A lieutenant snapped out something, a sergeant snapped it back to him,
the gun crew jumped aside, balancing themselves on tiptoe with their
mouths all agape, and the gun-firer either pulled a lever out or else
pushed one home, I couldn't tell which. Then everything--sky and woods
and field and all--fused and ran together in a great spatter of red
flame and white smoke, and the earth beneath our feet shivered and shook
as the twenty-one-centimeter spat out its twenty-one-centimeter
mouthful. A vast obscenity of sound beat upon us, making us reel
backward, and for just the one-thousandth part of a second I saw a round
white spot, like a new baseball, against a cloud background. The
poplars, which had bent forward as if before a quick wind-squall, stood
up, trembling in their tops, and we dared to breathe again. Then each
in its turn the other four guns spoke, profaning the welkin, and we
rocked on our heels like drunken men, and I remember there was a queer
taste, as of something burned, in my mouth.
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