Mannix jerked his hand away from his face. “O.K.,” he croaked, “Christ sake, I hear you. O.K. They’ve had enough, they’ve had enough. O.K. I heard you the first time. Let ’em crap out! I’ve did--done--” He paused, wheeled around. “To hell with them all.” He watched Mannix limp away. The Colonel was standing nearby up the road, thumbs hooked in his belt, regarding the Captain soberly. Culver’s spirit sank like a rock. Old Al, he thought. You just couldn’t win. Goddam. Old great soft scarred bear of a man. * * * * * If in defeat he appeared despondent, he retained one violent shred of life which sustained him to the end--his fury. It would get him through. He was like a man running a gauntlet of whips, who shouts outrage and defiance at his tormentors until he falls at the finish. Yet--as Culver could have long ago foretold--it was a fury that was uncontained; the old smoking bonfire had blazed up in his spirit. And if it had been out of control hours ago when he had first defied the Colonel, there was no doubt at all that now it could not fail to consume both of them. At least one of them. Culver, prone on his belly in the weeds, was hot with tension, and he felt blood pounding at his head when he heard the Colonel call, in a frosty voice: “Captain Mannix, will you come here a minute?” Culver was the closest at hand. There were six more miles to go. The break had extended this time to fifteen minutes--an added rest because, as Culver had heard the Colonel explain to the Major, they’d walk the last six miles without a halt. Another break, he’d said, with a wry weary grin, and they’d never be able to get the troops off the ground. Culver had groaned--another senseless piece of sadism--then reasoned wearily that it _was_ a good idea. Probably. Maybe. Who knew? He was too tired to care. He watched Mannix walk with an awful hobbling motion up the road, face screwed up in pain and eyes asquint like a man trying to gaze at the sun. He moved at a good rate of speed but his gait was terrible to behold--jerks and spasms which warded off, reacted to, or vainly tried to control great zones and areas of pain. Behind him most of his men lay in stupefied rows at the edge of the road and waited for the trucks to come. They knew Mannix had finished, and they had crumpled completely. For the last ten minutes, in a listless fashion, he had assembled less than a third of the company who were willing to continue the march--diehards, athletes, and just those who, like Mannix himself, would make the last six miles out of pride and spite. Out of fury. It was a seedy, bedraggled column of people: of hollow, staring eyes and faces green with slack-jawed exhaustion; and behind them the remnants of the battalion made hardly more than two hundred men. Mannix struggled on up the road, approached the Colonel, and stood there propped on his toe, hands on his hips for balance.