Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light, a thousand times brighter than the newly appeared sun. It came from behind us, and in the terrible instant that it remained we could see Buddha's enormous shadow stretching out across the battlefield. Kazu stopped speaking and braced his shoulders for the blast. Subconsciously I was counting seconds. Four, five, six, seven--A sudden, insane hope gripped me. If we were far enough from the burst--and then the blast hit us, and with it, the sound. Kazu pitched forward a hundred yards, and stumbled on as far again. Then he recovered. One hand reached behind him, to the back that had taken the full brunt of heat and gamma radiation, and a half animal cry escaped from his lips. Over his shoulder we got a glimpse of the fireball, of the fountain of color which would presently form the terrible mushroom cloud. The thunder of the explosion reverberated, and was replaced by silence. The crackle of rifles, the thud of field pieces had ceased. From our perch we looked down at a scene straight from Dante's Inferno. About Kazu's feet was a shallow ravine in which a thousand or so communist troops had taken cover. These were now scrambling and clawing at the sides like ants trying to get away. Vehicles were abandoned, rifles thrown away. A few had been burned, but it seemed that for the most part the soldiers had been sheltered from direct radiation by the wall of their canyon, and by Kazu's great shadow. For an eternity, it seemed, Kazu stood there, swaying slightly, one hand still pressed against his back, while the little men writhed about his ankles. Then, quite slowly, he raised one foot. I thought that he was going to walk away, but instead, the foot moved deliberately until it was directly over the ravine, and then, like a tremendous pile driver, it descended. A faint and hideous screaming came up to us, which abruptly ended. The foot came up, and again descended, turning back and forth in the yielding earth. Slowly Kazu brought his hand up, and lifted our box so that he could look at us. As he did so, I saw that half of his hand was the color of charcoal, and I smelled a horrible odor of tons of burnt flesh. Now at last he spoke, in a voice that we could scarcely understand. "Guide me," he said, "Guide me, Baker. Guide me to Moscow!" VII Kazu walked quite slowly from the battlefield. His gait was unsteady, and at first we feared that he would collapse. We could not tell how deep the burns were, nor whether he was internally hurt by the blast. He appeared to be suffering from some kind of shock, for he did not speak again for a long time. But gradually he seemed to gather himself together, and we became almost convinced that the shock was more psychological than physical, and that even the atom bomb was powerless against his might.