“About ten hours,” one of the brahmins told me.
“How did I die?”
“Don’t you remember?” the tallest brahmin asked.
“Not yet.”
“Well,” the tallest brahmin said, “you were with your platoon in Trench 2645B-4. At dawn your entire company made a frontal attack, trying to capture the next trench. Number 2645B-5.”
“And what happened?” I asked.
“You stopped a couple of machine gun bullets. The new kind with the shock heads. Remember now? You took one in the chest and three more in the legs. When the medics found you, you were dead.”
“Did we capture the trench?” I asked.
“No. Not this time.”
“I see.” My memory was returning rapidly as the anesthetic wore off. I remembered the boys in my platoon. I remembered our trench. Old 2645B-4 had been my home for over a year, and it was pretty nice as trenches go. The enemy had been trying to capture it, and our dawn assault had been a counterattack, really. I remembered the machine gun bullets tearing me into shreds, and the wonderful relief I had felt when they did. And I remembered something else, too ...
I sat upright. “Hey, just a minute!” I said.
“What’s the matter?”
“I thought eight hours was the upper limit for bringing a man back to life.”
“We’ve improved our techniques since then,” one of the brahmins told me. “We’re improving them all the time. Twelve hours is the upper limit now, just as long as there isn’t serious brain damage.”
“Good for you,” I said. Now my memory had returned completely, and I realized what had happened. “However, you made a serious mistake in bringing me back.”
“What’s the beef, soldier?” one of them asked in that voice only officers get.
“Read my dogtags,” I said.
He read them. His forehead, which was all I could see of his face, became wrinkled. He said, “This is unusual!”
“Unusual!” I said.
“You see,” he told me, “you were in a whole trench full of dead men. We were told they were all first-timers. Our orders were to bring the whole batch back to life.”
“And you didn’t read any dogtags first?”
“We were overworked. There wasn’t time. I really am sorry, Private. If I’d known—”
“To hell with that,” I said. “I want to see the Inspector General.”
“Do you really think—”
“Yes, I do,” I said. “I’m no trench lawyer, but I’ve got a real beef. It’s my right to see the I.G.”
They went into a whispered conference, and I looked myself over. The brahmins had done a pretty good job on me. Not as good as they did in the first years of the war, of course. The skin grafts were sloppier now, and I felt a little scrambled inside. Also my right arm was about two inches longer than the left; bad joiner-work. Still, it was a pretty good job.
The brahmins came out of their conference and gave me my clothes. I dressed. “Now, about the Inspector General,” one of them said. “That’s a little difficult right now. You see—”
Needless to say, I didn’t see the I.G. They took me to see a big, beefy, kindly old Master Sergeant. One of those understanding types who talks to you and makes everything all right. Except that I wasn’t having any.
“Now, now, Private,” the kindly old sarge said. “What’s this I hear about you kicking up a fuss about being brought back to life?”
“You heard correct,” I said. “Even a private soldier has his rights under the Articles of War. Or so I’ve been told.”
“He certainly does,” said the kindly old sarge.
“I’ve done my duty,” I said. “Seventeen years in the army, eight years in combat. Three times killed, three times brought back. The orders read that you can requisition death after the third time. That’s what I did, and it’s stamped on my dogtags. But I wasn’t left dead. Those damned medics brought me back to life again, and it isn’t fair. I want to stay dead.”
“It’s much better staying alive,” the sarge said. “Alive, you always have a chance of being rotated back to noncombat duties. Rotation isn’t working very fast on account of the man-power shortage. But there’s still a chance.”
“I know,” I said. “But I think I’d just as soon stay dead.”
“I think I could promise you that in six months or so—”
“I want to stay dead,” I said firmly. “After the third time, it’s my privilege under the Articles of War.”
“Of course it is,” the kindly old sarge said, smiling at me, one soldier to another. “But mistakes happen in wartime. Especially in a war like this.” He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “I remember when the thing started. It sure looked like a push-button affair when it started. But both us and the Reds had a full arsenal of anti-missile-missiles, and that pretty well deadlocked the atomic stuff. The invention of the atomic damper clinched it. That made it a real infantry affair.”
“I know, I know.”
“But our enemies outnumbered us,” the kindly old sarge said.
“They still do. All those millions and millions of Russians and Chinese! We had to have more fighting men. We had to at least hold our own. That’s why the medics started reviving the dead.”
“I know all this. Look, Sarge, I want us to win. I want it bad. I’ve been a good soldier. But I’ve been killed three times, and—”
“The trouble is,” the sarge said, “the Reds are reviving their dead, too. The struggle for manpower in the front lines is crucial right now. The next few months will tell the tale, one way or the other. So why not forget about all this? The next time you’re killed, I can promise you’ll be left alone. So let’s overlook it this time.”
“I want to see the Inspector General,” I said.
“All right, Private,” the kindly old sarge said, in a not very friendly tone. “Go to Room 303.”
I went to 303, which was an outer office, and I waited. I was feeling sort of guilty about all the fuss I was kicking up. After all, there was a war on. But I was angry, too. A soldier has his rights, even in a war. Those damned brahmins ...
It’s funny how they got that name. They’re just medics, not Hindus or Brahmins or anything like that. They got the name because of a newspaper article a couple years ago, when all this was new. The guy who wrote the article told about how the medics could revive dead men now, and make them combat-worthy. It was pretty hot stuff then. The writer quoted a poem by Emerson. The poem starts out—
If the red slayer thinks he slays,
Or if the slain thinks he is
slain,
They know not well the subtle
ways.
I keep, and pass, and turn
again.
That’s how things were. You could never know, when you killed a man, whether he’d stay dead, or be back in the trenches shooting at you the next day. And you didn’t know whether you’d stay dead or not if you got killed. Emerson’s poem was called “Brahma,” so our medics got to be called brahmins.
Being brought back to life wasn’t bad at first. Even with the pain, it was good to be alive. But you finally reach a time when you get tired of being killed and brought back and killed and brought back. You start wondering how many deaths you owe your country, and if it might not be nice and restful staying dead a while. You look forward to the long sleep.
The authorities understood this. Being brought back too often was bad for morale. So they set three revivals as the limit. After the third time you could choose rotation or permanent death. The authorities preferred you to choose death; a man who’s been dead three times has a very bad effect on the morale of civilians. And most combat soldiers preferred to stay dead after the third time.
But I’d been cheated. I had been brought back to life for the fourth time. I’m as patriotic as the next man, but this I wasn’t going to stand for.