There had never been a need before. He was not a soldier. Not Here. Not There. But he had a helmet on now and his wife did too. And their front lawn, where they had so laboriously tried to grow green grass for the past twenty years, was now all mud, churned up from tank treads. Indeed, an enormous SuperChieftain tank was sitting right outside their front door, its crew at their battle stations, its three gigantic 188-mm antiaircraft guns pointing skyward in three different directions. Another SuperChieftain, just as big, its treads just as destructive, was sitting by their back door. A third was firmly implanted in the cabbage patch next to the house. A fourth was hidden in the apple orchard. Down by the front gate, a series of trenches had been blown out of the rocklike peat by the Special Tank Service commandos, using rubber explosives. These trenches were now bristling with two-man cannons, recoilless rifles, and antipersonnel rocket launchers. All of them were pointing down the east road, the barely paved path which led to the beach.
