Prince of Peace by James Carroll

gave no sign they knew they were being addressed.
    "That's you, Tucci," Lieutenant Barrett ordered. "Shoot them if they move. Don't wait for me to tell you."
    "Yes, sir." Tucci, poised above the scene like the statue of a hero, was not as cool as he looked. He had never fired the submachine gun in action before.
    Barrett shut the jeep engine off and hopped down. "Maguire! Brown! Let's help these people!"
    They laid their rifles aside and knelt, trying to pull the tangled bodies out from under the front bumper of the jeep. Bodies were piled there three and four deep, like, Maguire thought, in a concentration camp. At first none seemed alive, but as they pulled, some victims began to move. The cries grew louder. The vehicle had come to rest right on the railroad tracks. One poor bastard's head was crushed against the rail.
    Maguire retched, but he only turned his head aside. He, Brown and the lieutenant worked steadily to free the people, to drag the corpses away and to try to comfort the ones who were alive.
    One little girl, a shattered but howling figurine, was strapped to her dead mother's back. Her mother's neck was broken, and her expressionless face was perversely askew on her shoulders. Maguire freed the girl, who was barely more than an infant. When he stood up with her he found himself facing Lieutenant Barrett. The officer seemed suddenly horrified. "Jesus Christ," he whispered while staring at the bawling child in Maguire's arms. "What have I done?"
    Maguire buried the baby's face against his chest. It was how he'd held that rabbit. He wanted to say, "We all did it, Lieutenant," but he couldn't.
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    The crowd was still at bay and the bridge was clear when the train arrived. It pulled into view behind the scolding sound of its own engine and Maguire wanted to feel relief, but he had maintained his nerve up to then only by blanking out his ability to feel anything. He had spent the time trying to comfort the injured civilians, applying first aid, wrapping them in GI blankets, clearing stones from under them, wiping their faces. He realized that he'd begun to imitate their stoicism.
    He had to remind himself that now he was going to leave. The train had come, in a way, for him.
    "Move that jeep!"
    Maguire looked around to see who Lieutenant Barrett was addressing, but he was nearer to the jeep than anyone. It was still blocking the track, and the engine was steaming steadily closer. He hopped aboard the jeep, pushed the ignition button, and fiddled with the gear stick until he found reverse. He had to gas the engine to get the wheels over the iron rail. As he backed away from the track he continued to gun it instead of stopping; suddenly he knew that he wanted only to get away. He saw what he had in common with those Koreans, not stoicism, but heart only for escape. He careened backward in that jeep toward the riverbank, as if escape was waiting for him there.
    Maguire would hear it said later that some men were made more acutely conscious by the bleak experiences of war, and it was true that his ability to see and smell and hear the minutiae of violence was heightened. But his ability to organize his perceptions into a coherent whole in which he was more than a detached observer abandoned him utterly. As far as he could recall he was barely aware throughout that episode of his own choices or even of his own reactions. It was a mad thing to do, for example, to send that jeep shooting off the edge of the cliff. It tumbled down the hundred feet of rocky incline and burst into flames just before it plunged through the ice. The gasoline fire was extinguished as quickly as it had ignited.
    And Maguire, as if he'd practiced for a stunt show, had leapt free at the last instant, landed in a crouch facing the river, and watched until the jeep disappeared under a plume of steam. "Fucking thing," he said.
    "Maguire! Maguire!"
    The engine and tender were just crossing onto the bridge. The platoon was scrambling aboard. Sergeant