"Vasili! Vasili!" shouted the loader. "Shell! Shell!"

He snapped to and rejoined the rhythm of the crew.

"The river is flooding. I saw it when the lightning flashed!" Vasili shouted quickly to the loader when he handed him a round. The guns roared as one.

"Those last three weren't lightning!" the loader screamed. "They're shooting back at us!"

Vasili was reaching down to grab a spent shell casing when another flash and explosion hit thirty meters from #1, knocking him off balance.

"Reload, reload, reload!" screamed Hoxa, flailing his riding crop in the charged air. "Fire at will!"

The number one gun fell silent but the rest fired in unsynchronized disorder as soon as each breech locked closed. Night turned into day as flashes constantly broke around them. The explosions from the incoming shells, the lightning, and the outgoing shells assaulted their senses as an indistinguishable chaotic chorus of destruction. It sounded like the earth was being dismantled.

Vasili worked faster, keeping one eye on the dwindling rows of ammunition and one eye on the river that swallowed the empty casings as fast as he could heave them.

Captain Hoxa made a quick circuit of the squads before climbing on top of the quiet #1 gun, binoculars in hand. The trigger man for the silent gun lay face down in the mud, the cord still wrapped around his lifeless hand.

Vasili's ears, partially deafened and somewhat adjusted to the constant explosions, began to pick up a faint yet distinct sound, a sound that shouldn't have been there amidst the tumult. Pinging. He concentrated on the sound in an effort to block out the fear that clung to him like a shadow. 'Ping P-Ping Ping-ping Ping.' The ethereal sound got clearer and the chaos fuzzier, the harder he focused. Adrenalin coursed through his veins. He grabbed each shell tighter and threw each casing farther as the sound of the surreal scene around him slowly went silent. Flashes came with concussions but no sound. Vasili kept an eye out for the source of the pinging while he worked and the guns took on a comical feel as they silently bucked and blew fire. 'Ping ping P-ping.' Each time a trigger man jerked on his cord, another ping. 'Ping Ping Ping.' It was the spring activated, thumb-sized firing pins striking the backs of the shells inside the guns. It didn't seem possible that he could hear them, but the striking pins rang out clearly, like a crew of blacksmiths working on an anvil at the edge of town.

"They're coming for us!" Hoxa screamed. His voice jolted Vasili back to the pandemonium around him. "They're coming!" Hoxa jumped off the wet gun awkwardly and landed spread eagle in the mud next to the fallen trigger man. He got up, undaunted and slapped each remaining trigger man with his crop as he ran by. All four held fire, rubbed at stinging welts under their uniforms and watched the captain for orders.