Dennison's back was paining him more acutely: he felt the drag of the crowbar, the weight and friction of it:
Gonna be lame tomorrow, lame in my arms and back.
Tomorrow, tomorrow I'll be back in E ... I'll stroll along the Nonette ... that book in the attic ... Chateaubriand ... she had read Atala to him, dwelling on the most melancholy passages ... Atala's burial ... that book in the attic ... I'll re-read those passages ... book bound in red leather ... memories from ...
His head was throbbing as they entered Olpe, a yellow cat crouching in front of someone's empty cottage. It spat at the crewmen as they climbed out, parked to grab some air: the town was dead: alone, on a slab of masonry, Dennison rested his head on one hand. Other tanks rolled in, stopped. It would be dark in an hour or so. They would be eating soon?
How he wanted the roar of the tank to seep out of his brain, wanted some of the filth to ooze from his body.
He wanted a place alone. Better alone in this bombed town than never alone! Better to die in a field! A B-29 flying low, conspicuous ...
In Britain there had been Spitfires and De Havilands: constantly aloft: this B-29 was a reconnaissance plane circling lower and lower: the bomber was reaching a danger point: was it out of fuel, was the crew about to bale out?
Climbing a big mound of garbage he saw chutes billow; then came the twisting dive, smoke from the cockpit area as the plane went down. Five chutes were swaying, drifting. A black column headstoned the crash site. Dennison jumped from the garbage pile and informed some of the crewmen. At once several GI's took off, dog trotting through the dusk, toting small arms. Dennison was glad to run, glad to be on the go across a field--free of armor.
The first chute man, tangled in his chute, lying on his side, lying behind bushes, opened fire with his submachine gun, almost killing PM. Bullets cropped weeds and grass around him.
"Look, you goddamn ass! We're not Nazis!" shrieked PM, flat on his belly...