We are still on the Mod, the Mod she does not yet know Mr. U. has purchased, which, when she reaches behind and above herself to hit Go, Auto-Engages me at a random Location within itself, overriding whatever Settings she has just now Set.

I find myself Whispering to her in the form of a letter from a captain, a Captain Evers of Minnesota, longing for her, his wife, even as he, on his belly, waits for Reno Hill to be overrun. Nearby, friends of his, dear to him from many years of service, weep in terror. The body of Carvelli lies where he fell, shot between the eyes as he deliriously sought water. None of us has ever been this thirsty. We experience this thirst as a kind of madness. From somewhere a woman is shrieking. It is not a woman. It is Dietzen, the trumpeter. Our enemies seem able to instantly kill whoever does not lie flat, mouth full of the dry earth. Someone tells Dietzen to be quiet; someone remonstrates with him to show some pride. Dietzen goes on shrieking.

How did we, the mighty Seventh, come to this? We are aghast to have been so reduced by what we had imagined to be a paltry force of feeble savages but turned out to be a swift killing machine perfectly pitched to existing conditions of geography and landscape. We wish to go home, start over, never have come here.

Now, for the error of coming, we must die here, by hand, as it were: war-clubbed, pierced through with arrows, shot or knifed at close range. We have, mere hours ago, seen certain dear friends of ours perish in precisely these ways.

It will happen. It will happen soon.

It will happen soon, to me, I fear. To this precious body, which I have known and loved all my life.

I mention none of this in my letter. To my wife. She is delicate. It is not, anyway, a real letter, for I have nothing with which to write and no light by which to see; I write her this letter in my mind, to give myself comfort. Though things are dire, I tell her (I Whisper, to Mrs. U.), I am taking comfort in a certain memory of her that, in other circumstances, I would be hesitant to mention but that, tonight, it seems neglectful not to recall with the deepest gratitude: her, kneeling upon our bed, the Christmas Eve of the first year of our marriage, wearing the robe I brought back west for her from Cleveland, wind howling outside, and yet there in our home all was close and warm.

And then, I write (I Whisper), you were generous enough to allow that garment to fall away, and in the firelight I beheld a sight that inspired in me a feeling of awe the likes of which no western vista could ever hope to rival.