Imagine sitting on the rooftop, with the moon beaming above you. You shift your eyes from one side to the other, searching for unsuspecting victims. Your eagerness drives you to sit impatiently, but you know you cannot budge from your spot. Even the slightest footstep could give away your position, which would trigger a rain of bullets from the surrounding buildings. Do you feel terrified? .
This is what a sniper has to overcome in heat of battle. They have to remain calm, even when they are faced against a horde of enemies. They have to rise above their fears and keep their heads in the game. The sniper in the story demonstrates this on page 6, "The cloud of fear scattered from his mind and he laughed."" In my opinion, snipers are very brave. Although some may consider them to be cowards because they do not fight face-to-face with their opponents, snipers have a multitude of different threats that hand-to-hand combatants do not experience. While concentrating on one target, opposing forces can sneak up behind them without them even noticing until it's too late. In the story, the sniper does a good job of staying calm, which helps him finally take out the enemy on the opposite rooftop.
After the sniper had killed his adversary, he just had to take a quick gander at the enemy's face because the sniper was curious to know who he was. This is deduced on page 6, "he felt a sudden curiosity as to the identity of the enemy sniper whom he had killed."" The sniper was so curious because he wanted to know if he was acquainted with the enemy, if he had been in his company before. He also wanted to know who was behind the tremendously accurate shots, "He decided that he was a good shot, whoever he was."" His curiosity was so provoking, that the sniper even risked his own life to find out the identity of his fallen victim, only to realize that he had killed his own brother.
One cannot imagine the amount of thoughts going on through the sniper's head after the traumatizing event.