He was being sarcastic, of course, but when we got back, the scales were just starting to tip in our favor and we were inching down the hill into the town. Men along the sides of the road started getting picked off by sniper fire and someone yelled at me to take cover. A bullet hit my left hand and ricocheted off my rifle’s upper guard. Knocked the damn thing out of my hand, spun me around and toppled me into the ditch, right on top of Nathan Eisenstein.

“Fancy meeting you here, sweetie,” he said, shoving me off.

See what I mean about the jokes getting you through?

The bullet grazed my wrist bone. It bled nine ways to Sunday and hurt like a bitch but Eisenstein slapped my Carlisle dressing on it and did a neat job. At least it wasn’t my trigger hand.

Eisenstein and I ran up the road to the corner where I’d seen Jorgy. We passed a medic giving aid to Squirt (the short Ellis; now the only Ellis) who’d been hit in both legs. I still didn’t know where any of my squad was. It’s just a horrible feeling when you’re cut loose from that tight unit, and I wanted to get back within two feet of Jorgy where I belonged.

“Enemy fire’s coming from that big house up ahead,” Jorgy said. “Tanks coming in to take it out.”

The tanks fired from less than thirty yards away, putting gaping holes into the thick stone walls of the house.

“Europe builds shit to last,” Jorgy said. “You need a lot of fire power to bring these buildings down. You two take your grenades up there, throw ’em through the basement windows.”

Kennet and Nate ran forward and crouched by the house.

“I’ll throw first,” Nate said, and before Kennet could stop him, he heaved his Mk 2 at an upstairs window.

“Not the up— Oh shit,” Kennet yelled as the grenade bounced off the shutter and came back to earth. He flung himself down and covered his head as the pineapple exploded. He looked up, steeled to see another head like Malinda’s, half torn up and staring back at him.

Nate was indeed staring. Then he blinked. Pushed up and patted his arms, torso and legs. He was all there.

“Stay there, you moron,” Kennet cried. He pulled the pin on his grenade and lobbed it through a basement window, like Jorgy had said. Then he dove away and took cover, curling away from the blast.

When he looked back, Nate Eisenstein lay dead where Kennet told him to stay. All of him still there. The blast didn’t get him. Just a neat bullet hole through his forehead.