Smoke choked the street, brown smoke, acrid: it filled the space from house to house, street side to street side: it seemed to be working its way between the cobbles.
Dennison's eyes slid over his indicators, oil gauge, gas gauge, temperature, compass, ammeter, water gauge.
He tried to remember how many of their tanks were supposed to converge on Anadi but a shell crashed on the thought: he held his mouth open, expecting another detonation. The treads scrambled over bricks, smashed a door, travelled on paving, zigzagged, knocked down fence posts.
The ventilation fan seemed to have stopped.
Dust increased.
It was steel, desert, shells, more steel.
Can't see through the goddamn dust ... why doesn't it clear up? Christ, how my shoulders ache! What have they got in this rotten little town that we need so badly?
Twenty tanks, thirty tanks in this town ...
Now, now I can see. Okay, we push ahead ... okay go ...
A streetcar lay on its side--broken glass everywhere. Every house window was shuttered. Doors had been boarded over, were padlocked or x'd with planking as if the war could be shut out. White flags fluttered on roof tops--dirty white rags. Sandbags, with Egyptian lettering on them, leaned against an iron fence that leaned against a damaged truck. Nazi dead lay on paths in a circular rose bed, flowers tangled around their arms and legs, around rifles and helmets. Flowers. Bushes.