He would miss Dixon, he thought, and the nurses on that ward. If he was counting right, he had been in that hospital since May. He had spent weeks in traction and had had two stump revisions. Finally, he had been fitted with a temporary prosthesis, which tonight was traveling in the baggage car; it was too painful to wear. Besides, he was better at getting around without it, despite all the practicing they had made him do. His nurses had threatened not to have his doctor sign his leave papers—they said he wasn’t ready to travel. But when they learned it was going to be his birthday and he hadn’t seen his mother in three-and-a-half years, they settled for making him swear on his life to rewrap his stump every two hours. They had him practice and practice until they were certain that he was correctly adjusting the bandage’s tension. After his Thanksgiving leave, he was to report to the hospital at the Great Lakes Naval Station. He wasn’t out of the woods yet. They made sure he knew that. It would be at least a few months, if everything went well. Only when they judged his stump thoroughly healed and in a stable shape would he be fitted with a final prosthesis.

But now he was going home. He had left the last time on March 12, 1942. That date, at least, was clear in his mind.

They are going to ask me about it, he thought, lighting a cigarette. His hand was trembling. He wondered how many things he could omit. There were a lot of things they didn’t need to know.

But he thought Buck was wrong about there not being a beginning. He could tell his family about that part: November 4, 1942, when he went ashore at Lunga Point, Guadalcanal. He still had a clear picture of his boondockers piercing the cobalt sea, and he could still feel the wet seeping into his socks. Could see, still, the yards of gray sand stretching across the beach, the ordered rows of coconut palms beyond. From a distance, the place had glittered like a jewel, and he’d been fooled, at first, into thinking the jungle was beautiful.