@@@@@Why was he making so much trouble? The knife
@@@@@Why was he making so much trouble? The knife would not go in far enough, and he tugged at it until it was loose, and then plunged it down againThe soldier writhed for a moment in his arms, and then collapsed
With him went all of Martinez's strengthHe looked stupidly at him, reached down for the knife, and tried to pull it free, but his fingers were tremblingHe felt blood dribbling over his palm, and he started, wiping his hand on his trousersHad anyone heard them? Martinez's ears were recalling the noise of their struggle as if it had been an explosion he had seen from some distance away whose report he was waiting for now
Was anyone moving? He could hear nothing, and realized that they had made very little sound
And then he felt the reactionThe dead sentry was loathsome to him, something to be avoided; he had the mixture of relief and revulsion a man feels after chasing a cockroach across a wall and finally squashing himIt affected him exactly that way and not much more intenselyHe shuddered because of the drying blood on his hands, but he would have shuddered as much from the roach's pulpAbruptly, the only important thing was to move on, and he darted down the stem trail, almost running
He came out into an open stretch of pass again, moved up it for a few hundred yards, and then skirted a few small grovesHe had lost the concentration he needed to scout properly and he blundered along, the fine surface of his observation goneThe floor of the pass was still ascending at a lower, less precipitous parallel to the slope of the mountainIt seemed never to end, and although he knew he had traveled only a few miles, it seemed much more
He reached another clearing with a wood along the left side of it, and he knelt in the shadow once more and looked at it dullySuddenly, he shiveredHe had realized the error he had made in killing the guardThe man who was supposed to go next on guard might sleep through the night, but there was an even better chance he would awaken; Martinez could never sleep soundly until his turn of guard was over for the nightOnce they discovered the man he had killed, they would all be awake for the rest of the nightHe could never get out
Martinez felt like weepingThe longer he remained here the more dangerous it would becomeAnd besides, if he had made a mistake like that, how many others were there he might have made? He was close to hysteria ag