“We'll be moving out again. Infantry always gets the worst of it.” The lieutenant lit a cigarette. “But, God, I wish the campaign was over.”

“What for? We'll just have to write the history when it is. That's always the worst time.”

“I'm Morehouse Professor of Latent History at the Osmond Institute…. This professorship deals with events that almost took place, events that definitely took place but remained unseen and unremarked on, … and events that probably took place but were definitely not chronicled…. One of the major thrusts of latent history is to avoid a narrow purview. We're presently assembling evidence about the French Revolution indicating that a dissident faction of the sans-culottes used to assemble secretly under cover of dark for the sole purpose of wearing culottes…. It's axiomatic that people in the Middle Ages went to bed early. We're studying this to learn what effect it had on the Hundred Years' War dragging on for as long as it did. Latent history never tells us where we stand in the sweep of events but rather how we can get out of the way.”