The Eternity Brigade by Stephen Goldin, Ivan Goldman

with the Chinese government.
    There would be further briefings, the men were told, about the nature of the fighting in China and the extent pf the American commitment, as well as briefings on the new weapons systems. But this briefing had lasted most of the afternoon, and it was now time for dinner. There was only so much these men could be expected to absorb this quickly.
    The next day began the same way, with a painful physical therapy session. The men were feeling much stronger, however, and afterward they were led into an exercise yard, where they were reunited with the rest of the volunteers from other wards. There was great rejoicing when people saw that their friends had also survived the experiment; even the normally taciturn Hawker let out a whoop at seeing Green and Symington again for the first time since his awakening.
    The three friends compared their waking experiences and complained about the food. Green remarked that the “chicken broth” was an insult to chickens the world over, and that his grandmother would spin in her grave if she knew he’d been drinking it. The men were allowed little time for chatting, though; a tough old drill sergeant named Jenks—whom everyone promptly termed “Jinx”—came out and gave them a series of calisthenics that drove them all to the brink of exhaustion.
    The days passed. The men were introduced to the new weapons, including laser rifles and satellite-guided bullets, whose trajectories could actually be altered by instructions from a spy-satellite. The men took these developments in stride; what mattered to them the most was that there had not been similar great advances in the army’s food preparation technology.
    By the end of the two weeks, Hawker felt in better condition than ever before. His fears about this project had melted away to the point where he was actually looking forward to combat duty. It was something he knew, something he could cope with. The world was no stranger than it had been before.
    The only negative note was sounded by Green early in their second week of recuperation. During a short pause in the exercise period, the young man looked around the yard and frowned. “Hawk, how many of us were there the morning we all got frozen?”
    “Seventy-nine, I think. Why?”
    “That’s what I thought. There are only seventy-seven of us here now, and as far as I can remember that’s all there’s been since we woke up. I wonder what happened to the other two.”
    A chill went down Hawker’s spine. The army had been emphasizing how pleased it was with the success of the project, and how it had exceeded all their expectations—but never was it stated that the project was free of mishaps. Had two men actually died during the experiment, or had they perhaps merely been awakened early because of some malfunction of their equipment? It was a question he never learned the answer to —and to make matters worse, no matter how hard he strained his memory he could not remember which two men were no longer a part of the group. They had simply vanished from his universe as though they’d never been. Over time,a legend grew up among the volunteers about the two “ghost soldiers” who haunted their ranks.
     
    ***
     
    At the end of the two weeks, when the volunteers had fully recovered from their long sleep, they were sent to China as promised. Once there, their group was broken up and distributed among other outfits.
    Hawker’s new unit was a convoy detail escorting shipments of arms and supplies to outlying districts. Hawker and the team assigned to him were supposed to ride shotgun and make sure the equipment was delivered to the proper people—or, if an ambush developed, to blow up the trucks and make certain the supplies did not end up in enemy hands. Hawker was given the authority to kill as many of his men and destroy as much of the convoy as necessary—and that scared him.
    He was scared, too, by the responsibilities of command that were suddenly