can he check the operation by pulling the slide back to charge the weapon?
Depends on the circumstances (which you will be in control of). A back alley meet, arm is passed over, shooter racks the slide, but does nothing else for [insert reason here]. Like the need to decamp the alley due to being pursued, seen by bad people or LE, or to meet some other dramatic deadline. Shooter would know one was "in the pipe" and little else.
If the slide goes forward, but incompletely (as in a millimeter or so short), pulling the trigger will have no effect.
And, that's something that can really trigger the tachypsychia and tunneled-down foveal vision. Really highly-trained person (exceptionally so in '62) would run a tap-rack-bang drill; adequately trained would rack the slide to get a new round in place.
All of which would be under an onus of high adrenaline reactions.
Sounds are dulled, the color drains out of the vision except directly ahead in the 35º cone of foveal vision, everything moves in slow motion; you actually feel like you are fighting to get reflex actions to happen. Suddenly air is two or three times denser than water. Also, feed back from extremities is dulled, too; the harder you grip the firearm the less it feels like you have hold of it. Things around you are blurred and indistinct. A person next to you shooting will be a surprise, a white flash in peripheral vision, the sound of the gunshot no louder than pasta snapping. These sorts of things are very unique, and come back in dreams, in the cruel twistings only dreams can have.
This is why training so encouraged, the muscle memory has to be there. The ability to get a reflexive sight picture. All of it.
Oh, and after that level of adrenaline overdose, there's a point where your body forces you to stop, to collapse a bit. Entirely common to vomit from the exertion. Lungs will be heaving, trying to re-oxygenate. All sorts of things will hurt. Which is where training kicks back in. Of focusing on getting the next thing done and not on the pain.