For some moments he could not flee no more than a little finger can commit a revolution from a hand.
If he had thought the regiment was about to be annihilated perhaps he could have amputated himself from it.

But its noise gave him assurance.

The regiment was like a firework that, once ignited, proceeds superior to circumstances until its blazing vitality fades.

It wheezed and banged with a mighty power.

He pictured the ground before it as strewn with the discomfited.
There was a consciousness always of the presence of his comrades about him.