The flag flew at half-mast.

The Infirmary was all out of Rupert's. Not all of the fresh supplies had been distributed yet. Kelly yelled at Doctor Paine until he wrote Kelly a letter authorizing him to find me some.

I smelled the chicken soup that Sarah was serving all the officers of the 7th. And I heard them toast her as "Sarah Bourdett - the Angel of Fort Brown." So long, Cactus Queen...

All of the tents of the 7th Infantry, including the Infirmary, were pitched just outside the wall of the fort.

I was looking at my swollen-up hand, feeling tingly, dizzy, feverish, thinking about that fourth error in the Slow-Polk score. I heard Half- Lip McCoy leading my pals with this song:

"Frankie in the Moon"

Prince Franklin Stove was a fine old chap!
He was a pretty angel who fell in a folw scrap -
Cause he had a wise old pumpkin head
He didn't know that he should stay well dead.

Neither did the cock and the hens
Who used his pretty skull for a fox-fence.
But like a nabob's egg cracked by a silver spoon,
Now we guess his immortal soul is in ruin.

The Prince said inside of us was only springs and gears,
The surgeon's only good for trimmin' round the ears.
We busted the Prince open and looked on in below,
Then propped him up tall, our sentinel scarecrow.

For a mighty Prince, he was not very clean,
He was half hen-house, half automaton machine.
We gave him our old socks, but he didn't darn `em;
So we sold his china head to Mr. Peter Barnum.

Is all we are just wheels and strings?
oved Prince Stove, but we don't like kings.
We busted him, and it's just as well,
He makes a dandy scarecrow centinel.

That song made Captain Mansfield a bit angry. "We are more than chips and strings. More then wheels and brute reactions. We're more!" I wasn't so much angry as worried that that's all I was, that my chips were all unstrung and my strings had cashed their chips.

Wallis Gordon was showing some Crawdads how to cook rattler. He picked Bradley Abernathy to mind the fork. It was an elaborate process. First he cut the head off, ka-chunk! Then he threw the snaky carcasses on a hot griddle, just like that. The frying snake hissed and sizzled. A cooking smell filled the air. It was more or less a familiar smell, like broiling chicken, but like that chicken had fed on ka-chook rubber all its life. I thought maybe the rattler's flesh had some natural antidotal properties, so I sat down with them and waited. Bradly Abernathy said I was getting kind of pale and mottled. "Well I guess this is so-long, then," I said, and shook hands all around.

"First whupped, then snake-bit," said Kidney Beanton admiringly.

"Don't forget heartbroken," I added. I laid down and put the back of my hand over my burning eyes.

"If I miss mess call, don't bother to drum up the reverend," I told them.

I knew they thought I was a goner when they gave me three HURRAHS. "Where was Kelly with that Rupert's?" I wondered impatiently.

I heard a rattling sound, close. I sat up quick.

Abernathy said, "Mr. Gordon - it's moving!"

"Heh, heh," laughed Wallis, his back to Abernathy.

"Mr. Gordon! They're moving! MR. GORDON!"

The headless snake was side-winding on the hot iron - !

"Yes, when its spine gets hot enough it gets a kind of second life. Personally I don't care for it that raw. Mind you keep `em on the pan, boy!"

Suddenly one of the coiled-up headless snakes coiled up lunged forward, like it was striking. Abernathy dropped the fork and ran about forty yards off. From that distance, he turned back and looked.

"Lost your appetite fer fresh rattler? What a greenhorn!" scoffed Wallis.

Seeing that headless snake move was giving me poison-chills. I walked away and laid down.

I woke up late with Kelly shaking me. "Jack! Jack! Jack! Wake up!"

"No," I groaned. I felt hot and dizzy, and there was a pain in my chest and in my eyes. I couldn't feel my bit-up hand. It was so swollen I couldn't move the fingers. I turned my face away from it.

Behind Kelly was - an old lunarita! She was very old and dressed in black. She wore layers and layers of shawls, veils, serapes, and dresses. I wondered if she was like one of those hollow dolls that you keep opening up to find a smaller one inside to open again...

