"It's cheap at the price. I'll pay. They may take my life someday, but I'm sure as hell not going to give it to them, nor my dignity. You think I'm going to fight if they send troops to Vietnam? Fuck no. Maybe you can kiss that bastard's ass, but not me." He stood up again.

"Okay. You know what you're going to do – then get the hell out of here. You don't want my advice – then shove off." I had been afraid he wouldn't listen, but this was not just a case of not hearing. He believed, which I admired, but which was sad too. He came too late in time to be part of any of the great, violent revolutions, and now had to waste himself on a foolishness.

"I came because I thought you would understand, not to ask advice."

"And maybe brag a little bit? But I do understand. That's why I'm afraid. There's a good chance nothing will happen to anyone except you. I'd be sorry to see that, but it might as well happen now as later. You'll end up in jail or dead someday, anyway. Might as well be now. But what if other men who don't know what they really want, or are doing, follow you into the shit."

"You afraid of losing your stripes?" He looked for a moment as if he had found the answer, but then thought not.

"Maybe a little. I didn't come back to lose them over anything like this. Right now they're heavy on my arm, but I like the money, the things they buy. And they are on my arm." I sat in the chair he had vacated.

"What are you – for sale?" He flopped on the bunk.

"Until I get a better offer. I fight for the best price."

"Bullshit." He grinned. "You just think that."

"It's the same thing."

"Okay," he said, standing up. "Maybe they'll make me editor of the magazine in Leavenworth, and I can get my shitty poetry published."

"Bullshit. Not even you have such bad taste." It was my turn to smile.

"Wish me luck," he said, lazily strolling toward the door.

"Aren't you going to ask if I'm going to turn you in?"

"Of course not. You're a revolutionary too. I just haven't convinced you yet," he said, then smiled and left. His confidence in my silence, his trust, was quite a compliment, and no one's head can be turned any easier than mine, but it was also a burden I would just as soon not have.

Only Joe Morning had the personality, the voice and the gall to convince so many men to even agree to such madness, much less carry it out. But he did it. He talked in private to every enlisted man in the Operations section, and then hit them again with a band of converts. I learned from Novotny that Morning had first mentioned the idea during the wee hours of a ditch party, but only mentioned it. Then the next day, when everyone had forgotten, he spoke about it again in the back of the three-quarter going to work, and then again coming back. He convinced Novotny in a long talk that night. Quinn and Franklin wondered why they hadn't thought of such a great idea. Cagle was ready for anything. The rest of the Trick was easy to convince. Once he had the Trick, he had their close friends on the other tricks, then their buddies, then the whole damned Company. That they only had to use physical persuasion on two men is an indication of the mood of the Company. And keeping it quiet was even easier, since the men were already security conscious because of the work.

It was beautiful and funny and I loved and feared the whole idea, but stayed in my room, sleeping with the door locked, while it took place.

I was blasted out about midmorning by Lt. Dottlinger on the handle of a bull horn. It was so loud I didn't understand what had been screamed, and I charged out in my shorts, thinking partly of Pearl Harbor and partly of a public execution. Lt. Dottlinger stood at my end of the hall calmly announcing, "Company formation in fifteen minutes!" He had known what was up when he opened the door to Morning and saw the line, but he didn't say anything. He had already given a blanket permission for anyone knowing anything about the broken bottles to see him without going through the 1st Sgt. He let them all in, asked questions about the bottles, made notes, and took names. Outside Tetrick was racing up and down the line, bald, sweat-shining head in hands, pleading with them to break it up and go away before they were all killed. He remembered a pile of heads he had seen in Burma left by the Japanese. But Lt. Dottlinger was calm and controlled through it all, though his control must have been the absolute hold which marks the final stage of hysteria. He quietly ordered each man back to his quarters after the interview. The men in the back of the line were frightened, as well they might have been, by this quiet approach of the lieutenant's. Many might have broken line, but Morning, intrepid, wily Joe Morning, had placed men he could trust on either side of those he couldn't; and he knew just exactly which were which. But he hadn't counted on Lt. Dottlinger's anger taking this form. More than men have hung on the nature of another man's mood in the morning. When I saw Lt. Dottlinger in the hall, speaking pleasantly into the electric megaphone like a daytime television game-show announcer, I knew Morning's plans had failed. I wondered what was going to happen, as I got into uniform; I should have wondered who was going to pay. When Lt. Dottlinger had first seen me in the hall, he had smiled, nodded, and said, "Good morning, Sgt. Krummel." How little he knew.

The Company had been assembled on the volleyball court between the barracks and the drainage ditches for nearly an hour before Lt. Dottlinger came out. He was walking from the waist down, a smug, arrogant strut like Brando in The Wild One. Ah, he was loose. I thought for a moment he might mumble too, but he had added an English undertone to his Southern accent to strut a bit more. He accepted Tetrick's "Hall pre'nt an' 'counted for, sir," with a salute of languid grace. I wanted to laugh. But it would have been a nervous giggle. I, the whole Company too, was caught by that creepy version of fear which only comes when you're faced with someone who is crazy. It isn't so much that you're frightened that you might come to physical harm, but that you're faced with something not human anymore. You don't know what it is, and you don't care because you realize what it isn't, and you can only run and run until you wipe the face of insanity from the deepest regions of your memory; but as you run, you understand that some unsuspecting night you will dream that tormented, twisted face, and wake, oh my God, scream for the savior you had forgotten, and scream again, for the face is yours. Dottlinger scared us like that. If he had taken a rifle and shot the first rank of men or snatched a rose from his shirt and sniffed, none of us would have blinked.

"Well," he began, striding along the Company front, his hands clasped casually behind him. For once he didn't have his ball-point swagger stick. "It seems we have a small mutiny on our hands, troopers. Or at least a conspiracy to mutiny, troopers, which carries an equally harsh penalty. I would only guess, but I could probably put each and every one of you behind bars for the rest of your natural lives." He pivoted, paused and reflected. It wasn't a particularly hot day, but two large sweat stains were slowly creeping from under Lt. Dottlinger's arms like cancerous stigmata. He wasn't quite so frightening now. He was beginning to lose his edge, and was forced to begin to play himself. It had taken too long to write his speech. "But I'm not going to do that," he continued. "At least not right this minute. I'm sure most of you men didn't mean to cause this much trouble, or face such a stiff charge. Certainly your leaders lied to you about this – you're surprised I know there were leaders. Don't be, don't be. It was obvious. Yes, I'm sure there were leaders, perhaps even a single organizer." He paused, "And I would like to put him behind bars. I really want that. I want him!" He could barely control himself now.