War In Different Periods Of Different Timelines

"...whether the cause be good, bad, or indifferent, the human flesh caught in the middle is just as dead and maimed, the wealth is just as wasted."

-Poul Anderson, Foreword IN Seven Conquests (New York, 1970), pp. 9-10 AT p. 10.

This is a persistent Andersonian point and we recall two echoing events -

Diaz remembers men:

"...who stared without immediate comprehension at a red spurt which a second ago had been an arm or a leg..."

-"Kings Who Die," pp. 35-36.

Manse Everard sees a "...burly Italian peasant...":

"...staring without belief at the stump of an arm..."

-Poul Anderson, "Delenda Est" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 173-228 AT 8, p. 223.

And they are not alone. Diaz also remembers:

breath and blood from bursting helmets;

the shuddering, vomiting and defecation of radiation sickness;

gassing the insane because insanity catches in space.

The Italian peasant sits beside a Carthaginian slinger feebly pulling at a javelin in his stomach.

"War is hell."