ebadisohn

@@@@@The other two men had fallen on their stomachs and he could see no wounds "Finish them off," Croft shouted down to him "Finish them off Red felt a pulse of angerIf it'd been anyone else but me, the bastard would have done it himself, he thoughtHe stood over one of the motionless bodies, and brought the sights of his tommy gun to bear on the back of the soldier's headHe took a little breath, and then fired a burstHe felt nothing except the rising quivering motion of the gun in his handsAfter he had fired, he noticed that it was the soldier who had been sitting with his rifle across his thighsThere was an instant in which he hovered on the lip of an intense anxiety, but he repressed it and strode over to the last soldier As he looked down upon him, Red felt a wash of many transient subtle emotionsIf he had been asked, he might have said, "I didn't feel a goddam thing," but the back of his neck was numb, and his heart was beating rapidlyHe had an intense distaste for what he was about to do, and yet as he stared at the body and pointed his sights at the man's neck, he was feeling a pleasurable anticipationHe tightened his finger on the trigger, taking up the slack, tensing himself for the moment when he would fire and the slugs would make round little holes in a cluster, and the corpse would twitch and shake under the force of the bulletsHe pictured all those sensations, pulled the triggerHe started to work the bolt when the body underneath him suddenly rolled overIt took Red almost a second to realize that the Jap was aliveThe two men stared at each other with blank twitching faces, and then the Jap sprang to his feetThere was a fraction of a second in which Red could have knocked him down with the stock of his gun, but the frustration he had felt when the gun jammed, added to the shock he experienced when he realized the soldier was alive, combined to paralyze him completelyHe watched the soldier stand up, move a step toward him, and then Red's muscles worked suddenly, and he hurled his gun at the JapIt missed, and the two soldiers continued to stare at each other, not three yards apart Red could never forget the Jap's faceIt was gaunt and the skin was drawn tightly over the eyes and cheeks and nostrils so that he had a hungry searching lookHe had never seen a man's face so intensely; his gaze concentrated until he could detect every imperfection in the man's skinHe saw blackheads on the Jap's forehead, and a tiny postule on the side of his nose, and drops of sweat in the deep hollows under his e