Hicks had gone through the attack without an impression of it remaining with him. When the platoon was caught between the two lines of barbed wire and he had arisen, walking toward the enemy, he had been numb. At that time his act had been brought about more by a great tiredness than by any courage. He felt no heroism in him at all, only an annoyance at his having to lie there any longer. It all seemed so senseless. Then, dazed, he had followed through the woods and into the village because such action was the formula of his existence. The sights of the dead in all of their postures of horror, the loss of those whom he had known and felt affection for, the odor of stinking canned meat and of dead bodies made alive again by the heat of the day, the infuriating explosion of artillery; the kaleidoscopic stir of light and color, had bludgeoned his senses. Now he lay, incapable of introspection or of retrospection, impervious to the demands of the dead and the living. Somewhere in the Cimmerian darkness low voices emanated from vague, mysterious forms. They talked on and on in a sort of indefinable hum. Finally it came to Hicks that the platoon commander was searching for him. “Hicks is over here,” he heard the man next to him say. The platoon commander approached and bent down beside him. “Hicks, we’ve got to have an outpost. The captain’s afraid there will be an attack. Take your gun crew out about five hundred yards and keep your eye peeled.” Hicks failed to reply. “Hicks, did you hear what I said?” “Yes. All right.” Hicks rose and, followed by two other men, stolidly tramped off through the murk. He strode along in the darkness, a little ahead of the others. Abruptly an illuminating rocket was fired from somewhere in front of them. Each man stopped motionless, as the incandescent arc fell slowly to the ground. Stepping forward, Hicks’s foot encountered an empty can. It bumped over the ground cacophonously. The men behind cursed in a thorough and dispassionate manner. For four years the earth over which they were walking had been beaten and churned by the explosions of shells. A labyrinth of trenches had been dug in it. Their bodies brushed against stiff little bushes whose thin, wiry limbs grasped at their clothing like hands. The men had reached the brink of a large cavity in the earth when another flare was fired. They jumped. The hole was wide and deep enough for them to be able to stand without their heads appearing above the bank. “Let’s sit here a while. That damned flare didn’t seem to be more than a hundred yards from here.” “Yeah, le’s. I don’t want to git my head shot off this late in the game.”