A Brass Sundial

I set out from the brick shelter at mid-morning, tracking the base of the stone wall. A fallen brass watch case lay wedged face-up in a seam between two stones, its glass long gone. I halted two paces back, grounded my rifle into the grit, and observed the shadows creeping across the tarnished dial. The broken central pin cast a sharp, fine line toward the Roman numeral ten. I knelt, braced my weapon against my shoulder, and aligned the outer rim of the birch map with the shadow's edge. A reliable gauge for tracking the passage of daylight in open territory.