“…until the end of the line.”

The towheaded boy nodded with the solemn gravitas of someone far older than he. So many wizened children these days, two years into the war. Throw a stick in any crowd and you’d be sure to hit one. Is that offensive? Pardon me, but isn’t war offensive as well?

“And remember —”

The woman – who looked too young to be a mother, by the way, and certainly too young to be the mother of what appeared to be a seven-year-ol...