“No, sir,” Mannix replied tensely, “I don’t think there’s anything can be done. Unless I had a new pair of boondockers.” The Colonel ruminated, rubbing his chin, his other hand still holding the Captain’s foot. His eyes searched the dark reaches of the surrounding swamp, where now the rising moon had laid a tranquil silver dust. Frogs piped shrilly in the night, among the cypress and the shallows and closer now, by the road and the stagnant canal, along which danced shifting pinpoints of fire--cigarettes that rose and fell in the hidden fingers of exhausted men. “Well,” the Colonel finally said, “well--” and paused. Again the act: indecision before decision, the waiting. “Well,” he said, and paused again. The waiting. At that moment--in a wave that came up through his thirst, his throbbing lips, his numb sense of futility--Culver felt that he knew of no one on earth he had ever loathed so much before. And his fury was heightened by the knowledge that he did not hate the man--the Templeton with his shrewd friendly eyes and harmless swagger, that fatuous man whose attempt to convey some impression of a deep and subtle wisdom was almost endearing--not this man, but the Colonel, the marine: that was the one he despised. He didn’t hate him for himself, nor even for his brutal march. Bad as it was, there were no doubt worse ordeals; it was at least a peaceful landscape they had to cross. But he did hate him for his perverse and brainless gesture: squatting in the sand, gently, almost indecently now, stroking Mannix’s foot, he had too long been conditioned by the system to perform with grace a human act. Too ignorant to know that with this gesture--so nakedly human in the midst of a crazy, capricious punishment which he himself had imposed--he lacerated the Captain by his very touch. Then he spoke. Culver knew what he was going to say. Nothing could have been worse. “Well,” he said, “maybe you’d better ride in on one of the trucks.” If there had been ever the faintest possibility that Mannix would ride in, those words shattered it. Mannix drew his foot away abruptly, as if the Colonel’s hand were acid, or fire. “No, sir!” he said fiercely--too fiercely, the note of antagonism, now, was unmistakable--“No, sir! I’ll make this frigging march.” Furiously, he began to put on his shoe. The Colonel rose to his feet, hooked his thumbs in his belt and gazed carelessly down. “I think you’re going to regret it,” he said, “with that foot of yours.” The Captain got up, limping off toward his company, over his retreating shoulder shot back a short, clipped burst of words at the Colonel--whose eyeballs rolled white with astonishment when he heard them--and thereby joined the battle. “Who cares what you think,” he said. IV