It started with rifles and something heavier from the vehicles.
The whole Irish position went down behind its cover. Rounds came through the gaps in the sandbags, into the front of the building and across the petrol station. The Irish fired back from the slits and from behind the pumps.
Then the Challenger at the back of the British line did something.
James saw it start, a man standing beside the vehicles with both arms out in front of him. Then the air between his hands went thick and dark, and he pushed.
What came off him was a wall, a broad flat wave of force as wide as the road, that crossed the two hundred metres in a second and hit the eastern end of the Irish line.
It hit the sandbags there and they went over in a heap. It hit the wall behind them and the wall cracked. The soldiers who had been behind both were picked up and thrown down the road like leaves. One got up. Two did not get up straight away.
