Where was the cannon, firing out of the compound? Dennison coaxed his bus over cobbles, over a low barricade, close to a white wall; there a poster displayed a veiled woman, smiling. God, he thought, are there really women here? Maybe I can get a drink ... rest ... maybe ... maybe eat ... 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. A lifeless dog lay in front of the Sherman and reminded Dennison of a dog he had owned in E, a brown dog: here Tubby, here Tubby. Dog eager to lick your hands and grin. Cocker. Here Tubby. The treads of the tank spun over gravel: Zinc’s machine gun destroyed an emplacement on a roof: Millard’s gun mowed down three men, rushing along an alley. Landel signalled and they rumbled along another alley and the cannon blew apart the front of a store where Nazi gunners were firing. Above a dome, perhaps a mosque, a shell burst, hurling bricks and stucco over doors, the Sherman and along a street. Dennison jazzed the bus down a wide street and townspeople fled ... ten or twelve on one side, bunched together, men and women, their clothing white and blue; their turbans white. Landel swung his machine gun to kill them: several dropped, a youngster, a boy, stumbled into the gutter, and lay there. Spitting on the tank wall, Landel cursed them: You goddamn sons of bitches ... why the hell are you out in the street ... don’t you know no better?