their guns.
I got to my feet. Stood up straight. Wiped dust out of my eyes.
Stepped over to the iron door. Saw the bright crater my gun had
made. I knew Marshall had to be either standing in the south
window looking for me running or standing in the west window
looking for me dead behind the wreckage. I knew he was tall
and I knew he was right-handed. I fixed an abstract target in my
mind. Moved my left hand and put it on the door knob. Waited.
The next shells were fired so close that I heard boom whump
boom whump with no pause in between. I pulled the door and
stepped inside. Marshall was right there in front of me. He
was facing away, looking south, framed by the brightness of
the window. I aimed at his right shoulder blade and pulled the
trigger and a shell took the roof off the hut. The room was
instantly full of dust and I was hit by falling beams and
corrugated sheets and stung by fragments of flying concrete. I
went down on my knees. Then I collapsed on my front. I was
pinned. I couldn’t see Marshall. I heaved myself back up on my
knees and flailed my arms to fight off the debris. The dust was
sucking upward in a ragged spiral and I could see bright blue
sky above me. I could hear tank tracks all around me. Then I heard another boom whump and the front corner of the hut blew
away. It was there, and then it wasn’t. It was solid, and then it
was a spray of grey dust coming towards me at the speed of
sound. A gale of dusty air whipped after it and knocked me off
my feet again.
386
I struggled back up and crawled forward. Just butted my way
through fallen beams and lumps of broken concrete. I threw
twisted sheets of roofing iron aside. I was like a plough. Like a
bulldozer, grinding forward, piling debris to the left and right of
me. There was too much dust to see anything except the
sunlight. It was right there in front of me. Brightness ahead,
darkness behind. I kept on going.
I found the Mag-10. Its barrel was crushed. I threw it aside
and ploughed on. Found Marshall on the floor. He wasn’t
moving. I pulled stuff off him and grabbed his collar and hauled
him up into a sitting position. Dragged him forward until I came
to the front wall. I put my back against it and slid upright until I
felt the window aperture. I was choking and spitting dust. It was
in my eyes. I dragged him upward and hauled him over the
window sill and dumped him out. Then I fell out after him. Got
up on my hands and knees and grabbed his collar again and
dragged him away. Outside the hut the dust was clearing.
I could see tanks, maybe three hundred yards to the left
and right of us. Lots of tanks. Hot metal in the harsh sunlight.
They had outflanked us. They were holding in a perfect circle,
engines idling, guns flat, aiming over open sights. I heard boom
whump again and saw bright muzzle flash from one of them and
saw it pitch backward from the recoil. I saw its shell pass right
over us. I saw it in the air. Heard it break the sound barrier with
a crack like a neck snapping. Heard it smash into the remains
of the hut. Felt more dust and concrete shower down on my
back. I went down on my face and lay still, trapped in no man’s
land.
Then another tank fired. I saw it jerk backward from the
recoil. Seventy tons, smashed back so hard its front end came
right up in the air. Its shell screamed overhead. I started
moving again. I dragged Marshall behind me and crawled
through the dirt like I was swimming. I had no idea what he
had said on the radio. No idea what his orders had been. He
had to have told them he was moving out. Maybe he had told
them to disregard the Humvees. Maybe that explained their say
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