un444altiure

@@@@@ "Jesus, have we got to climb that?" one of the men panted Croft stared uneasily at themIt was too obviously an expression of the way they all feltHe was tired himself, almost as tired as he had been, and he knew he would have to drive them every yard upward"We're gonna eat a ration here, and then we're gonna go onYou men understand that?" There was a subdued muttering againHe sat down on a boulder and stared in the direction from which they had comeMiles away he could see the yellow hills where they had been ambushed, and where someplace now Brown and his litter detail must be travelingFar off he could see the fringe of jungle that bordered the island and beyond it the sea from which they had comeIt was all wilderness; there seemed no one, nothing alive in any of itThe war on the other side of the mountain was remote at this moment Behind him Mount Anaka bored into his back as if it were a human thingHe turned around and stared at it soberly, feeling again the crude inarticulate thrill it always gave himHe was going to climb it; he swore it to himself But all around him he could feel the pressure of the menHe knew that none of them liked him, and he hardly cared, but now they hated him and he could feel it as almost a leaden oppression in the air And they had to get upIf they failed, then the thing he had done with Hearn was wrong, and he had been bucking the Army, simply disobeying an orderHe would have to carry the platoon virtually on his back and it was going to be very difficultHe spat, and slit the end off a cardboard K rationAs with everything else, he did this neatly, expertly Late into the afternoon Ridges and Goldstein struggled along with WilsonThey moved at a torturously slow pace, toting him forward for ten yards or at most fifteen before they set him downAn ant traveling in a straight line would have gone literally as fastThey did not think of quitting or continuing, they hardly ever listened to Wilson's ramblings, there was nothing in all the heat and effort but the dumb imperative to carry him