"She was searching among the dead for her grandson, or maybe great-grandson, I reckon," said Kelly. "She don't seem to speak much our language, but she seems to listen to it all right. I'm paying her to cure you - you know those Injuns know ancient tricks like snake-bite cures from beetle dung and grubs and the like."

"I don't much care for beetle dung and grubs, Kelly!"

"I told her to give you whatever it takes to cure you, brother. Now jest rest easy now."

It hurt to open my eyes, so I closed them. I felt her warm, tough hands on my forehead. She put me something bitter in my mouth. It tasted like ashes. I thought she was poisoning me. I wouldn't open my mouth. She pinched my nose until I opened my mouth and I swallowed some more.

I hated the taste of it. My dizziness concentrated - I felt like I was falling and falling. That vertigo landed me in the land of Nod. I fell in a deep sleep.

And I had a strange dream.

I dreamed that I was thirsty as all heck. Probably I was, which is the fault of the fever. So I got up - I was in a tent with three wool blankets on me. My brother sat in a stool beside me, slumped over, asleep. His Walter Scott lay open on the ground. Looked like the last week's events had taken the entertainment of it out, for Kelly.

So I got up and looked for water. Not finding any, I went outside. It was dark. I still couldn't find any. Then I heard the Cold Sea, so I headed that way. I kneeled at the shore and drank (the Mare Figolis being a fresh water sea). It was delicious. I felt a lot better. The swelling of my hand had gone down. I unwrapped the bandage a little - there were just two very tiny dots. I stretched my back - still sore, but not raw. All in all, I was fit as a fiddle again. Put me in an Omni Potent point of view.

Looking up, I saw, in the distance, Martha Mule. I walked over to her. She ate up one of my stale army crackers. I got up on her and rode along the shore a ways, thinking about how close the far shore looked. I wondered what was going on in Plato's Crater. Probably a lot of panic.

I wondered if Hernani Klager was over there somewhere. And I wondered what had happened to John Sheehan and the other deserters...

Even in dream it didn't please me that this was just the beginning of the war. The Observation Balloons had scared away the Army of the Sea of Tranquility. Texas was Texas again. I had enough of fighting. I didn't want to cross the Cold Sea with Rough `n' Ready. Seemed to me the Lunars took punishment enough, over a thousand maimed and killed, if the Moral Surgeon's score was right, and I reckoned it was. Seemed to me that we didn't have a call to invade Venus; we had Oregon. Even if a democratically elected president ordered me to go, didn't seem fair that I would have to. Made me feel like rotten corruption inside. Made me feel like one of Sergeant Mallory's chief disciples. Made me feel like a Hessian for the Democratic Party. I shouldn't ought to have signed up in the first place.

Seemed to me that this was my best chance to desert, if I was a- going to do it. Of course, I didn't want to do that if it meant I could never ever see Kelly again, or go back to Maryland. I didn't want to do it. "But maybe I should, seeing as I shouldn't ought to and didn't truly deserve to be alive, let alone killing more folks." And after all, I knew, this was just a friendly dream.

Farther on in the mist, I saw another mule drinking water. I gave Martha a little tap with my heels. We headed that way. It was just a pale blur in the dark. It wasn't a mule, it was a horse, a white horse, a stallion, feeding on some shore grass. As I got closer, I recognized it with a chill. I saw the corpse it dragged along, one foot still in the stirrup. Martha carried me over slowly. We came close. And there waited a nightmare.

