6 h 3 m, 1 feb 1944 año - Caine Mutiny timeline passage four

Descripción:

Willie did not share the general gloom. His mood was buoyant and devilish. Within twelve hours he would be in battle; within twentyfour hours he would be a man who had risked his life for his country. He felt invulnerable. He was rolling towards an edge of danger, he knew, but it seemed an entertaining kind of danger, like a jump over a high hurdle on horseback. He was proud of his lack of fear, and this buoyed him even more. (Wouk, 250)

An hour before dawn of the invasion day, with the night fading to blue and Saipan beginning to show on the horizon, a humped black shape, Willie was surprised to find himself badly scared. It humiliated him to be afraid, approaching his second combat experience, when he had been so vigorously carefree the first time. His innocence was gone. The flame and noise and ruin and falling figures of Kwajalein had penetrated to his bones and viscera even while he had hummed Begin the Beguine (Wouk, 294).