Robin drifted with the crowd in the streets for several hours, finally again found another corner in a dim tavern where he sat, by this time a little tired, a little confused, wondering whether he had not made a mistake in coming here at all. The whole day had been frustration and his spirits were at low ebb. Two men in fatigue denims were seated near him, arguing. One was plainly far gone under the influence of liquor. He was bleary-eyed, nodding and mumbling. The other, trying to hold him, shaking him, was actually almost as far gone. He was mumbling something about getting up and going; they had to make the last truck to camp. Finally the two got up, staggered to the men's room, and disappeared inside. Robin resumed his meditations, noting that the place was nearly empty now, that the streets were silent. Obviously time had run out for the men, and they were on their way back to camp. Suddenly it occurred to him that the two soldiers had failed to come out of the lavatory. Robin slipped out of his seat, opened the door of the washroom, and went in. The two men were there, together on the floor, sound asleep. Hastily Robin knelt down, shook them. "Wake up, you got to go back to camp!" he called. But he couldn't budge them. One mumbled something without opening his eyes, slumped back, and began to snore. The other didn't even respond that much. For a moment Robin stood beside them, thinking that he ought to go and tell the proprietor. Then he heard a voice call loudly outside in the bar: "Any of youse guys going back tonight better step on it! Bus's leaving in two minutes!" An MP rounding up the stragglers, Robin thought. And in that moment, a sudden chill ran through him, a sudden wild thought leaped into his head. He stood transfixed for an instant. For an instant which seemed to last an eternity, an instant in which all his training, all his instincts and ambitions fought and struggled together in a mad hysteria. Here was an opportunity, here was a chance--yet a trickery, an illegality. If he borrowed one of the unconscious men's jackets, borrowed his pass, he could ride back to White Sands that very night, and in the dark and confusion, who would know? Nobody, he felt sure. The next day--well, he'd be surely found, arrested. But--in the meantime, for a blessed hour or so, he would see the rockets in their gaunt glory, in their towering eminences, see an assault against the skies, watch the hissing blue flame ascend to the heavens, see a sight he would remember with joy the rest of his life. What then if he spent some bad hours under arrest? What even if he went to jail? Actually what could they do to him? He was no spy, he was no saboteur. No matter how exhaustive the investigation, it would prove nothing evil against him.