“The war machine seized up. Not every vehicle was equally vulnerable, but those that were blocked the rest, so that very soon the whole enterprise ground to a halt.

“Masked men with long-necked acetylene torches got out and played their superhot jets over the carpet of crawling meat, fanning it off vehicles and creating a clean zone for the mechanics to work. The stench of burnt flesh filled the air. At first, the technique seemed to be working: The disarticulated foe pushed back to form a seething dam around the cleared area, but every time the firemen let up for only a second, the line broke down, invaded by slithering masses of viscera. As the gruesome dam grew higher, it became more impossible to police all the sneaking incursions… and the psychological effect of that wall of talking heads and slurping entrails must have been terrible.

“Very soon, the defenses started to break down. Men were beset by slippery fragments worming under their pants and into their orifices. The vehicles were also infested, so that their crews had to turn their attention from the threat outside to more immediate pestilence in the cockpits. It became a farce, every man battling an invisible enemy, ripping at his own clothes like an alcoholic with delirium tremens.

“At last the order was given to retreat. Crazed men piled back into overcrowded truck cabs with their crazed fellows, pursued by waves of squirming chum. Guns blasted indiscriminately at the enveloping mass as the column surged forward and crashed together, panicked gunners shooting each other, and the heavier vehicles pushing lighter ones out of the way or just driving over them. Acetylene tanks exploded, setting off boxes of shells, which ignited leaking fuel-a chain of fiery explosions ripped through the column. Two tracked vehicles-an Abrams tank and a Bradley Fighting Vehicle-broke through and hurtled up the street, wreathed in mantles of flame and frying meat.