He and Dennison had located Robinson by flash. Dennison had brought his arms and placed them across his mutilated body, on a stretcher in a converted supply tank. Robinson’s ID fell beside the tank and Zinc brushed off sand and stuck it inside Robinson’s torn shirt and buttoned the shirt over the crushed leather. "Well, he doesn’t have to be buried here," Dennison said, folding some canvas over him. "Who’s better off ... Chuck ... or Robinson? Chuck or..." Zinc was too weary to reply; his eyes were swollen from the heat, sand, and lack of sleep: numb, he stumbled toward the chow wagon, shoes sinking into the sand: everything he saw was indistinct: everything difficult. Behind trucks, sitting on the sand, on gasoline drums, oil drums, boxes, the crewmen ate, no light, no smoking. Shivering as night came on, the two bedded together on the floor of a truck, under blankets and tarpaulin. Wind scraped at the tarp with a sandpapering sound: it tapped on the truck cab and clicked on its glass. "We attack early in the morning," Dennison said. "I know," Zink said. "Hope we have luck." "Yeah." Overhead, Libyan sleep was dropping lower and lower: Dennison squinted at the stars, wondering how many more miles they had to travel before the war ended. Three stars burned in a ragged triangle: gradually, the upper star assumed a greenish pallor. While digging out Robinson’s body a star had glittered above the cliff ... Dennison felt the expanse of the desert around him, felt its thousands of square miles. Pulling the tarp over his head he imagined himself in a grotto, Atala’s grotto: ah, that pitiful story: beauty obliterated by superstition, by folly: lovely Atala had been his companion in Ermenonville, as boy, she and her Chactas ... Chactas the blind man ... the lover ... the wanderer ... Doré’s wonderful engravings--those days in E ... And now ... The desert rustled the tarpaulin. The truck swayed. Still cold, Dennison hunched closer to Isaac, needing all of the warmth he could steal: his arms and shoulders ached: sand grubbing had done that: sand, he felt it in his shoes, in his shin, between his fingers ... Poor Chuck ... Soon, dawn threw out its flag of light; soon men were yelling, talking, pushing, urinating, shitting, coughing, eating ... Motors throbbed. The radio in a truck blared boogie-woogie, from Casablanca. Dennison read his wristwatch. Their tank motor refused to start. Landel transferred them to another Sherman--number 58. 58 started easily, warmed easily, and they rolled out of the gully, rolled across a flat of sand and sandstone that could have served as an airport, the full moon its beacon. Everything about the new tank pleased Dennison: it was a pleasure to get away from the old bus.