“You think that’s too long?” the Colonel had said to Mannix then, turning slightly. There had been no hostility in his voice, or even reproof; it had, in fact, seemed merely a question candidly stated--although this might have been because two enlisted men had been in the tent, O’Leary, and some wizened, anonymous little private shivering over the radio. It was midsummer, but nights out in the swamps were fiercely, illogically cold, and from where they had set up the operations tent that evening--on a tiny patch of squashy marshland--the dampness seemed to ooze up and around them, clutching their bones in a chill which extra sweaters and field jackets and sweatshirts could not dislodge. A single kerosene pressure-lamp dangled from overhead--roaring like a pint-sized, encapsuled hurricane; it furnished the only light in the tent, and the negligible solace of a candlelike heat. It had the stark, desperate, manufactured quality of the light one imagines in an execution chamber; under it the Colonel’s face, in absolute repose as he stared down for a brief, silent instant and awaited Mannix’s reply, looked like that of a mannequin, chalky, exquisite, solitary beneath a store-window glare. “No, sir,” Mannix said. He had recovered quickly. He peered up at the Colonel from his camp stool, expressionless. “No, sir,” he repeated, “I don’t think it’s too long, but it’s certainly going to be some hike.” The Colonel did something with his lips. It seemed to be a smile. He said nothing--bemused and mystifying--wearing the enigma of the moment like a cape. In the silence the tempestuous little lamp boiled and raged; far off in the swamp somewhere a mortar flare flew up with a short, sharp crack. O’Leary broke the quietness in the tent with a loud sneeze, followed, almost like a prolongation of the sneeze, by a chuckle, and said: “Oh boy, Colonel, there’re gonna be some sore feet Saturday morning.”