When the soldiers found him, three hours later, he was lying with his
face over his arm, his black hair giving off heat under the sun. But he
was still alive. Seeing the open, black mouth the young soldiers
dropped him in horror.
He died in the hospital at night, without having seen again.
The doctors saw the bruises on his legs, behind, and were silent.
The bodies of the two men lay together, side by side, in the mortuary,
the one white and slender, but laid rigidly at rest, the other looking
as if every moment it must rouse into life again, so young and unused,
from a slumber.