The white horse stood at the edge of the shore, her hooves in the water, chewing a big clump of grass around a little tree stump. He lifted his head, still chewing, and carried up the stump, caught in leaves and grass. As he chewed, the wooden hunk slipped down a little, and swung, bobbing. We came closer, and the wild-eyed horse swung his head over, swinging the stump around at me. It bumped up and down with the rhythm of her chewing jaws. - It was the long- missing head of Sergeant Weigart. It was blackish green and grinning. Its ugly jaws swung up and down in hideous humor, mocking the vanity of my intentions - the mule screamed and bucked wildly, knocking me into the water - the current was terribly swift - I spun round and round, fighting to stay alive - I shouted and kicked in the water. As I floated, in my disorientation, I thought I saw the moon hovering green above me - It was just a another pale blur in the awful dark - but even in my panic I fancied I could see old Anaxagoras crater. Flounder as I was, it struck me as funny - if that was the moon up there, then where was I? Suddenly, I saw the shore, up close, and swam for it. I rose up on the wet bank and lay there until I caught my breathe. I was grateful to claw the familiar yellow soil of the Lunar P. of T. I was not grateful when somebody kicked my foot. I started with annoyance, expecting to see Kelly, but when I looked behind me - I cried out and dragged myself away. There was a dead Lunar soldier floating in the eddy. I looked all around - there were dozens of dead Lunars, drowned, all around. I stood up, and saw all kinds of discarded equipment, and signs that thousands of men had passed over this same bank. So the current had taken me down to where the Lunars had fled in panic back to their side of the Cold Sea. I rubbed my face and climbed the bank and headed back to camp. I wasn't quite sure where camp was; I felt lost. I hadn't got very far when I saw a dozen dragoons on patrol. I headed for them to ask directions. As I came closer, I was surprised to see that these hussars were riding donkeys. I was just beginning to get over that surprise when I had another - I was delighted to see a familiar face.

"Jack!" laughed Hernani Klager.

Next to him rode a big red-headed officer I didn't recognize.

Behind him was John Sheehan. Next to Sheehan rode those two deserters that Sam Walker had seen from his balloon, Dick Parker and Patrick Maloney.

Following them were eight other Doughboys - who'd disappeared during the long march south from Annex Agonies - deserters all, with swords. I saw Sara's old husband, George Dalwig, riding among them.

"Heck, I didn't even know you'd skedaddled," I greeted him. He just shrugged and grinned bashfully.

And then came about a hundred Lunar soldiers.

I looked at the deserters and then back at the Lunars. Seemed like they were all sort of too friendly. "Is the war over, then?" I asked Hernani.

Hernani laughed. I noticed he wasn't dressed exactly in Regular blues anymore.

In fact, Hernani himself was wearing the darker blue, red-striped trousers of a Lunar hussar. "There are forty-eight of us under Lieutenant Reilly," he said, nodding his head at the big Irish beside him. "We are volunteers in the Legion extranjera"

"You mean your Strange Legion is a bunch of no-good traitors?"

"Yes," he said with a blink. "We've been raining shells on you for the past couple of days." He swung off his donkey and picked me up. He tried to embrace me but I wouldn't let him. "And so, here you are, like us, not like a Napoleon, but like a doomed Hernani."

"I don't mind saying I don't like the sound of that."

"I'm afraid Jack you have a choice of three vile fates. Will you be a prisoner, a deserter, or a traitor?"

"A traitor!"

"That's what they'll call it. But what are you now? You are neither a good man nor evil, but a war machine working regardless of right and wrong. Have you no life, no moral sense? Must you be such a slave? All free men are traitors to something."

"Hernani, I have to admit I never guessed that my doom would have your face on it."

Hernani put his arm around me and whispered, "Be careful, Jack. If you don't join us, one of the Lunars officers might break your arm. Such a feeling I have Jack, such a terrible purity - ! Will you be such a wooden puppet of patriotism?"

"Me, a wooden puppet?" I wondered. "Well, it's true I used to be more or less a simpleton, but now there's too many wheels whirling inside my head, I can't think even a simple thought! I wish I were a machine - then I wouldn't have this awful mixed-up feeling." And then I thought, "I guess I don't believe that I can honestly feel any pure feelings any more, but I admit I'd like to believe that there is such a thing as right and wrong. This way I'm sure to find out. With any luck I'll die before I have regrets." And as I rode behind Hernani on his donkey, I remember thinking, "I hope one of these Lunars has a copy of Napoleon and His Marshals..."

I found out I was wrong on every count.

Peter Gelman may be reached at the address gelma001@maroon.tc.umn.edu.

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