"Who's that guy?" he yelled on the intercom.
A helmeted GI blocked a doorway in a ruined building and flagged the tank; other GI's spewed from an aperture left by a shell; Dennison hesitated to stop the Lee under the riddled wall, yet he obeyed.
Inside de-ribbed apartments he saw a fireplace, book shelves, shoes on a carpeted floor, clothes on wardrobe hangers, a toilet ... on a brass plate: Dr. Horace Kreutger, Child Specialist. A church dome glistened in a sewage of light.
The helmeted GI in the doorway was signalling ...
Starboard ... sharpshooters ... balcony ... port.
Dennison sent the bus to the port, crawled over garbage in an alley, saw a piece of sky, and then the sharpshooters on a grilled balcony.
Zinc fired and a fellow sagged to his knee, another dropped his rifle on the balcony floor, another began dragging a wounded comrade, both crawling on hands and knees: the wounded man seemed to be shouting: his dentures popped from his mouth, bounced and smashed in the street. Landel killed the remaining pair.
A GI appeared, wig-wagging, a walkie-talkie in his big, hairy arms, his helmet cockeyed. Reporting into his w-t he paced the Lee; as it swung onto a main street, the motor responded sluggishly, as if running out of gas, and Dennison worked the choke. As he glanced through the periscope he noticed the GI walking on the sidewalk, swinging one arm, talking as he walked. A shell exploded: the GI, his w-t, bones and flesh splattered across the walk. Another 77 blew up the paving in front of the Lee: a roof collapsed, mixing steel and concrete.
Dennison reversed.
Following the main street, deserted shops and stores on both sides, he saw something drop from a second floor--a mattress. It fell across the tank's prow, swayed, fell again.