Shelby Foote served in the U.S. Army in the Marine Corps during World War Two. In this selection from his Civil War novel Shiloh, he follows one Confederate soldier into battle.

When we were halfway up the rise. I began to see black shapes against the rim where it sloped off shore. At first I thought they were scarecrows. They look like scarecrow. That didn’t make sense. Except they look so black and stick like. Then I saw them move and wiggling and a rim broke out with smoke, some of it going straight up and some jet and jaw.

It all lined rolling and jumpers pitch up from east in the north. I’m in like walks past my ears. I thought aloud to God is shooting the shooting at me. And it surprised me. So I stopped to look. The smoke kept rolling up and out. Rolling, rolling. Still in. Stabs of power mixed in. And some of the men passed me bent forward like a running into a high wind.

Rifles held crossways shoulder to bayonet and snapped in the sunlight, and their faces were all out of shape from the yelling when I stopped, I’ve gone to hear all sorts of things I hadn’t heard while I was running. It was like being born again, coming into a new world. It was a great crash, clatter of fire and. And over all this I could hear them all around me, screaming and yelping like on a fog shot, etc. something crazy mixed up in it too, like horses trapped in a burning barn.

I thought they’d all gone crazy. They locked it for a fair. Their faces were split wide open with screaming mouths twisted every which way. And just while you lunatic yelping coming out, it wasn’t like they were yelling with their mouths. It was more like the yelling was something turned up inside them, and they were opening their mouths to let it out.

It was the first time I really knew how scared I was.

Tags: Fiction