The nightmare of war goes on and on.
  Taste of Battle
  by Donald Franson

Blinding flashes lit up the night, sound hammered painfully on his eardrums, quakes churned up the damp-smelling earth in front of him. Private Leonard Blick slid into a bomb crater, lay flat in the bitter dirt, as the world shook. Wow! The radio guide had buzzed the warning to take cover. Pay attention to the radio guide.

He decided—his tired legs decided—to rest a while in the crater, though the radio guide now beeped at him to advance. It wasn’t really nagging at him, he realized—the guys back there were only doing their jobs. He’d hated the assignment when he’d had it, guiding other soldiers to safety or death, bright points on a ghostly map. But they could see what was coming, and he couldn’t.

What he’d give to be back there right now! Or even standing in tiresome formation, back in training camp, listening to that little shrimp, Sergeant Trasker, sound off. “Training is no substitute for the taste of battle,” he’d say in his immature voice. That was his favorite expression.

The explosions marched away, but Blick still lay there, gathering strength. Sergeant Trasker. Couldn’t have been over eighteen, baby face except for the dark circles under his eyes, like two shiners. Young as he was, Trasker was a combat veteran. Give a man a little battle experience, and he’s back home as an instructor. Something for Blick to look forward to, if he ever got out of this.

That last speech Trasker gave them, while they swayed wearily in line, after the punishing hike. Blick couldn’t forget it. He wasn’t supposed to.

“Pay attention to the radio guide,” said Trasker. “But don’t depend on it. You may have to get along without it. Be aggressive. Shoot the enemy when you see him, or even if you don’t. Destroy him before he destroys you. Support your friends. Do the things you were trained to do.”

Blick remembered now that even then he wished he were somewhere else. Standing there under the blue sky, listening to some dummy tell him things he already knew. But he’d made an effort to pay attention.

“The well-directed infantryman is king of the battlefield, now that tanks and aircraft are gone. Every weapon is meant for you. You’ve got weapons too. Use them.” Sergeant Trasker frowned, looking like a small boy defying his mother. “Your radio guidesman back of the lines will warn you when to take cover and when it’s safe to advance. That’s all he can do. It’s up to you to do the rest.”

The sergeant tried to sound tough, but didn’t manage it. “When or if you get into battle, be thankful for the experience. Battle-hardened veterans not only are better soldiers, but they’re _safer_”

It seemed an hour before Sergeant Trasker summed up, at long weary last. “That’s about it. You can learn no more here. You must have the taste of battle. . . .”

And now he was in it. But Trasker was wrong on one point. Blick didn’t feel any safer.

Must get on with the war. He scrambled out of the crater, crawling toward the objective, as pointed out by the beeps of the radio guide. Once beyond this exposed stretch, he should be past the enemy lines, thin at this point. He’d soon be contacting the cut-off friendly troops. An incentive to advance. Usually there wasn’t any.

The night was pocket-black, now that the bombardment had stopped. Perhaps it didn’t make sense to continue crawling, but why press his luck? The beeper changed its tune. Go to the left. What was there on the left? He tried to make something out of the darkness, but there were no helpful flashes now.

Crater after crater. This was really a well-worn battlefield. He was near the new objective now, he could tell by the frequency of the beeps. Without warning, he toppled into a deep hole and heard a voice cry, “Over here.”

Now the shelling began again distantly and flashes lighted the sky. He crawled over to the man thus revealed and recognized Dave Murnam, who was equally glad to see him. “Seems like we go together now,” said Dave. “They must be short of guidesmen back there.”

Before they could talk further, their buzzers told them to take cover. They were already as far down as they could get, short of digging in. No time for that. A blast rolled the two of them over and over. The other man lay on his back, face exposed to the man-made elements.

In the flickering glow of continuous artillery, mortars, rockets, and what-not, Blick saw that the unconscious Murnam looked terrible, hardly recognizable as the carefree redhead he knew. He must get Dave back to safety. But what were the radio guide’s instructions? Take cover. No, it was beeping advance.

