The path tapers down to a flat clear spot shored with talings and boulders. From there, it angles in forks to the right where it descends, diverted around the high iron promontory facing us. The shoulders on all sides are fringed with enormous basalt rocks. Rounding the shoulder there are other men walking towards us and into our ranks shouts rise on all sides and I see blackbirds’ shocked faces uniforms and the world blows apart in explosions of gunfire as I turn see one of our men run twist in air head whirl on his neck and fall in a heap I scramble to one side ducking my head. The lieutenant is just ahead of me pitching headlong behind the rocks. I shove in behind him and lower my head nearly to the ground, shots rebounding against the stone, spatter the higher boulders behind me, their noise punctuating the more continuous howling of the men who cry in surprise, alarm, dismay, pain, sudden fright. A spray of gravel patters on my back I turn and see Silichieh, who had been relieving himself in among the rocks, dashing forward between them in a crouch, holding his trousers together with one hand and homing in on the lieutenant. Looking about me, I see the captain standing impossibly by the shoulder in firing range posture, left hand on his belt buckle, shoulders and hips following the arm, legs akimbo, aiming firing and aiming his pistol with a kind of shining boldness, golden hair and regimental uniform. I fold myself backwards as the lieutenant continues to crawl for cover and I am on my side, in the dust looking out at chaos of fog and jets of gunsmoke I have for a moment the bizarre thought that I see dawn haze over high tiled roofs, a willow tree glazing with the pale light of a chilly winter sunrise. A moment ago we were simply walking along together—now my friends and companions are lying dead on every side—not ten feet from me a forearm lies spreading blood—I hear screams from forms dashed to the ground, while over me the sky is cool, the day made beautiful by the fog, the hills roll placidly off into the distance. I lie here in a nightmare while all around me the world continues tranquilly.