“Me, neither,” Armstrong agreed with a sour sigh. “They were probably getting ready here while they were still fighting down in Provo.”

“I bet you’re right,” Reisen said. They both swore: part of the automatic obscenity that made up the small change of any conversation between military men. To Armstrong, the idea of preparing a position long before you fell back into it felt like cheating.

A runner scrambled into the hole with the two of them. “When the whistle blows, pop up and start shooting at that machine gun as hard as you can,” he said, and then climbed out to pass the word to the next few U.S. soldiers.

“What’s going on?” Armstrong called after him. The runner didn’t answer. Armstrong did some more swearing, this time in earnest. He didn’t like orders he didn’t understand, especially when they were liable to get him killed.

Like them or not, he had them. About fifteen minutes later, an officer’s whistle shrilled. He popped up and fired a shot, then ducked down again to work the Springfield’s bolt. He felt like a jack-in-the-box after a while, or maybe like a jackass. But everybody else in front of the machine gun was doing the same thing, so the Mormons manning the piece didn’t aim all their attention-to say nothing of all their fire-at him.

“Ha!” Yossel Reisen spoke with a certain somber satisfaction. “I see what’s going on.”

“Yeah?” said Armstrong, who didn’t. “What?”

“Guy with a flamethrower sneaking up on that house,” Reisen answered.

“Is that what it is?” Armstrong said. “Well, no wonder we’re supposed to keep ’em busy, then.”

The only drawback to a flamethrower was that the fellow who used it had to get close to his target before opening up-and had to get close while he was lugging a tank of jellied gasoline on his back. Armstrong’s opinion was that the men who carried flamethrowers had to be nuts. If, say a tracer round hit that tank of fuel…

And one did, just when Armstrong was squeezing off a round. The fireball made him blink. “Oh, fuck,” he said softly. Nobody would ever bury that soldier, because there wouldn’t be much left of him. Armstrong hoped it was over in a hurry. He’d got hardened to a lot of war, but that was a nasty way to go. The poor bastard hadn’t had time to scream, anyhow. Maybe his silence meant something.

After the flamethrower man’s untimely demise, firing at the Mormon strongpoint eased off. That made perfect sense, as far as Armstrong was concerned. Why take a chance on getting killed when you wouldn’t accomplish anything doing it?

Yossel Reisen summed it up in four words: “So much for that.”

“Yeah. You said it.” Armstrong sagged back down into the hole they shared. “You got a cigarette?” As Reisen gave him one, the enemy machine gun cut loose with a defiant burst to tell the world its crew was alive, well, and sassy.

That machine-gun position had to go if U.S. troops were to advance. Armstrong hoped a barrel would waddle up and blast the nest to kingdom come. But barrels, even the old-fashioned waddling kind, were in short supply in Utah these days. A lot of them had gone up in flames in the house-to-house fighting in Provo. Without them, the soldiers still might have been stuck down there. But none seemed to be close by right now.

“What would you do if you were a general?” Yossel Reisen asked.

“Me? Find another line of work,” Armstrong answered. Reisen laughed but waved to show he’d really meant the question. Armstrong thought about it, then said, “Probably another guy with a flamethrower. Cheapest way there is to make those fuckers say uncle if we don’t have a barrel ready, and it doesn’t look like we do.”

He guessed wrong, which didn’t much surprise him-he’d never wanted to be a general. The powers that be decided to try shelling the machine-gun nest out of existence again. As soon as Armstrong heard the first couple of shells gurgle by overhead, he knew they weren’t just counting on explosive power to do the job this time. “Gas!” he shouted. “Gas!” He jammed the mask over his head as fast as he could. Some of those shells were bound to fall short, the artillery being what it was. And even if they didn’t, the breeze, what there was of it, came from the north, and would blow some of the poison back towards U.S. lines.

A big stretch of the world disappeared with the pig-snouted mask over his face. What was left he saw through two portholes of none too clean glass. The air tasted of rubber. He didn’t feel as if he could get quite enough of it. That was an illusion; he’d proved as much plenty of times. But he did have to work harder to suck breaths through the activated-charcoal filter cartridge, so the illusion persisted.

Sure as hell, a couple of rounds were short, which meant they came down among the soldiers stuck in front of the machine gun. Armstrong hoped they weren’t carrying what people called nerve agents. That crap could kill you if it got on your skin. Everybody had rubberized coveralls. Nobody wanted to wear them. They were unbearably hot.

With infinite caution, Armstrong stuck up his head. The machine-gun nest was catching hell, no doubt about it. With a little luck…

That officer’s whistle squealed again. “Forward!” he shouted.

“Aw, shit,” Armstrong muttered. They were going to find out if they’d got rid of the Mormons, all right. Armstrong thought of spraying Flit all over an ants’ nest. Mormons stung even harder than red ants, though.

They were harder to kill, too. The U.S. soldiers ran toward the machine-gun nest in little scuttles from one bit of cover to the next. The gun that had held them up stayed silent. Some of them, the green ones, whooped and got a little less cautious, figuring the rebel gunners were dead.

Armstrong kept his belly on the dirt and the snout of his gas mask banging the ground. He trusted Mormons no farther than he could throw them. They were as sneaky a bunch of bastards as you could imagine. He tried not to show himself as he scooted up toward that battered house.

Beside him, Yossel Reisen took no chances, either. He snaked ahead. He didn’t walk. He didn’t even crawl. He snaked on his belly, pulling himself along with his elbows.

And their wariness and distrust paid off, for the Mormons inside the machine-gun nest must have had masks and must have got them on in time. The gunners waited till they found good targets, then opened up with a savage burst that cut down half a dozen American soldiers. After that, the advance congealed. Everybody knew you couldn’t charge a well-served machine-gun nest. If armor or artillery didn’t take it out, infantry would just keep piling up corpses in front of it.

Quite suddenly, the Mormon machine gunners ceased fire. Armstrong didn’t even twitch; he suspected another nasty trick. Then somebody behind him shouted, “Flag of truce! Flag of truce coming forward!”

That didn’t make Armstrong move, either. Mormons sounded just like anybody else. They looked just like anybody else, too. And they had no trouble getting green-gray uniforms from dead or captured U.S. soldiers. They often pretended to be ordinary Americans, and they caused a lot of trouble when they did.

But a flag of truce was coming forward. The U.S. captain who carried it shouted to the men in the machine-gun nest: “I have a message for your leaders.” He had trouble being as loud as he wanted through his mask, but he managed.

“Come ahead.” The Mormon who answered was also yelling through a gas mask. “We won’t shoot as long as nobody in front of us tries moving forward.”

“Agreed,” the captain said. Waving the white flag so the rebels could see who he was, he picked his way through the wreckage, towards and then past the machine-gun nest. Other Mormons emerged from concealment that didn’t look big enough to hide a cat. One of them blindfolded the U.S. officer, which struck Armstrong as a sensible precaution. Then they led him north.