2-10（在线收听）

10.

At the center of Dwyer was a towering spike, a kind of makeshift Nelson’s Column. Nailed to itwere dozens of arrows, pointing every which way, each arrow painted with the name of a placesome soldier at Dwyer called home.

Sydney Australia 7223 miles

Glasgow 3654 miles

Bridgwater Somerset 3610 miles

That first morning, walking past the spike, I had a thought. Maybe I should write my ownhome up there.

Clarence House 3456 miles

That’d get a laugh.

But no. Just as none of us was eager to draw the Taliban’s attention, I was eager not to drawthe attention of my fellow squaddies. My main goal was to blend in.

One of the arrows pointed towards “The Cannons,” two enormous 105-mm guns at the back ofthe non-working shower block. Nearly every day, several times a day, Dwyer fired off those bigguns, lobbed massive shells in a smoky parabola towards Taliban positions. The noise made yourblood stop, fried your brains. (One day the guns were fired at least a hundred times.) For the rest ofmy life, I knew, I’d be hearing some vestige of that sound; it would echo forever in some part ofmy being. I would also never forget, when the guns finally stopped, that immense silence.