thought. There’s probably some punt gunner trying to sneak up on them now. They will be pretty close into the lee with the wind and someone is sneaking onto them now surely. Well, when he makes his shot some may break back this way. But with it frozen-up I suppose I really ought to pull out instead of staying here like a fool.
I have killed enough and I have shot as well or better than I can shoot. Better hell, he thought. Nobody shoots better than you here except Alvarito and he’s a kid and shoots faster. But you kill fewer ducks than many bad and fair shots.
Yes, I know about that. I know about that and why and we don’t go by the numbers anymore and we threw away the book too, remember?
He remembered how, by some miracle of chance in a war, he had been with his best friend for a moment in action in the Ardennes and they were pursuing.
It was early fall and it was on a high upland with sandy roads and trails and the trees were scrub oak and pines. The enemy tank and half track prints showed clearly in the moist sand.
It had rained the day before, but now it was clearing and visibility was good and you could see well across all the high, rolling country and he and his friend were glassing it as carefully as though they were hunting game.
The Colonel, who was a General then, and an assistant divisional commander, knew the individual print of each tracked vehicle they were pursuing. He also knew when the enemy vehicles had run out of mines and approximately
