Summary

Galloway’s penultimate section begins with Kenan finally reaching the brewery. It is badly damaged “but its springs are deep beneath the surface, and the basement of the building is impenetrable even to the men on the hills” (137). People from all over the city line up and the water gushes with seeming infinite strength. Kenan finds the bounty of the water odd in a time of such scarcity and fear—“it seems to him an awful waste of such a precious resource”—but he is grateful for its plenty and thinks there must be some underground well that allows the water to flow so freely (139).

As he fills his container, he hears “the telltale whistle of an incoming shell” at an alarming proximity (140). The force of it knocks him off his feet and paralyzes him briefly. People are running by him and everything...