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said, “you look like you’ve put on a couple of pounds since yesterday.” He looked Freeze in the eye. “Maybe you had an extra helping of ham and mothers? Or maybe the entire platoon gave you their cookies?”
    Freeze stood there a moment. For some reason he was suddenly sleepy. He wanted to lie down and go to sleep right there on the floor of the hootch.
    â€œI’m talking to you, Private,” Reynolds said.
    Freeze just stood there. He was so tired he didn’t even have the energy to lie.
    â€œSo you did do it,” Reynolds said. Then he put his face in Freeze’s. “I’m going to report this little incident to Captain Arnold, and I’m going to recommend that you receive an Article 15. If I have my way, he’ll bust your ass to E-1.” Reynolds sneered. “But until then you can party. How does filling sandbags sound for starters?”
    A mortar shell had blasted through the first layer of sandbags during the attack and ripped into the second layer, spilling sand like guts. It would take hours to fill enough sandbags to repair the bunker, and it was going to be another hundred and ten degree day. Already the sun was burning off the puddles left by the rain.
    Freeze stared at the blue vein that popped out on Reynolds’ forehead, between his eyes, a perfect target. “It sounds like shit,” he heard someone say. It was a second before he realized he was the one who said it.
    Reynolds stiffened.
    â€œWhat did you say, pogue?”
    Freeze said, “Cut me some slack.”
    Reynolds’ eyes narrowed. “Maybe one Article 15 isn’t enough for you, Harris. Maybe you’d like another.”
    Freeze stared at him. He was trying to hate him, trying to recapture the way he’d felt when he stole the steaks, but he couldn’t get it back. He wanted it back desperately, but it wouldn’t come. After a moment he looked down.
    â€œNo, I didn’t think you’d want any more,” Reynolds said then, stepping back and smiling. “I figured you’d had enough.”
    The rest of that morning, Freeze filled sandbags in the dizzying heat, his back and shoulders aching, while a fat-ass MP named Hulsey stood by the bunker, throwing his walnut baton into the air and catching it. He was trying to see how many times he could spin the baton and still catch it. So far his record was six revolutions. Whenever he dropped the baton, he’d say “Uncle fucking Ho” and spit. Freeze stood, stretching his stiff back, and watched the MP fling the baton. He shook his head. He’d come halfway around the world to watch a man toss a baton into the air and try to catch it. And the MP had made the same trip to watch a man shovel sand. Freeze wanted to tell him how crazy it was, maybe suggest they go get a beer, but the MP caught the baton and said, “ Seven . A new record! Let’s hear it for the boy from Brooklyn.” Freeze turned back to his work.
    He finished repairing the bunker just before noon. He thought the brown-bar was done with him then, but after lunch, Reynolds gave him more scutwork to do. He mopped the barracks, unloaded ammo crates from a deuce-and-a-half truck, and then helped carry the wounded from medevac helicopters, humping stretchers down the metal ramp to the deck, where medics sorted the living from the dead. He was so exhausted from working in the heat that he could barely stand in the prop wash of the helicopters. He staggered in the hot wind, gravel swarming around him, stinging like hornets, and felt his hatred for Reynolds rise almost to madness. He knew Reynolds was just making an example of him, using him to prove to the others that he was in charge and wouldn’t take any shit, and he knew he’d back off as soon as he felt he’d made his point. But Freeze didn’t care. He still hated him. The bastard had treated him like a dead man’s turd ever since he came. He’d