A plane swooped low: a black wall of sand met Dennison and spun him around; as he fell he saw the tread of a Sherman expand like a rubber band and slice a man across his waist and chest: the man did not scream. God, Dennison groaned. Another bomb flattened Dennison: Jesus, how many did they have upstairs! The scream of steel on steel mingled with the roar of falling rocks. A bomb with a bent fin howled as it dropped. He burrowed into sand to avoid hurling metal: he imagined Zinc, Chuck, Landel, dead. Pain twisted his back. Silence ... Getting up, he stumbled across the gully. He found crewmen there, crouched behind boulders and camel grass. Somebody had spread a tarp overhead to cut down on the spray of sand. Nobody said a word. Presently, Chuck Hitchcock came crawling, blubbering, mouth gaping: crawling on hands and knees he banged into a rock. A blast of sand had sandpapered his eyes: lids and eyeballs were ingrained, a sand and blood inlay. As Dennison dragged Chuck under the tarp he realized he would never see again: he tried to shield his wounded face, the man sobbing, breathing in gasps, his blond, pallid face distorted. He won’t play billiards again, Dennison thought, remembering Chuck’s stories about billiard games at the University of Wisconsin. A bomb crashed and a tank exploded: it seemed to leap into the air--the whole Sherman--fell into ensheathing fire. It was visible to everyone under the tarp. Sand fountained. Ignited gas and oil spouted: machine gun bullets began to ricochet. Metal whizzed past. Another bomb exploded. "Let’s run for it!" Dennison shouted. "Get out of here! ... get out of here!" someone roared. Dennison and a fellow, Jim Harrington, grabbed Chuck, and rushed him down the wadi, swaying, pitching, dragging. They began to gasp. Chuck was sobbing. Dennison thought every step was getting them nowhere; yet Landel appeared out of a wall of smoke, his head plastered with dirt. He slid an arm under Chuck and the three carried him into a thorn thicket out of the wadi and laid him on the sand. "I’m blind!" Chuck cried. "I’m blind! Help me!" Another bomb geysered sand: it left a fog of sand, everyone coughing and spitting. Men tied rags or handkerchiefs or shirts over their face. So, it was sand, not flies. The heat sweated the sand into the flesh. So, it was heat, heat coming down from the cliff. "Can’t see our bus" Dennison shouted, trying to estimate damage. He snuffed and continued coughing. Suddenly, he grinned, and began to shake: the flies are gone, the bomb’s got rid of the flies! He laughed loudly, throwing back his head. "No flies ... no flies ... the bombers killed our flies!" "Shut up," Landel said, hitting him. "No flies!" Landel hit him again. Dennison crumpled to the sand: he knew what Landel meant: he realized too, in spite of his hysteria, that he was lucky to have escaped: cradling his head on his arms he attempted to blot out Chuck’s raving.