Articles of War by Nick Arvin Page A

spine, eye. There were so many possibilities. He presented a huge target. His entire body ached in an anticipatory tension. Traversing half a block in this way—with a horribly heightened sense of expectation and every movement and every sensible element of the surroundings given fearful, vicious attention—seemed to require a period of time longer than Heck’s entire preceding life. Yet as he continued ahead, he also began to feel also a certain dim pride.
    Then a new noise: a fluttering whistling with a rapid crescendo ended by a massive detonation. The building beside Heck lit and shook, dropping a cascade of bricks that broke into skittering fragments at his feet. Reflexively he fled in the opposite direction, but he had gone no more than a couple of paces before the building there erupted with an explosion. He stood in the middle of the street, gripping his useless rifle. The sniper was firing again. Several people were shouting. Another explosion illuminated a form that might have been the corporal, waving his hands in the air, and Heck ran toward him. Another shell crashed into the first building, and the entire wall along the street collapsed with a noise like the pounding of an enormous wave. A great foaming of dust welled up and Heck could see nothing—his eyes burned and filled with tears when he tried to open them. But he could understand the corporal’s shouting now: “Dig in over there! Over there! Get off the Goddamn street!” Heck stumbled into someone. His elbow was seized and he was turned and shoved. “That way!” Heck fell three times, and the third time his hands landed in soft, turned soil. He got up and moved ahead a little farther, then collapsed, fumbled the entrenching tool from his web belt, and began to dig blindly. The explosions continued but were at least behind him now, among the buildings. The noise was horrendous. He dug into the earth but hardly knew what he was doing. It was as if his conscious mind had crawled away into some corner from which it could cast out an occasional, fearful glance while his body operated under the command of instincts that Heck had not known existed.
    Finally he had gouged a shallow hole into the earth and curled himself inside it. He wiped at the dirt and dust on his face and tugged at his helmet strap, elated by the fact of his survival. He had come under combat fire and he was still alive here in this wonderful dirt hole. He’d been frightened, but now he was okay. He was alive; it was a shocking and fabulous thing, to be alive.
    But then the enemy artillery shells began to locate the field and land around him. The first blast threw a blanket of dirt over him and knocked him violently against the side of his shallow hole. Fear returned and consumed all other thoughts. Further blasts hurled him back and forth. The noise was like nothing he had ever experienced before, a noise such as might be used to herald the beginning of a terrible new world, and now, as he was bodily shaken and thrown by this wracking of the earth, there was no time, no memory, no future, no self, no control or sense beyond fear. He was reduced to the purest sensation of that single, awful fear.
    Time passed; the artillery attack continued. Consciousness came again in the faint thought that he should have dug his hole deeper. He became aware that he was crying, in great sobs. He made no effort to control them. He could not move his legs. He discovered they were buried in thrown earth. He heard someone howling, a noise of pain. He clung fitfully to a tenuous understanding that he was still alive. He could determine this because he was afraid, and because he was afraid he was still alive and his body could not be completely shredded. Quickly, however, these notions became confused and he believed that only the dead could be afraid or that only the alive could exist in parts, and his panic and fear, though he would not have believed it possible, mounted