How did I know that? How had I known it was enemy artillery? I tried to remember a battle. I tried to remember crossing the ocean. It's a long way to Sicily, right? "It's a long way…" A song from another war drifted across my mind and I faded out, dreaming of water sliced by the bow of a ship. "It's a long way…"

"Hey, kid, you asleep?"

I felt his presence looming over me as I awoke, the loose chinstrap of his helmet brushing my cheek as he moved. I felt his hand on my chest, a gentle push, maybe to feel if I was still breathing. He patted my pockets as the odor of cheap cigars and stale sweat wafted down, foul smells made worse by the stifling heat. I opened my eyes, the pain now a dull throb where before it had been a searing slash.

"Yeah," I said. "What are you looking for?"

I thought about raising my head and decided against it. I could see his face, encircled by the helmet pushed back on his forehead, glistening with an oily sheen of sweat. The netting on the helmet was new, none of the threads broken or frayed. He was short, kind of round but beefy, and an unlit stub of a cigar was clamped in the corner of his mouth. He looked like he was used to hard work, but he wasn't a combat soldier. The trace of softness in his face told me he slept in a rear-area tent, not a front-line foxhole.

"Nothin', kid. Just wanted to be sure you was still breathing."

"I am."

He raised an eyebrow, waiting for more. How did I know so much about him? Everything else was blurred and confused, but I could zero in on this guy. He was crystal clear to me. It was strange, automatically cataloging and judging him at a glance. Strange but comforting. There were questions I was afraid to ask, things I didn't want to think about, so it felt good to focus on what was right in front of me. I watched his eyes dart left and right, tracking the movement of medics scurrying around us. A chaplain knelt next to the dead kid, murmuring prayers as if he were in a hurry.