The hillside marred with rags of flame. Dan ran against fence rails: he wanted to cry, wait, hold on, I’m not one of them. He tumbled between the rails and landed in a trodden lane. The world began to come apart with spiteful luminosity, ahead and at his side … if they’ll stop that yell until I get past the lines. He plunged across an angular bowlder and a spray of dirt stung his face. Lie down, lie down until it stops. A freakish weight of human flesh fell upon him and smashed the air from his lungs. Bale drew up his legs, he could not sob, his chest was killing him, his arms flailing out on each side. The other man had picked himself up and was rattling on.

God damn, a monster roared amid the crackling orange. Keep to that wall. Lieber Gott, keep to that—hold it, men, hold— And even in the anguish of empty lungs, Dan distinguished the individual report which wrapped itself around that voice and wiped it out. The noise picked up another combatant and hurled him among the stones; he suffered momentary pneumonia and died of it. Bale wrenched his head from side to side; now he felt clean air coming into his body, cold-water air, it was drowning him happily.

He wept, Well, had I known this would happen … the hill went up and down, trying to shake off the mange of rifle flashes and the yipping orders … well away from the wall, sir. Sky opened in one doomed, terrific split. Dan’s eyes went shut and he felt the sides of his head twitching—felt the little membranes of his ears thrilling and lacerated, collapsing at last beneath the oppression put upon them.

Cannot stay here, cannot stay— She insists that I tell my lie.

He struggled up, on his elbows; a body was lying across his feet. He dragged one foot out and shoved with the other, and the limp weight rolled over into a depth beyond. Agonized nations squawked continually: Don’t lettum get those guns. Now he had his ears again; he could hear. Don’t lettum get those guns. In all the knife-thrusts of fire, he recognized that the vitality, the heart of it, breathed in the crags directly ahead. They made a thick barricade with their screeching, a dam through which other noises tried to cut. Don’t lettum whooooo don’t lettum Rickett whooooo lettum … they were a circus of panthers let loose, and the flattened bullets squealed off on every side. The frantic nations were throwing stones, breathing and sweating and hurling them as they howled, the stones cracking as they struck the lower bowlders. A blue spray went sky-high in front of Dan Bale; he felt the angry smart of a fist in his face. Got shot, said a stolid pronouncement, and he lay flat and listened to it.

Chapter 7

7.