously blue: she was smiling: she was saying with her smile: come on, lunch is ready, let’s eat. "Darling," he said, aloud.