"Something big must have blown."
"My God, my God," the younger one went on saying, his eyes bright and feverish. Suddenly he swung up his rifle and began firing at some figures that had appeared on a nearby open roof. A few dropped, the rest went out of sight. "There's never been anything like it," said the young man, staring around him with a fascinated and happy expression.
Dick glanced across at the body of the Old Man, lying motionless and somehow smaller than it had been before. He saw the empty stairwell down which Elaine had vanished, and looked out across the smoking field of roofs, almost unrecognizable now: the places where he had followed Keel by moonlight, fought Ruell, made love to Vivian ...
"I don't know if you've heard what happened at Buckhill," the older officer was saying at his ear. He hardly heard the words. "Bad luck -- your family all massacred. Slobs hiding in the woods, but they'll get 'em sooner or later."
"I'll do that myself," said Dick, without turning. He wanted to fix this last sight of Eagles in his memory, just as it was. There was his youth, deep down there, buried in ash and locked under the fallen rooftops. All right, let it lie.
He looked to the east, toward Buckhill. There was no feeling left in him now: but he knew he was a Man at last, and had his work ahead of him.