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company leaves us behind?” Johnson loaded his rifle. “We’ll starve to death in the woods.”
    â€œMoving thirty feet a day?” red-haired man sneered. “Not fucking likely we get left behind.”
    â€œMy orders were to take the forest,” Johnson craned his head out of the hole. “I don’t know about yours.”
    Their mood was sour. They decided to follow the ravine that led from the bunker.
    â€œAll aboard the Kraut trail,” Johnson laughed. “Think they’ll shell us here?”
    â€œI say we’re mighty close to something.” Stanley lit a cigarette. “Think we’re near the West Wall?”
    â€œBy God, we should be so lucky,” the blond man said. “Then we can shoot the hell out of them and go home.”
    Stanley could not picture home. His mother’s face appeared vaguely, the smell of her, the sound of her. The hardware store where he worked on Eastern Avenue. His school, Baltimore Polytechnic. He could not be sure whether any of those things had happened or whether they were a dream. Whether he had always been at war and would always be. They walked along the ravine for hours. Sometimes they would come across a body of a German, always picked clean. One body was missing its fillings, the mouth open and exposing bloody stumps of gumline.
    â€œWe need to find some Krauts so we can take their braut,” the blond man said.
    â€œI’d even eat the fucking Krauts,” the red-haired man said. “Maybe we should go back and find our men.”
    â€œMaybe you’re right,” Stanley said. “Even if we find the Germans, they’ll probably outnumber us.”
    â€œOur men are probably ahead of us,” Johnson said, his head nodding forward. “That’s why we’re seeing so many dead. I told you we got left behind.”
    â€œNot likely,” the red-haired man said. “I’m going back. The whole month, I ain’t seen nobody get ahead of me. If there’s somebody ahead of us, it’s a different division. Which I’m more than happy for. Let them take some shots.”
    â€œI’m with him.” The blond turned in the slit trench.
    â€œCome on, safety in numbers.” Red gripped his rifle. “Let’s go back.”
    â€œWhat say you?” Johnson looked at Stanley. Johnson was the leader, but Stanley wanted to find their squadron, food.
    â€œLet’s go back.” Stanley didn’t look at Johnson.
    â€œThe Pole has decided,” Johnson said, spitting in the trench, kicking at the snow-dirt with his shoe. “Let’s go.”

    They turned around and followed the slit trench back to the bunker. Then they climbed up the slope they had fallen down earlier.
    â€œLet’s sweep out and move forward,” Stanley said. Stanley moved in front, Johnson in the back. The shelling shook and shredded the tree canopy above them, branches falling like swooping vultures, pelting their shoulders and arms, leaving welts. The raining wood and shells filled the air with the sound of sanding metal, and Stanley could not hear anyone, only see their jaws moving, their eyes flicking back and forth as they scanned the area for mines, for Germans, for secure ground in front of them. Stanley wished they had stayed in the bunker. He glimpsed a man running through the trees, white and red cross armband. A medic. They knew how to get back to the line. All they needed to do was follow him. Stanley motioned to the men and ran toward the figure.
    He had not gotten far when the ground swelled behind him like a wave, sweeping him off his feet. A shell. His body hit the dirt at angles—elbow, knees, ankles—before rolling. When he stopped, he felt for his legs, moved them, and stood up, crouched over.
    â€œJohnson?” he called back. The area from where he had been thrown was peppered with wood and metal. Blackened bark. Gray and red snow. Johnson’s