'The water,' he thought, handing another shell to the loader. He grabbed another casing and threw it back behind him, watching this time. The shell splashed just before a bolt of lightning crashed to the left of #1 gun, lighting up the area behind the camp. The shallow swift moving Cherna had swollen into a raging torrent. The brown silty water moved like a giant undulating snake between the tops of the river banks. Vasili stood dumbfounded through two more close flashes and watched as the river seemed to rise before his very eyes.

"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.