Clancy waved them on toward the sound. The corporal in the spectacles looked around and reached out and threw an arm around the trunk of a fire-barked pine. Carmen walked over, ignoring the spacing, and said something to him. The corporal took off his glasses, wiped them on an end of his scarf, and then, as though everything had been explained, pushed at the tree for leverage and stumbled forward.
Ahead it grew much lighter. Nakedly light. Lieutenant Clancy had paused at the edge of a firebreak. He stood behind the best tree he could find, and the others dressed up to him and tried to merge with other trees. It was as stiff and formal as a high-school pageant when everybody, astoundingly, has found the right chalk mark on the floor and is looking in disbelief and consternation toward the
