"Well, if that's really the way you feel," he sighed, lying back again, "then there's nothing worse I can wish on you than to be exactly the fuckhead you so obviously are."

"Barbarian! Infidel!"

"You'll run out of expletives soon; I'd advise saving some for later. Not that keeping forces in reserve has ever been precisely you guys" strong point, has it?"

"We will crush you!"

"Hey; I'm crushed, I'm crushed." He waved one hand languidly. "Now back off."

The woman howled and shook the small chair.

Maybe, he thought, I ought to be thankful for the chance to be away from the responsibilities of command, the minute-to-minute changes in conditions that the fools couldn't deal with themselves and that bogged you down as surely as the mud; the continual flood of reports of units immobilised, washed away, deserting, cut off, retreating from vital positions, yelling for help, for relief, for reinforcements, more trucks, more tanks, more rafts, more food, more radios… past a certain point there was nothing he could do; he could only acknowledge, reply, turn-down, delay, order to make a stand; nothing, nothing. The reports kept on coming in, building up like a one-colour, paper mosaic of a million pieces, the picture of an army, bit-by-bit disintegrating, softened by the rain just like a sheet of paper, made soggy and tearable and gradually coming apart.

That was what he was escaping by being marooned here… yet he was not secretly thankful, he was not actually glad; he was furious and angry at being away, at leaving it all in the hands of others, of being away from the centre, from knowing what was happening. He fretted like a mother for a young son just marched off to war, driven to tears or pointless screams for the powerlessness of it, the heedless unstoppable momentum. (It struck him then that the whole process didn't really require any enemy forces at all. The battle was him and the army under his command, against the elements. A third party was superfluous.)

First the rains, then their unheard-of severity, then the landslide that had cut them off from the rest of the command convoy, then this bedraggled idiot of a would-be assassin…

He swung back upright again, held his head in his hands.

Had he tried to do too much? He had had ten hours sleep in the last week; had that clouded his mind, impaired his judgement? Or had he slept too much; might that little extra bit of wakefulness have made all the difference?

"I hope you die!" the woman's voice squawked.

He looked at her, frowning, wondering why she had interrupted his thoughts, wishing she'd shut up. Maybe he should gag her.

"You're retreating," he pointed out. "A minute ago you were telling me I would die." He slumped back on the bed.

"Bastard!" she screamed.

He looked at her, suddenly thinking that he was as much a prisoner where he lay as she was where she sat. Snot gathered under her nose again. He looked away.

He heard her snort back, then spit. He would have smiled if he'd had the strength. She showed contempt with a spit; what was her one dribble compared to the deluge that was drowning a fighting machine he had worked two years to bring together and train?

And why, why had he tied her to a chair of all things? Did he try to make chance and fate redundant by scheming against himself? A chair; a girl tied to the chajr… about the same age, maybe a little older… but the same slim figure, with a lying greatcoat that tried to pretend she was bigger, but failed. About the same age, about the same shape…

He shook his head, forcing his thoughts away from that battle, that failure.

She saw him look at her and shake his head.

"Don't you laugh at me!" she screamed, shaking backwards and forwards in the chair, furious at his scorn.

"Shut up, shut up," he said wearily. He knew it wasn't convincing, but he could not sound any more authoritative.

She shut up, remarkably.

The rains, and her; sometimes he wished he did believe in Fate. Maybe it did sometimes help to believe in Gods. Sometimes — like now, when things fell against him and every turn he took brought him up against another vicious twist of the knife, another hammering on the bruises he'd already collected — it would be comforting to think that it was all designed, all pre-ordained, all already written, and you just turned the pages of some great and inviolable book… Maybe you never did get a chance to write your own story (and so his own name, even that attempt at terms, mocked him).

He didn't know what to think; was there as petty and suffocating a destiny as some people seemed to think?

He didn't want to be here; he wanted to be back where the busy to-and-fro of t eport and command stifled all other traffic in the mind.

"You're losing; you've lost this battle, haven't you?"

He considered saying nothing, but on reflection she would take this as a sign he was weak, and so continue.

"What a penetrating insight," he sighed. "You remind me of some of the people who planned this war. Cross-eyed, stupid and static."

"I'm not cross-eyed!" she screamed, and instantly started crying, her head forced down by the weight of huge sobs that shook her body and waved the folds of the coat, making the chair creak.

Her dirty long hair hid her face, falling from her head over the wide lapels of the greatcoat; her arms were almost level with the ground, so far forward had she slumped in her crying. He wanted the strength to go over and cuddle her, or bash her brains out; anything to stop her making that unnecessary noise.

"All right, all right, you haven't got cross-eyes, I'm sorry."

He lay back with one arm thrown across his eyes, hoping he sounded convincing, but sure he sounded as insincere as he was.

"I don't want your sympathy!"

"Sorry again; I retract the retraction."

"Well… I haven't… It's just a… a slight defect, and it didn't stop the army board from taking me."

(They were also, he recalled, taking children and pensioners, but he didn't say that to the woman.) She was trying to wipe her face on the lapels of the greatcoat.

She sniffed heavily, and when she brought her head back and her hair swung away, he saw there was a large dew-drop on the tip of her nose. He got up without thinking — the tiredness shrieking in indignation — and tore a portion of the thin curtain over the bed-alcove off as he went over to her.

She saw him coming with the ragged scrap and screamed with all her might; she emptied her lungs with the effort of announcing to the rainy world outside that she was about to be murdered. She was rocking the chair, and he had to jump at it and land with one boot on one of the cross-members between the legs to stop it from tipping over.

He put the rag over her face.

She stopped struggling. She went limp, not fighting or squirming but knowing it was utterly pointless to go on doing anything.

"Good," he said, relieved, "Now, blow."

She blew.

He withdrew the rag, folded it over, put it back over her face and told her to blow again. She blew again. He folded it over again and wiped her nose, hard. She squealed; it was sore. He sighed again and threw the rag away.

He didn't lie down again because it only made him sleepy and thoughtful, and he didn't want to sleep because he felt he might never wake up, and he didn't want to think because it wasn't getting him anywhere.

He turned away and stood at the door, which was as close anywhere as it could be and still half open. Rain spattered in.

He thought of the others; the other commanders. Damn; the only other one he trusted was Rogtam-Bar, and he was too junior to take charge. He hated being put into positions like this, coming in on an already established command structure, usually corrupt, usually nepotistic, and having to take so much on himself that any absence, any hesitation, even any rest, gave the clueless froth-heads around him a chance to fuck things up even further. But then, he told himself, what General was ever totally happy with the command he took over?