@@@@@The patrol had keyed him to the point where 879
@@@@@The patrol had keyed him to the point where he could not bear any more abuse, and he drove himself onward now with the knowledge that if he halted for too long the wrath and ridicule of the platoon would come down upon him
But, even with this, he was breakingThere came a point where his legs would no longer functionEven when he stood still they were close to buckling under himToward the end of the afternoon he began to collapseIt was a slow process, dragging out through a series of pratfalls, a progression of stumbling and sliding and finally of dropping prostrateHe began to tumble every few hundred feet and the men in the platoon waited gratefully while he forced himself slowly to his feet, and staggered on againBut each fall came a little more quickly than the one that had preceded itRoth moved forward almost unconsciously, his legs buckling at every misstepAfter a half hour he could no longer get up without assistance, and each step he took was doubtful, uncertain, like an infant walking alone across a roomHe even fell like an infant, his feet folding under him while he sat blank on his thighs, a little bewildered that he was not still walking
In time he began to irritate the platoonCroft would not let them sit down and the enforced wait until Roth was able to walk again annoyed themThey began to wait for Roth to fall and the inevitable recurrence of it rasped their sensesTheir anger began to shift from Croft to Roth
The mountain was becoming more treacherousFor ten minutes Croft had been leading them along a rocky ledge up the side of a sheer bluff of stone, and the path in places was only a few feet wideAt their right, never more than a yard or two away, was a drop of several hundred feet, and despite themselves they would pitch at times close to the edgeIt roused another fear in them, and Roth's halts made them impatientThey were anxious to get past the ledge
In the middle of this ascent Roth fell down, started to get up, and then sprawled out again when no one helped himThe rock surface of the ledge was hot but he felt comfortable lying against itThe afternoon rain had just begun and he felt it driving into his flesh, cooling the stoneHe wasn't going to get upSomewhere through his numbness another resentment had taken h
