4

Next day. Another march. Billy had had his first dream the night before. In his dream he was marching, and someone he thought he knew from somewhere else came and marched next to him. She was a woman. She said she had some very bad news, and the news related to herself. He realized someone must be dead, the news seemed so bad, perhaps more than one person. But the man behind him kept making fun of him and saying things like "Look how dirty his clothes are!" and "Doesn't he stink!" Every time the man marching behind him said these things, a roar of laughter hit his red ears from behind. Meanwhile, he was waiting for the bad news. Finally he turned around and said, "Hey, fuck you, you fucking bastard!" All of the sudden the march stopped, and he was facing all the men who had laughed at him, and it was a very serious situation, like he had offended many people by a grave sin. "We were just having fun," one of them said, "and you insulted us and made it a very serious matter. We were just having fun with you and you went and made it a serious fight, with a serious insult." He realized that not only had he offended the men behind him, but also the woman with the bad news; he had offended her like a man who argues about some petty detail on a funeral day, or makes fun of the dead a year after they are laid to rest. He felt deeply ashamed, and woke up feeling that shame. Then he said, "What happened? Where was I?" He was awake, on the ground in his roll blanket. He realized: it was just a dream. He did not remember ever having dreamt before. But he knew what a dream was, and he knew that he'd just had a dream.

But today at reveille they got breakfast, broke camp, showed up at review, then fell into columns and began another march. He didn't remember ever having done all this before, either; but he knew automatically what he must do and how he must do it; and so he did it that way, and certainly could do nothing else. And so after inspection, they fell into those eternally long columns, and marched on: another day.

"Ducky, Ducky," said Billy, who was marching right in back of Ducky the Coward today. He was speaking lowly, as if he could get into trouble for what he would say. "Do you know if it's permitted to try to find out what the hell is going on?" "I haven't heard it's not permitted," said Ducky after a smack of his thick lips. "But I'm sure the situation is classified, and you won't find out anything useful." Ducky's reply hadn't been in Billy's low voice, and he had an innocence about him that said, "Don't trust me to keep secrets: I tell the truth, and plainly, as if no one had anything in the world to keep from anyone else." But the man next to Billy replied, not so low as Billy's voice, but low enough and warmly enough to assure Billy that he wouldn't get into trouble for his questions. "What do you need to know?" he said. "Maybe I can help." "Where the hell are we?" said Billy. "What are we doing here? What army is this? Where are we marching toward?" "Those are pretty general questions," said the man; "you may as well be asking me the meaning of life." "I don't remember a thing before getting off that chopper," said Billy. "This whole experience doesn't make any sense." "Well," said the man, "you ask me something specific, and I can probably tell you; but if you go on asking what clouds are made of and why they don't fall out of the sky, and I have to say you're asking the wrong guy." "All right," said Billy, "what war is this?" The man laughed through crackling phlegm. He was an old man to be a private, and must have done something to be demoted from captain or colonel: he had a long white goatee, and crow's feet went from the corners of his eyes to his hair on either side, which was still full on top, if gray. "I have to say I'd like to know too," he said; "I'd really like to know. But wars are fought before they're given names, and life is over before one has begun to question it. Tell you the truth, I don't remember a thing before getting off that chopper either; but if I started questioning the fundamentals like you do, there'd be no end to it, and my head would be too high up in the clouds to keep these old feet marching forward and my musket aim sharp. I can shoot a squirrel through the heart at forty yards; but if every man in this army went on with mystical mumbo jumbo like you do, not a man here could shoot a musket but that he shoots off his big toe. You want my advice? You seem to be pretty well--you're musket's clean, you got some rest last night, you've got clear healthy eyes--don't go questioning the meaning of life like you are, but just do what you got to do to survive this war. No one can answer what you're asking--not the commander-in-chief himself--but if you ask one of the officers you may get a blank stare and a demerit--they're pretty firm-headed men, and I doubt they'll have much patience with you. Oh they won't think you're being seditious or subversive--they'll just be angry with you for wasting their time for questions you had better address to whoever it is you pray to." Again, with this very clear explication of the situation, Billy felt that his questions were idiotic and silly, and that he was being a fool for asking people what was going on. Of course he knew what was going on: he was in the army, there was a war, he was to take orders, they had just broken camp and now they were marching, the sun was circling the horizon just as it had done the day before, the tundra was soggy under his feet, the mosquitoes were thick. He felt very foolish just now, and did not want to humiliate himself by plying his questions to an officer. If he did so, he would feel like a man feels when he has some problem in a store or hotel, and speaks with the manager about it; but when he does so, he finds that he has neither a question nor a demand, but only a long, convoluted story to tell, at the conclusion of which the manager is at a loss as to what to say.