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Just then an armored car came across the bridge and advanced slowly up the street. It stopped on the opposite side of the street, fifty yards ahead. The sniper could hear the dull panting of the motor. His heart beat faster. It was an enemy car. He wanted to fire, but he knew it was useless. His bullets would never pierce the steel that covered the gray monster.
These lines explain how the Republican sniper has come to have the “cold gleam of the fanatic” in his eyes. As he watches for his opponent from the rooftop, he sees a military vehicle cross the bridge to the Four Courts area. The description of this vehicle captures the hatred the sniper has learned to feel about the Free Staters. The car is a living thing that “pants” as it runs, a “gray monster” whose hide cannot be pierced. Understanding that the British provided much of the heavy equipment that the Free Staters used in combat explains why the sniper thinks of this vehicle as an “enemy car,” as if a thing could hate him. He must suppress the urge to attack it; not only would bullets be useless, but they would expose his position. The fact that he must fight the urge hints at how deeply he has imbibed a hatred of the enemy.
Weakened by his wound and the long summer day of fasting and watching on the roof, he revolted from the sight of the shattered mass of his dead enemy. His teeth chattered, he began to gibber to himself, cursing the war, cursing himself, cursing everybody.
He looked at the smoking revolver in his hand, and with an oath he hurled it to the roof at his feet. The revolver went off with a concussion and the bullet whizzed past the sniper's head. He was frightened back to his senses by the shock. His nerves steadied. The cloud of fear scattered from his mind and he laughed.
Although the sniper’s initial reaction to killing his enemy is “a cry of joy,” he immediately experiences regret and horror at the sight of the man’s “shattered” body. His reaction is visceral; he sweats and shudders, his teeth chatter, and he rants. He seems near a realization that could change his mind about his “fanatical” participation in the war, but when he is nearly killed by his own revolver as it misfires, the shock reorients him to his duty. Instead of feeling remorseful, he feels “reckless.” He wants to tell someone about his clever ruse and successful assassination of the enemy, as if he needs confirmation that he has made the right choice by pushing off the feelings of regret that try to surface. Still, when he reaches the street, the “sudden curiosity” about his enemy’s identity suggests that he has not, in fact, gotten past the doubts that arise after killing the man.
