Kevin's Watch

A quarter of a million soldiers staggered in ragged formation along a dirt road whose ruts had long since turned into a quagmire. Each man's world was reduced to the tiny space around his own body - the tramping of hobnailed sandals, the dripping of water from helmet into eyes, the cold armor of the soldier in front of him, which he touched with his hand for reassurance that he was still following the right path in the darkness. As often as a soldier may train and drill with his legion, as far as he may march in close formation with a thousand comrades, as fiercely as he may fight as part of a vast body of troops, in the end, his survival depends not on his fellows or his enemies but on himself alone. No other man can endure for him the cold rain trickling down his back, the stabbing pain in his thigh where the spear point remains embedded, or the deep fear in his gut that this night, this night of agony and exhaustion, this last night, might not yield to dawn.