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By Root 8997 0

the problem, waded out to the center of the stream. Five yards from the shore he halted. The water was close to his waist, swirling powerfully about him. "We're gonna have to hold to the bank, Lootenant," he decided. He began to fight his way along the edge of the stream, holding to the foliage, the water covering his thighs. Laboriously the men followed him, strung out along the bank. They proceeded for the next few hundred yards by grasping the nearest bushes, yanking and tugging themselves up the stream against the current. Their rifles kept slipping off their shoulders, almost dipping into the water, and their feet sunk loathsomely in the river mud. Their shirts, from perspiration, became as wet as their trousers. Besides their fatigue and the dank moist air, they were sweating from anxiety. The stream had a force and a persistence which seemed alive; they felt something of the frenzy they would have known if an animal had been snarling at their feet. Their hands began to bleed from the thorns and the paper-edged leaves, and their packs hung heavy.

They moved like this until the stream widened again, became shallower. Here the current was not so rapid, and they made better progress sloughing through the knee-deep water. After a few more turns, they came upon a broad flat rock about which the river curved, and Hearn called a break.

The men flopped down, lying silent and motionless for several minutes. Hearn was a little worried; he could feel his heart beating with the clamor of early fatigue, and his hands trembled a little. Flat on his back, he peered over his chest at the quick rise and fall of his stomach. I'm in bad condition, he told himself. It was true. The next couple of days, particularly this first day, was going to be rough; he hadn't had any exercise in too long. But that would pick up; he knew his strength.

And he was getting used to the tension of being point. Somehow it was harder to be the first man. Any number of times he had halted, wincing at an unsuspected noise or shuddering when some insect darted across his path. There had been a few huge spiders with bodies as big as walnuts, a leg spread as wide as his extended fingers. Those things got you; he had noticed that they bothered Martinez and Brown as well as himself. There was a special kind of fear when the ground was unexplored; each step farther into the jungle was difficult.

Croft hadn't shown too much discomfort. That Croft was a boy, all right. If he wasn't careful Croft would keep effective command of the platoon. The trouble was that Croft knew more, and it was silly to disagree with him; until now the march had demanded a woodsman.

Hearn sat up and stared about him. The men were still sprawled on the rock, resting quiet. A few of them were talking or scaling pebbles into the water, and Valsen was carefully stripping the leaves from a tree which overhung the rock. Hearn looked at his watch. Five minutes had gone by since the break had begun, and another ten minutes would not hurt. He might as well give them a decent break. He stretched and rinsed his mouth out with some water from his canteen, chatted for a minute or two with Minetta and Goldstein.

Once he had regained his wind, Brown began to talk to Martinez.

Brown was depressed; the jungle ulcers on his feet had begun to itch and smart, and he knew they would become more painful as the patrol continued. Idly, quite hopelessly, he was thinking how pleasant it would be if he could lie in the sun with his feet bare, allowing the heat to dry his sores.

"This is gonna be a rough sonofabitch," he sighed.

Martinez nodded. "Five days out, long time."

Brown lowered his voice. "What the hell do you think of this new looey?"

"Okay." Martinez shrugged. "Nice guy." He felt cautious about answering. The men knew he buddied with Croft, and he felt they would guess his hostility to Hearn. With Croft everything had been okay. "Too friendly, maybe," Martinez suggested. "Platoon leader should be tough guy."

"This guy looks like he can be a mean sonofabitch," Brown said. He was undecided about