There was a groan. I couldn’t tell who or what it was, but I knew that I had managed, somehow, to hit a target.

“Shove ’em in the dirt!” Kirkegaard, who was several meters away in another foxhole, shouted.

At that point, everybody started firing.

The enemy fired back, their muzzle flashes indicating their whereabouts and number. I didn’t take the time to catalogue each one, but from what I saw, there were fifteen to twenty in that first batch. They were gone after a brief, yet tense, exchange. The whole episode lasted about two and a half minutes.

While I took stock of injuries and ammunition supplies, making sure to properly identify myself, Dulles slumped down onto the floor of the foxhole. When I got back, he was visibly shaking and staring at nothing. “You hit?” I asked.

He slowly turned his face to me, locking his eyes with mine, and asked, “Is it always like this?”

“No,” I answered him. Inwardly, I continued: Sometimes it’s even worse.

Still staring at me, he exhaled and readied his weapon.