He lifted his satchel and trudged across the lawn; ahead of him, the rocky field was dotted with the figures of men who huddled, crouched and exhausted under the staring sun, or who toiled on toward the village and whatever succor they might find there. A crunching thunder of wheels was born in the south—the squeal of beaten horses. One after another four guns jounced out of the road-trough and came quaking along the ridge, the six-horse teams all dripping with dirt and foam, and men clinging crazily to the caissons. Behind each wheeled chest a long brass barrel bowed and bounced, its prolonge caught up, its muzzle low. The artillery went on toward the Chambersburg Pike; blank-eyed boys gazed carelessly at Dan as they passed. They were without coats, but each wore his little cap clapped tightly on one side of his head. As if performing some observance of ritual, a blue monkey-shape lifted his hand to his nose and wiggled his fingers at Bale as the last limber whistled past.

Dan had some difficulty in finding the wounded Irishman; the man had crept out of the sun and behind a stiff hedge of burning-bush near the steps. He was drugged by the morphia. Duffey must have given him more than one-quarter of a grain. He opened his eyes as Dan lifted him. “It’s O’Carna’s Family Resort,” he said faintly. “Don’t you forget it, friend.” He blew a damp breath from his lips, then lay back with his head sagging across Bale’s arm. The weight was quite enough; this man was heavier than he appeared to be, however many toes he had lost when the flying iron struck him. Two toes gone, Dan thought—if he’s lost two, it must be at least two ounces of his weight gone. Maybe four. He wondered how much a toe weighed, and where it went when it was shot away … He circled the upset wagon, stepped over the jack-straw rails and went down across the field.

The eternal firing had shriveled; it could not mean as much as it had meant before. At first it bludgeoned your ears and tried to break their drums, but if your ears were tough, resisting—if you would not be torn by the grind and concussion, then indeed you would triumph. The spasms, the tangling doom, each separate slam of each separate gun, all would be muted as if your brain had wrapped itself in a sound-proof shroud. You could no longer be aware of the keening bullets which strayed across the hill.