"Might do it, by irrigating," said the Captain. "H'm." He cast a sharp glance at his one unapprehensive subordinate. "The rest of you camp right here," he ordered. "Sullivan and I are going back along to stir up those loafers who fell out."
"See here, sir," Lieutenant Roberts cried, in half-hearted protest, for every inch of his six feet of young body was aching dully, "that leg of yours--"
"Is a corker," said the Captain shortly. "H'm. Come along, Sullivan."
An hour later the two, staggering with sleep, herded the last of the sodden, half-delirious stragglers up to the fire which spluttered in the wet and gloom, and the sick men sprawled obediently among their unconscious fellows. For an instant the officer stared down at them. "Hopeful lot, ain't they?" he muttered. "H'm."
"It sure looks some like a graveyard, Captain," said Sullivan cheerfully. The Captain glanced at him again.
"Don't you ever get--blue, Sullivan?" he asked curiously.
Sullivan seemed doubtful. "I--I do' know's I ever thought much about it, sir," he said.
"I reckoned not," said the Captain. "H'm. Well, don't. Go to sleep."
"I was thinkin' I'd keep th' fire goin' a while, it looked so kind of homelike," Sullivan objected. "I ain't much sleepy. You turn in, sir."
"I'm not sleepy, either," said the other gruffly. "H'm. Roll in now. _Pronto_." Obediently Sullivan sank down where he stood, and was asleep.
Burrell sat long, brooding over the fire, listening to the deep breaths and smothered groanings of his men. One of them babbled in delirium, piteously, for a moment, and the Captain went and soothed him, awkwardly. Then he stood above him, gazing off into the gulf of blackness to the west. He glanced down at the muttering soldier, and away again into the night. "God damn you," he said to the Island of Samar gravely, courteously, as one might deliver a challenge to mortal combat.
Next morning they breakfasted on what was left of their food, consuming all but a precious emergency ration of two tins of bacon, a pound and a half in all. Then they pushed on in what was meant to be a last desperate dash for the coast, going down into a long wide valley smothered in primeval forest. Every trail had vanished, each step of advance had to be slashed from a jungle of underbrush and creepers, and for all their suffering they gained a scant five miles. They halted at nightfall in a little opening, where they shed their equipments as they stood, and sprawled among them. Sullivan and the Captain, going back for the many stragglers, failed to discover two of them.