Sentence:  Many protested that they had nothing to do with the fighting. At a word from the General the soldiers ripped off the men's shirts and examined the front of their shoulders. If they found bruises that might have been made from the butt of a gun when it had been fired—the <WSD>terse</WSD> order was, "Shoot him!" And many of the young men of Trujillo had disappeared. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Of speech or style: brief, concise, to the point.