Shivering, he hauled a blanket around him and with his shoulders against a sandbag, lit a cigarette. As his lighter flared he noticed his squashed, grease-pocked helmet; sleepily, he reached for it and placed it across his lap, pressing it down, making it a part of him. One hand holding his pack of cigarettes, the other bringing a cigarette to his mouth, he tried to think.
It seemed to him that he had dreamed during the night.
The tip of the cigarette glowed encouragingly.
Yes, he had dreamed about the library tower, the chimes, the sounds travelling down the hill slopes, down toward Lake Cayuga, the tower and the sounds blurring. Kids were sitting in the library, at long tables, faces, faces. There seemed to be an elm tree at the far end of the reading room, snow, lake ...
He tried to remember the sound of those chimes.
Huddled against sandbags, he drowsed and as he drowsed he saw a campfire in the woods somewhere, students standing around the fire, some of them singing. A guy was playing his harmonica, muting his music by cupping both hands over the instrument ...
Dennison's arms and hands had fallen asleep.
Yesterday the pace across the desert had been formidable, the heat increasing, a shortage of water, the water warm and sickening, nothing at all to eat at noon ...
He shook his hands and arms to bring back the circulation, groaning, cold, the exhaust of a tank stinking and coughing nearby. The sound brought with it the sensation of violent pitching, the distress of gasoline and oil fumes, the threat of shellfire at close range.
Shoving his sweater inside his trouser, adjusting his belt, he knelt and fished about: his helmet had rolled heedlessly and bumped against the wall: recovering it, he strapped it on, tilting it over his forehead, aware of its grime.