… It was what the Kenyan called 'another peace-advancing day in Sector North'. They would not get the food to the old woman, but that was not good enough reason to back off. Push, smile, probe, smile, negotiate, smile, step by fucking step and half of them backwards, and smile… always goddamn smile. The Canadian police sergeant had been stationed at the Petrinja base for 209 days and could tell anyone who asked that his posting had 156 days to run. When he made it back to Toronto, when his colleague made it back to Mombasa, then both of them, bet your life, would never forget how to smile. They were kids, they weren't out of their teens, but the TDF shit at the roadblock had shiny Kalashnikovs, and they had four TM-46 mines to play with, and they were drunk. The Canadian police sergeant reckoned that drunk teenagers with automatic rifles and mines should be smiled at… It would have been easy to have given up and reversed the jeep away from the bridge, away from the scarred village of Rosenovici, and driven back to Petrinja easy, but the abandonment of the old woman would have come hard. It was worth smiling, to keep the road open to the village that was wrecked… Rule 1 of Sector North, and Rule 10 and Rule 100, don't argue, don't, at kids with high-velocity hardware and mines and booze in their guts. It was a full hour since he had smiled and asked the first time for the responsible official, please, to be allowed to contact that senior and responsible official, and he would appreciate their courtesy if that senior and responsible and important official had the time to spare, just shit… They could barely walk upright, the TDF kids, and every few minutes they'd go move the mines, shove them or kick them, and every few minutes they'd go drink some more.

The truck came.

The Kenyan grinned. "You happy now, man?"

The truck stopped behind their jeep.

"As a hog in dung…"