Advance? Dave was dying. He dragged Murnam up the side of the crater and toward the next, back, against instructions. “Leave the wounded for the medics,” was the rule, but to hell with that. He struggled to pull the dead weight along. The beeper changed to buzzer just as the sky lit up brightly and the ground heaved, loosening Blick’s grip and whirling the men apart once more.

He hurried to crawl back to Murnam, but when he got closer, he turned away.

Where to now? The beeper still said advance. Well, he would advance, then. He’d keep advancing until he got this damn war over with.

Now he could hear the crackle of small arms fire, and he took out his flashless pistol, extended it, and began firing. He couldn’t see what he was shooting at, but neither could they. This was known as a fire fight.

He was peppering away ecstatically when he noticed the radio guide had been buzzing for some time. He didn’t see or hear it coming, but suddenly he was flying through the air.

He covered his face and landed on his arms and elbows, in the soft dirt but still painfully. He’d somehow held on to his pistol. He lay there, tasting salt—no, that was blood. He’d had his taste of battle. He listened for the beep or buzzer.

Neither, His radio was out. He felt for it. It was gone. He was on his own.

What now? Which way to go? When was it safe to move? He remembered the words of Sergeant Trasker, “You may have to get along without it.” He remembered a lot of the words of Sergeant Trasker.

He couldn’t advance, or even shoot, not knowing the direction of the enemy. He’d soon find out, he felt. Another nearby explosion jarred him with several shocks of pain. He’d been hit by shrapnel.

He tried to crawl again but his legs wouldn’t work. He pulled himself by his arms, finally tumbled into a crater. He lay on his back, completely exhausted, while the war went on over his head. This was a deep one. He’d never get out of here. This would be his grave.

After a long period he realized it was getting light. They’d call off the attack at dawn. He should have made it through and past the enemy by now. This was no place to be stranded.

The gray outlines of his crater world appeared around him. It was a recent one, deep and even. He saw he was not alone in the crater.

A body lay ten feet from him. He elbowed his way over to it, hoping to find a functioning beeper. He still clutched the pistol, as he crawled painfully, finally touched.

He tried to turn the body over, see who it had been. It couldn’t be Dave Murnam again, he thought crazily.

He made three discoveries in rapid order.

It wasn’t a body, it was moving, living.

It was an enemy soldier. Blick brought up his pistol, lifted the ugly helmet.

It was a young woman. Blick hesitated as he stared into the pretty face, as dirty and tired and desperate as his own.

The girl’s hand moved, and a pistol pointed at him, banged. This was the last he knew as he slipped into oblivion.

Someone was taking his helmet off. He stared at daylight, blue sky. He was lying on a cot, not a hospital bed.

“On your feet,” called a familiar voice. Long habit caused Blick to swing his legs over and down and jump up. He was fully dressed, clean, and—uninjured.

“Line up,” said Sergeant Trasker, and Blick trotted forward, not without turning to see the technician fiddling with the oversized helmet he had been wearing, called the “hair dryer.” As he mingled with the group lining up, his eyes met the mildly surprised ones of Dave Murnam. The line formed rapidly.

“All right, you guys,” Trasker addressed them impersonally. “Most of you passed. Johnston, Kohler, Blick, at ease. The rest of you, dismissed. See you in the morning.” They were alone in seconds.

Sergeant Trasker put on his best bad-boy look, as he surveyed the ignoble three. “You failed,” he announced. “I won’t tell you what you did—you know what you did. You retain the memory of the stimulated dream, even if you don’t know it’s a dream when you’re in it. But the tape shows just what your responses were.”

Trasker pouted. “You’ll have to take it over. This will be an entirely new program this time. And tougher.”

Again Leonard Blick wished he were somewhere else. He hated to be chewed out by a minor.

Sergeant Trasker wasn’t finished. “Aren’t you glad this isn’t the real thing? The army can’t afford to make battle veterans the hard way, fortunately for you.” There was a trace of bitterness there, Blick thought.

Private Leonard Blick lay on the cot, “hair dryer” on his head, and closed his eyes in deep sleep. A peaceful expression appeared on his face.

It didn’t stay there long.