It smelled of shit and sand. Shit, he could understand. Hell, it could have been him for all he knew. He was, as they say, scared shitless. But why sand? He found he really didn't have that much time to ponder the question as it wasn't too long before the Germans realized they were in the trench and started shooting down at them. Hall hadn't been in close combat until now. He had already killed a man, and he had seen his own friends dead or dying, but he hadn't been in a battle. The Germans they had killed the night before hadn't had time to shoot back. Gaurnere had taken care of them before they could even realize what was going on. Bang, bang, no more krauts.
Killed in Monte Casino. So what? Hall would have scoffed if he hadn't been ducking so much. So what if your brother was killed in Monte Casino? He was probably gonna get killed right here. Would Gaurnere go off and kill a bunch of Germans because he was dead? And his name wasn't fucking cowboy. Why on earth had he chosen cowboy? He was from Manhattan for chrissake. He got shit, but why sand?
The bullets made this odd hissing noise as they passed by his ear. They reminded him of the bugs that kept him up at night when he visited his grandmother in Florida every year. Catydids, or some thing like that. Hissing bugs, only more deadly, as though, even if he hadn't know the Germans wanted him dead, he would have known the bullets did. Bullets did not like soldiers. Bullets hated soldiers. Bullets made it their life's work to ensure that every soldier they met ended up bleeding and screaming in the dirt. Hall didn't understand how something so tiny could hurt so god damn much. He supposed it was the speed. A choked laugh died in his mouth as he imagined the two armies tossing bullets at each other. It certainly wouldn't be as effective, but a hell of a lot less painful. It was also very possible that it wouldn't smell like shit.
Maybe it was the dead bodies. He knew they had killed some Germans, not just wounded them. He'd seen them die. Often times one doesn't even have to check for a pulse, the medic in his company had told him, you could just look and see and know. So Hall supposed the shit smell was from the bodies. He knew enough biology to know that when a person dies all the muscles relax, releasing the bladder and bowels. An unpleasant thought, but it explained the shit. Did dead bodies smell like sand? He didn't think so, the shit would cover that up. But still, that sand smell was so prevalent in his nose that it had started to make him anxious. It was up close and in his face, especially once they had captured the first couple of guns. And it got stronger the longer they fought, as if it was being released slowly.
Hall was heading off on his own now, still thinking these thoughts. Captain Winters had told him to do something and his conscious self knew what it was, and knew exactly how to do it, but the back of his mind was so busy with this predicament. The bug hissing of bullets had stopped for the moment and Hall was given brief shelter as he passed under a small roof the Germans had put over a corner of the trench. He ran awkwardly, toward whatever Winters had told him to do, bent over, hunched and clutching his gun. So the shit was the bodies, and possibly himself, because he was scared shitless, but what was the sand? He thought of Monte Casino. That was sandy wasn't it? Sandy and hot? Africa, if he was guessing right, or maybe Malarkey had told him. Hall couldn't remember. Maybe it was Monte Casino. Maybe he was smelling the place where Gaurnere's brother had gotten it. That barely even made sense. Hall wondered if he felt guilty for disliking Gaurnere and not feeling bad that his brother had been killed. Maybe his brain was making him think of Monte Casino and death and sand and shit as some sort of guilty punishment.
Hall turned the corner in the trench and saw the far wall of the bunker the German gun was in. Sand bags. The grenade landed at Hall's feet and he jumped backwards. It smelled like sand because they were shooting into the bunkers made of sand bags and the sand was spilling out. Sand and shit. Sand bags and dead bodies. And himself, Hall thought as the grenade went off.