How successful they would turn out to be was another question. All around him, chaos. Though his head swam in a fever fog and his eyesight was blurry, he’d be damned if he’d go down without a fight. Thrusting his rifle forward, he stabbed madly with its bayonet, hoping to bury it in an enemy warrior. He did, judging from the yells and the coppery odor of blood that filled his nostrils. Some even sprayed on his cheeks in the melee. The fight quickened his pulse and cleared his senses some. He parried a Zulu spear thrust and countered with a rifle butt to the man’s jaw, sending splinters of bone, teeth, and blood in all directions. The fire was spreading. He could smell burning straw and wood, and, sickeningly, human flesh. Rifle shots. War cries. The gurgling breath of dying men. Screams of burning men. A horrifying cacophony of sound and images jolted through his conscious like some devastating and intermittent electric shock. Though he was a captain, he remained unable to lead due to his festering leg injury and high fever.
