Cavendish seemed near tears. He drank the whisky himself, then turned back to the machine.
"What are you up to now?"
"I'm looking for a suitable crisis point." The screen wavered, then filled with a group of men in uniform—heavy winter garb. They were clustered around a small fire in a cave; one seemed to be heating coffee in a tin can. Johnson sucked in his breath.
"You know what is going to happen?"
"Yes, dammit! You're a devil!"
"Perhaps." He sighed. "I sometimes wonder.... But no matter." He adjusted the picture, and events flowed forward a few hours. The soldiers were now at the base of a snow-covered hill. Above them, gaunt and bare, the timber-line beckoned with obscenely stretching limbs.
Suddenly a flare shot up from someplace to the right of the little band. Its eerie glare picked out unexpected shadows among the trees above. One of the soldiers, facing the prospect of near and immediate personal death for the first time in his life, panicked and began spraying the tree-line with his grease gun. Branches and splinters of wood kicked out, until the Sergeant reached out and slapped the gun from the boy's arms.
The men waited until an unheard signal sounded; then the Sergeant waved them on up the hill. Slowly, cautiously at first, they made progress through the protecting trees. But then they reached the timber-line and froze. Cursing, the Sergeant moved from man to man, shoving them out of the false protection. At last he came to the boy who had fired earlier. Just as the older man placed his hand on the boy's shoulder, the boy twisted and broke away, running madly down the hill....
"That's enough, damn you!"