“Straight or highball?”

“That’s the talk. Straight, Dan. We’re in the army now.”

Hugo drank with them. Only for one moment did they remember they were in the army to fight: “Say, Dan, the war really isn’t as tough as they claim, is it?”

“I don’t know how tough they claim it is.”

“Well, you seen much fightin’?”

“Three years.”

“Is it true that the Heinies—?” His hands indicated his question.

“Sometimes. Accidentally, more or less. You can’t help it.”

“And do them machine guns really mow ’em down?”

Hugo shrugged. “There are only four men in service now who started with my company.”

“Ouch! Garçon! Encore! An’ tell him to make it double—no, triple—Dan, old man. It may be my last.” To Hugo: “Well, it’s about time we got here an’ took the war off your shoulders. You guys sure have had a bellyful. An’ I’m goin’ to get me one right here and now. Bottoms up, you guys.”

Hugo was transferred to an American unit. The officers belittled the recommendations that came with him. They put him in the ranks. He served behind the lines for a week. Then his regiment moved up. As soon as the guns began to rumble, a nervous second lieutenant edged toward the demoted private. “Say, Danner, you’ve been in this before. Do you think it’s all right to keep on along this road the way we are?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t say. You’re taking a chance. Plane strafing and shells.”

“Well, what else are we to do? These are our orders.”

“Nothing,” Hugo said.

When the first shells fell among them, however, Danner forgot that his transference had cost his commission and sadly bereft Captain Crouan and his command. He forgot his repressed anger at the stupidity of American headquarters and their bland assumption of knowledge superior to that gained by three years of actual fighting. He virtually took charge of his company, ignoring the bickering of a lieutenant who swore and shouted and accomplished nothing and who was presently beheaded for his lack of caution. A month later, with troops that had some feeling of respect for the enemy—a feeling gained through close and gory association—Hugo was returned his commission.

Slowly at first, and with increasing momentum, the war was pushed up out of the trenches and the Germans retreated. The summer that filled the windows of American homes with gold stars passed. Hugo worked like a slave out beyond the front trenches, scouting, spying, destroying, salvaging, bending his heart and shoulders to a task that had long since become an acid routine. September. October. November. The end of that holocaust was very near.