He tasted the salt of his own blood where he had bitten his lips.

Nash showed as in a red haze.

Kurt had to get his hands on this German, and when he did it liberated a strange and terrible joy in him.

No weapon would have sufficed.

Hardly aware of Nash's blows, Kurt tore at him, swung and choked him, bore him down on the bank, and there beat him into a sodden, bloody-faced heap.
Only then did a cry of distress, seemingly from far off, pierce Kurt's ears.