Corporal calling you? Where's all your respect for authority, huh?" Somebody suggested: "Depants him. Let's see what he's got down there!" Helmer saw someone else approach from the group, saw him from around one of Campbell's massive shoulders which concealed the face of the approaching soldier, from whom Helmer waited with the patience of despair, thinking him to be the one who had advocated his ultimate outrage. And when he saw the outstretched hand, he waited for it to initiate the shamefulunbuckling and removal of his lower garments. Instead, the hand grasped Campbell around the neck, and Helmer saw the fingers tighten until the blood was driven from beneath the nails, choking Campbell, then yanking Campbell backwards, the body of the attacker twisting about so that now he faced Campbell and could throw all his weight into one overwhelming push, which he did, heaving Campbell (who was still on his knees) back and then crashing downwards to the ground so heavily that Helmer himself shuddered with the concussion.

It was Sergeant Noland. Helmer could see him now, as could the other soldiers, who drew back, perhaps fearing that they too might end up as Campbell-flat on their backs, too stunned and too frightened to clamber up. It was Sergeant Noland who had saved him, and who was now extending his hand not in aggression but in charity, which hand he took and allowed to pull him to his feet with a curious sort of gallantry which was nevertheless not out of place, as hardly anything ever seemed to be out of place with Sergeant Noland.

"He was disobeying orders," said Corporal Elgin. "I told him to halt." The Sergeant turned slowly, gazing at the Corporal with his mouth open and tensed into that half-smile which signifies not mirth but readiness for further violence. "Mister, how would you like me to slap your fucking face?"

Corporal Elgin said nothing.

1000

Sergeant Noland faced the other soldiers. "Tell me something," he addressed them. "Who do you dumb sons of bitches think you're fighting? Aren't there enough japs for you? If you haven't had enough fighting today, I'll take you on any of you!" He snorted disgustedly. "Aw hell, you guys make me sick. Go on back to camp."

Helmer returned with the others, shunned but unmolested, and unable to take his adoring eyes off of Sergeant Noland's back, so when they got back to the camp he noticed the Sergeant keep on going until he had reached the other side of the camp and passed beyond into a grove of cocoanut trees. Helmer knew very little about Sergeant Noland: only that he was from Texas and unmarried and was probably seven years older than Hel-' mer, these facts however being of the least significance-the important

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fact being Helmer's profound wholehearted absorption in the other manhis fascination in every aspect of the Sergeant's appearance (he was a heavy man, with a big chest, with muscles running cablelike the length of his arms and legs, with a face that had blazed its image in the foreground of Helmer's mind: composed of a ponderous square jaw and wide mouth and oddly-curved eyes and crew-cropped black hair tapering frontwards in a pronounced peak) and the shocks of desire which he experienced at the mere thought of this man-something he had never known, at least not with such intensity, until before the day he'd been assigned to Noland's platoon.

Helmer had one dream: that in the course of the fighting, Sergeant Noland would be cut off from the others, inside some ravine or against the face of an insurmountable slope, with the enemy in huge numbers rushing forward to effect his destruction, and then he-Helmer-would artive heavily armed, coming up behind the ranks of the enemy, would open fire, killing most, the others retreating but not until they had killed him and his death coming slowly enough for the Sergeant to reach him and cradle his head in one of those powerful but tender arms.

The men were slipping under their tents, seeking the repose that Helmer earlier had so eagerly anticipated. He was not sleepy now. His eyes fastened upon that area of the cocoanut grove through which the Sergeant had dissappeared, wondering what it was that splendid man was seeking. in the jungle's overrank refuge: a solitary comfort? a reaffirmation of the essential man battered numb and overwhelmed by the war's frenzied business?

He was not sleepy now, his mind too inflamed with its preoccupation, and an impulse seized him-reckless and perhaps under other conditions and for another man insane, perhaps insane for him too though upon considering it he immediately perceived it was the only logical (possible) thing to do; and besides, what more remained to be disclosed, or what to be lost beyond his already-foredoomed life? He did not hesitate to reason this out, however, but followed the impulse into the area of the cocoanut grove where his eyes had been directed, he too leaving behind the tents and vehicles and piles of equipment and not fearing to become lost since even in the fog he could guide himself along either of the slopes.

By daylight he would have found Noland in less than a minute, for the grove was not very extensive, but now it took minutes of groping and zigzagging before he came upon him: and there he sat, on a boulder and silent, the tiny arc-travelling gleam of his cigarette having first caught Helmer's attention like a minuscular beacon and drawn him forward, so that now he stood behind the Sergeant who, hearing at last his approach, sprang to his