Chance Truscott said. “Don’t look so bad?” Rex Fannon raised his bandaged hand, wincing. “I only got two fingers left, Cap’n!” “Two fingers and a thumb,” Truscott reminded him. “I’ve seen men do with less.” “Easy for you to say, still sportin’ ten.” “Your wounds are badges of honor,” said Truscott. Same speech he’d made to mutilated members of the Texas Invincibles—Company K of the Ragged Old First Infantry—during wartime. It turned out that they weren’t invincible at all, with most of the ones who managed to survive scattering bits and pieces of themselves on battlefields so far from home they didn’t understand what they were doing there. Truscott himself had managed to come through unscathed, at least in body, and had soon discovered that the long war wasn’t over yet. Fannon was simmering with pain and anger, needed someplace to unleash it, but he wasn’t fit for battle at the moment.
