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He had seen Eoin kill before. With a gun, with a fork, with his bare fists if it really came to it but Paddy Mayne was entranced by the way the boy used a knife. Entranced by the way his lithe body moved around like a tiger might hunt in the jungle, lurking in the darkness, completely still. He assumed he must feel the same burst of adrenaline the rest of them did but he was far more patient than Paddy was willing to be. Patient enough to quietly hunt down a kill just to plant a bomb on a plane’s wing. Perhaps that was what urged Paddy to hide behind a wheel and watch, a desire to see him use a knife with the finest skill he had seen. He had turned it into an art.
In the hours before they went, he would steal glances across the camp to watch Eoin sharpen his knife until he swore the blade itself was as hungry for blood as the soldiers here. He'd been caught watching a few times- a knowing smirk creeping over the boy’s face. There was no doubt he would hear no end of remarks about it being possessive or defensive, perhaps too obvious to anyone who looked their way or some far more elaborate string of words that likened him to being Eoin's guard dog. A stray picked up in the streets outside the bars of faraway cities and green fields of rugby pitches, coaxed into being nice to Eoin and only Eoin.
In Paddy’s opinion, his fingers looked as good twisted around the hilt of the bayonet as they did dancing over the keys of the piano Paddy had insisted on dragging half way across the desert. His fingers perhaps looked even better coated with the blood of the enemy they caught off guard raid after raid. Blood dribbling from the edge of the blade down his long fingers, down his wrists- his watch kept securely in a pocket next to his rosary beads lest it get covered in the same blood. It was all calculated, a performance to a non-existent audience, perhaps for his own pleasure- they were all mad out in the great sand sea, perhaps Eoin just hid it better than others until moments like this. Moments stolen in the dark of an enemy air field.
Now, in the moon-less darkness of another enemy camp, without cold lead flying through the air that longed to bury itself in the hot flesh of men he considered friends, he could pause and run down the time on fuses in his bombs to watch Eoin silently creep up on an engineer patching an aircraft he didn’t care to identify. He traced Eoin's movements across the sand as he stalked his prey, watch how he would freeze if the engineer moved to grab a tool before closing on for the kill. Those long legs propelling him across the last few feet of sand so that he could get that shining knife across the throat and send hot fresh blood pouring into the clean sand below.
A bomb was placed on its wing, but he was more interested in the way blood dripped onto its painted metal wing, running like rain on a window. Rain. He remembered the last time it rained, just after he found Eoin. Just after the jump. When this hung in the balance, him and Eoin and the desert.
Eoin turned, slowly and grinning proudly- alive- brushing the free curls off his face, smearing blood over freckled skin. His eyes fell on Paddy, he took a few step and was in front of him. Watching, totally silent. He twisted the knife in his fingers a few times- perhaps he intended to do the same to Paddy, draw his blood so he could clean the knife of the enemy.
Perhaps.
The engineer had stood no chance. Not when he trod silently like the tigers in Burma might have. Maybe Paddy was the audience he made that kill for. Maybe he knew he'd be watching. He always was, in their tent, in the ruins when the sun was high and they had raids to prepare for, in the trucks that drove them here and now, in this airfield. The bombs would blow up soon, he still had a few left. He ought to place them on the aircraft but this was far more interesting- waiting to see what would happen. Waiting to see if he was the next prey for Eoin's cherished knife. A shining piece of pointed metal in place of ripping teeth. A sharp blade instead of claws on his fingers. Sanded leather boots where one might expect talons leading to blood stained trousers. Dark curls where there could be antlers or soft striped fur.
Perhaps this was the closest he would come to the fast east, the boy he stole a piano for armed with a sharp and polished blade.