The British officer at the crossroads tried to put it back together. James could hear him, a voice shouting orders from the house on the north-west corner. Infantry came out of that house and ran for the south-east corner to fill the hole where the pumps had been.
The west formation was close enough now. They had come up from Cartron along the lake road, and they caught the British infantry crossing the side road in the open. James heard their rifles start.
The British were trying to hold the crossroads from two directions at once, and they did not have the people to do it.
Something fired from the ditch on the left of the N4. It was not a rifle. It was a short, flat bang with a trail of white smoke behind it, and it went into the side of the British armoured vehicle, where the turret met the hull.
The vehicle stopped firing.
