It was strange—or maybe not really.
I was more afraid while I was on the Garay nearing the landing point than I was when I saw the recruit's corpse with its fresh bullet wound, generously bleeding on the church steps.
The dead and the bleeding were familiar sights. The scent of blood and black powder was no foreign smell. I thrived in the noise and the chaos. As much as I dreaded the idea—thanks to the modern U.S. Army—I was a fish in water in the midst of the battlefield.
Barely a second had passed when I raised my rifle and aimed into the church interior. The five pulajanes fighters had formed a line around the pulpit, their figures silhouetted by the flickering candlelight behind them. The contrast made them easy targets, even if their features were lost to shadow.
