Articles of War by Nick Arvin Page B

higher. He screamed with his mouth full of earth and he squirmed, seeking reflexively to burrow and press himself somehow lower. He wanted utterly not to die and would have offered anything at all for the promise of life.
    When the attack stopped, and Heck had lain without moving for some immeasurably long period, he carefully lifted his head. The howling he had heard earlier had ceased, and Heck was unsure now if he had imagined it or if it had even been himself he had heard. He examined minutely each of several barely visible piles of thrown earth and stone around him; then he began to slowly shift one of his hands free. But there was another explosion, and once again the shells were crashing. It was as if the respite had never occurred, and this convulsing earth and terror was all he had known or would know and there was no hope of an ending just as there had never been a beginning for this elemental, anguished noise and burning of the mind was all that had ever been.
    The barrage paused again and eventually Heck could hear his own sobbing—it was now the loudest noise to be heard. Gradually he gained control over it. He lay still a while longer, then looked cautiously around, once again scrutinizing everything for signs of life or animosity. He spit the dirt from his mouth. The belt of fear around his chest began to loosen. Suddenly something heavy landed beside him, tumbling halfway into his hole, and Heck nearly screamed but restrained himself enough to reduce the noise to a terrified moan.
    A face lay just beside his. It was Anthony’s face, Anthony with the white-rimmed, startled eyes. Anthony was shouting. He did not seem to recognize Heck. “—move out. That way.” Anthony pointed with his chin. “Follow about thirty seconds behind me. Corporal thinks the snipers will be on us again.” Then Anthony heaved himself out of the hole and vanished.
    Heck felt around for his gun. He could not locate it on either side or beneath himself, but then he kicked something and was able to pull it up from where it lay under his feet and hug it to his chest. Holding the weapon provided a short surge of relief and he pressed the gun more tightly. Something smelled bad, and he realized that sometime during the bombardment he had loosed his bowels. He now had no idea at all how much time had passed since Anthony had said thirty seconds. He began to count down from fifteen.
    He had reached six when the sniper’s rifle cracked and Heck heard the bullet bite into the earth, though how near or far away he could not tell. It seemed near. Now he had lost his count. He took his breathing under control again and wiped with his dirty hands at his dirty face and began counting downward from ten. He kept to the count and did his best to ignore the further shots of the sniper. He counted slowly, metering his breath, tense in the shoulders and thighs: “Two—one—” Then: “Go.”
    But he did not go. He curled and uncurled his toes but lay as before. Involuntarily he groaned. The sporadic sniper fire continued, the bullets beating into the earth with a sound like a fist into flesh, and Heck dared not even raise his head to look around. He breathed, breathed again, and still he had not moved.
    In a condition of despair he began to count downward once again from ten. A brief hissing noise of descent and a brutal explosion announced a renewal of the artillery attack, and Heck felt again terror but also a tiny lilt of relief as he pressed himself to the earth and allowed himself to forget any idea of moving out of this hole.
    The shells came down in a furious series, then continued in a desultory fashion for, it seemed, a very long time. Then came another of those deceptive respites, but this one went on until even the ringing in Heck’s ears had dimmed to almost nothing. Still he waited with his face pressed to the ground. After some number of hours had passed he began to feel a warmth on him,