Stirred into action by the phone call, the two captains raced an old pickup through the dark streets near the front line, under a steady rain of shells.
The losses of the garrison must have been very heavy, seeing that the defenders made no fewer than three determined sorties, in the course of which they displayed the greatest courage, for, despite the rain of shells from the Bulgarian guns, they advanced again and again in frantic endeavors to retake the positions previously captured from them by the besiegers.
A deadly rain of shells and shrapnel bombarded the town's 8,000 inhabitants for hours.
According to conservative UN figures, almost as many again – around 40,000 innocent civilians – died in the Sri Lankan army's final rain of phosphorus shells, many of which seem to have been deliberately aimed at UN refugee camps.
For the next month, hundreds of thousands of soldiers on opposing sides attacked and counterattacked across sodden, porridge-like mud, in an open, grey landscape almost empty of buildings or natural cover, all under the relentless, harrowing rain of exploding shells, flying shrapnel, and machine-gun fire.
ZAWIYAH, Libya — Escaping sniper fire and a steady rain of artillery shells, hundreds of refugees fled from Zawiyah on Wednesday as Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's loyalists fought to keep control of this strategic city — a half-hour drive from Tripoli, the capital — and its oil refinery.
JERUSALEM — Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians shifted to home turf here on Wednesday, amid a rain of mortar shells on southern Israel and with no sign that the two sides had broken an impasse over Israel's moratorium on the construction of Jewish settlements.
In Donetsk, local authorities urged residents to use "maximum caution" and stay indoors as a barrage of shells rained down near the city's security services building, which is used as a base by the rebels.
Anyone who turned on the TV news between 1975 and 1990 remembers the scenes of bombed-out buildings, destitute refugees, gun-toting schoolboys roaming the streets, the sounds of shells and rocket fire raining down.
Shops operate out of shells which wouldn't survive heavy rain.
Within minutes of the start of a war, North Korean artillery would roll out of underground bunkers and rain shells on Seoul, wiping out much of the capital, according to South Korean officials and military analysts.
