The Chinese had switched offensive. They used ignited phosphorous. There were mountains forming of cadavers, the air beginning to thicken with the stench of bloat. The mud mixed with blood and Hawkeye remembered saying something to that effect in the operating room so long ago, about how he could brave anything if he stood in that mixture for so long every day. The din was deafening, the explosions occurring more frequently still. And then everything just stopped sounding.

And just ahead, and Hawkeye almost couldn't stop fast enough to keep from crashing into it, appeared a wall. Over it was a roof and there were sides to it now too. There was just enough room for two bodies, one side of the contraption touching Hawkeye's shoulder, his helmet brushing the top of it and he knew the smell of it and didn't know why. A coffin had swallowed them both, upright but unsealed. It might as well have been, the way Hawkeye shrieked and fell back and began to kick away in the bloody mud.

The ox still roams the background, but now it drags the body of a girl, her dress only rags.

And with a frog in his throat and tears threatening to fall, he registers Guy's question. The dolt. "No, damn it." He snaps, "You- this isn't--" He feels a surgical mask appear on him, and tears it off because it was a muzzle. "War's real." And what he meant, sitting on his ass and holding back a cry, is that this was too fantastical, too surreal. And the terror grips him the right way maybe for the first time because he just stays sitting. He can't move. There was nowhere to move. His hands bled and he knew why. What could he do? There was nowhere to go. The mine field was to the left and the enemy was on the right. He didn't have a choice. The strap on his chin tightened, and Hawkeye chirped out, "Kid." Hey. You. The one who doesn't know war. Like it? Isn't it fun? Insanity kept minds afloat. It wasn't his choice. "Guy." Get the hell out of his nightmare, damn it. "This isn't Korea, if you were asking."