“They have big Skoda guns. I’ve seen the holes.”
“Three hundred fives.”
We went on eating. There was a cough, a noise like a railway engine starting and then an explosion that shook the earth again.
“This isn’t a deep dugout,” Passini said.
“That was a big trench-mortar.”
“Yes, sir.”
I ate the end of my piece of cheese and took a swallow of wine. Through the other noise I heard a cough, then came the chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh —then there was a flash, as when a blast-furnace door is swung open, and a roar that started white and went red and on and on in a rushing wind. I tried to breathe but my breath would not come and I felt myself rush bodily out of myself and out and out and out and all the time bodily in the wind. I went out swiftly, all of myself, and I knew I was dead and that it had all been a mistake to think you just died. Then I floated, and instead of going on I felt myself slide back. I breathed and I was back. The ground was torn up and in front of my head there was a splintered beam of wood. In the jolt of my head I heard somebody crying. I thought somebody was