Sandbagged Area

The sandbagged area forms a small, fortified depression in the naval camp’s perimeter where sandbags have been stacked to create temporary cover. The space is tight, its walls of dirt-brown sacks reinforced by splintered wood and rusted strands of barbed wire pulled taut across broken posts. The ground inside is packed earth, scarred with boot prints and streaked with oil stains from hastily placed lanterns. Behind the sacks, the outline of Nissen huts looms, their curved corrugated roofs casting long shadows in the dim camp light. The air carries the metallic bite of gun oil and the acrid tang of recently detonated gas grenades, thick with the muffled pops of distant gunfire. Sheets of bloodied canvas lie folded near the edge, discarded in the rush of terror.