The wild-faced boy had stopped beyond a heap of stones at the fence corner. He was on his knees beside a flat mound—a man who wore a tight, yellow-trimmed jacket drenched with winy stains. His legs kept bending and straightening again as if they worked an invisible treadmill. “Ike!” gasped the boy. He slopped a handful of water across the soldier’s face. Ike. The man had been shot in the jaw; a few strands of damp beard hung down, dotted with fragments of white teeth; his mouth was a spongy red well from which curdling streams trickled along each cheek. “Oh, my God,” said the boy beside him. “Do something, mister! This here’s my brother.” The wounded soldier said ull, and his knees began to relax. “Our Father which art in heaven hallow’d be Thy name—” the boy shouted. He raised his dirty face and stared at Dan with wild blue eyes. “Oh, look at him. Oh, my God. Oh…” A huge bubble formed at the opening of the shattered mouth: it broke, spattering the face above with a sticky spray. The long, yellow-striped legs stretched across the grass, the outflung hands cupped lazily. The man lay very still, his eyes looking at the smoke which spread reluctantly toward the zenith. “Oh, he’s dead. God, oh, my God,” cried his brother. He began to whine, beating his fists against his knees … Farther up the campus, a hoarse query: “How about some of that water over here, friend?”

Dan heard a voice, deep and calm, say, “Right away.” It was his own voice, he knew now, but it seemed as if he were standing back in the dooryard, gazing at this hill, this looming academy where so many theological doctrines had been learned. He thought: Elijah should have waited. He’d have had fighting enough, right here … He wondered where Elijah had gone, and how it was with him; then he found himself the center of muddling men, who sobbed and gulped as they strove to suck the water from groping palms. He left the bucket with them, and went on toward the higher ground. Increasing, peppery with burnt powder, the smoke sagged in murky strands. Someone called, “Non-combatants to the rear!” but when Bale turned he could see no one beckoning at him.