And so: on one side, thousands of Bolos, well armed, with a small navy, and on the other, a few hundred Americans. The 339th was scattered over a dozen blockhouses that were meant to protect Toulgas. Bolo collaborators had cut the telephone wires. And night had crept in around one-thirty.

“We are not out of ammunition,” Lieutenant Gordon said. “Oh, holy Christ almighty. Are we?”

By a single veiled lantern Hugo could see his fellow Polar Bears (they had named themselves this recently) sizing up the situation. They were waiting for Gordon to say more. He rubbed his chin, blew out his cheeks, and shook his head.

It was at such moments that Hugo knew they would all be rescued. He was as brutal a cynic as any of them, but some part of him flared up at desperate times and decided all was darkest before the dawn.

“Oh, God,” he whispered.

“What?” said Wodziczko.

His exhausted eye sockets spiked with tears, which then retreated. He could not explain this, but during each day of combat, when he could think, every so often he thought, “I am thinking,” which was simple, and then “And I’m thinking that I’m thinking, and so I’m not yet dead,” which ballooned into “And because I’m aware of these thoughts and they haven’t yet fled the earth, I must still be here, and be here in a coming moment to remember it, and thus, because I’m thinking, I will survive.”

Idiot. Humiliation. Now he was seized by the idea that every man had thought that way, including the dead ones. Because everyone died. Even if there was a cavalry now, there wouldn’t be one when his number was up. Also: there was no cavalry now. His last package from home had been a scarf, the same thing everyone else had gotten.

“Hey,” said Wodziczko. “Hey. Hey.”

“What are you doing?” asked Hugo. For Wodziczko had adhered himself to one of the openings between the logs, and was peering out, his hands shading his eyes.

“It can’t be.”

“What?”

“Hey, everyone,” Wodziczko croaked. “It can’t be.”

Hugo wanted to hit him over the head for not coming out with it. “What do you see?”

Wodziczko’s face glowed as if he had just seen angels dancing at the hem of God’s robe. “Three blue lights.”

Hugo hadn’t expected that. “You saw …”

The whole of the blockhouse rushed to the front windows. The lanterns were extinguished so that they wouldn’t be seen by snipers. For there were indeed three blue lights flashing on the distant other side of the Dvina, almost two miles away, where there was an outpost of British command.

Some of the men were shoving others away to see for themselves, and the rest were exchanging questions—“Did you see that?” and “Are we saved?” and the like.