"Morris is bad," Zinc said. "He couldn't take it yesterday, couldn't talk some of the time. One of his men got shot through the head. Their tank conked out ... a faulty timer."
Again they stopped talking, already feeling the heat of their bus, the perspiration drenching their legs and arms and backs; they felt the lunging of their machine; they heard the sob of the motor, the bang of pistons, the bark of the exhaust.
Fear slid down the dune, sat with them, picked at the grains of sand, shuffled through the dying fire, rubbed their faces, old fear, present before every attack.
They heard the far off shelling, felt it in their feet.
A nerve began to tremble in Dennison's right hand.
He looked at his hand, stared.
He thought of the little village of Ermenonville, his E, thought of his years there, his aunt's home, those gawky French windows in grey stone walls; he thought of his uncle's writing desk in his room upstairs, a desk usually littered with maps and photos and calculations--pigeonholes ready to burst.
As he peered at the sand under his shoes he saw the fishing tackle in his own room ... rod and gun rack. He could almost see the park at E, the oaks, ash, chestnut, willow ... the miniature island where Rousseau had been buried ... the Petit Lac reflected the tall Lombardies on the island ... a swan--swimming sedately--was part of the scene ... the ivy walled château.
Millard sat on the tree trunk, yakking, repeating rumors, speculating: each man had something to say about the terrain that was ahead: unfolding a map, some went over the lay of the land together. Wiping their mess kits half way clean with handfuls of sand they tossed them into a bin behind Raub's kitchen.
By now the fire was out.