“Don’t look,” said Bellair, and I had no idea what he was talking about. It was gibberish, and I wondered whether my friend had contracted Soldier’s Heart and lost his mind. But then Bellair said, “Hold this,” and gestured to the end of a strip of cloth he’d torn from Henke’s sleeve, what was left of it.
“Oh God, please shoot me,” Henke said. Bellair and I looked at each other with questions on our faces: How and why us?
“You’ll be okay,” I said, trying to calm him. “It’s your left hand, anyway.”
“Kill me,” chanted Henke. “Killmekillme,” over and over. His voice seemed so reasonable, so mundane. He stood back up then, swaying like a great tree. We were now separated by time and space from the rest of the regiment. Henke seemed a sort of beacon, a target standing lonely on the battlefie
