Bale’s ears made a wet sound within his head. He grew against the old stones of the wall foundation, became a legal part of them. Where’s Tyler Fanning, he thought. Fire Zouaves … the wars. Number Two, Fire. A man screeched. “Son of a bitch if they’re not concentrating on us!” Yah, we’re focal. Captain Ballou came along the line again; his mouth was wrinkling above his cornsilk goatee. I should say we’ll get it presently. Voice said, a whisper born in the ruction: Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in— There goes Perkins, praying again. You let him be, Scut—if he dies ’twon’t be with no oaths on his— Ballou screamed back at Dan: “You can’t go to the rear now. They’re shortening on our guns—stay where you are until this stops!” Torpedoes blew with every stroke of the mallets: you couldn’t see the world over by Blisses’ and Pitzers’ any more. Horses squirmed, dotted all the way back to the road, heads arching and squealing, high out of the dust they were stirring around themselves. Number Three, Fire … how long, Dan thought. Twenty minutes. He didn’t know. The flint-eyed neighbor spat out a stream of blood and tobacco juice. He had been chewing the linings of his cheeks, and the diluted saliva trickled over his hard little lip. Wish I was out in front, he said. Skirmishers. They’re not getting much of this.

Ready. Between the shivering anvils. By piece. At will. Fire. Nearer reports merged together, separated again; there was no longer any Number One or Number Two or number anything. Some round object was squeezed into Bale’s hand; he looked; it was his watch. The boy grinned eerily at him. Then he squirmed nearer, to howl, “I thought I’d like to have that! But I think I’m going to glory this time. I had a feeling. Can’t take no watch along with me.” He choked in the smoke, and hitched away. Bale looked at the watch, then it seemed that the roof of his head had flown apart, and a mist of blood was in his eyes. The men were all gagging, blinded by that sound, that splintering crash which blew a hole fairly through the sky.

He managed to turn his head. Red still wiggled across the salty landscape, but when the smoke thinned he could see that the caisson where the officer had stood was gone—forever vanished, and there existed only a tangled sprawl of cloth and earth and dripping spokes, with one cannon barrel up-ended at the side. Chariot of fire … forty-five minutes. An hour. An hour of days, with the fields blowing up like crops of geysers, and the whole insane asylum of horses telling their Creator what he had done to them.