| 11:28a |
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Lay me down,
Roll me over,
Do it
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Lay me down,
Roll me over,
Do it again
Croft stared at the mountainThe inviolate elephant brooding over the jungle and the paltry hills
It was pure and remoteIn the late afternoon sunlight it was velvet green and rock blue and the brown of light earth, made of another material than the fetid jungle before it
The old torment burned in him againA stream of wordless impulses beat in his throat and he had again the familiar and inexplicable tension the mountain always furnished him
He had failed, and it hurt him vitallyHis frustration was loose againHe would never have another opportunity to climb itAnd yet he was wondering if he could have succeededOnce more he was feeling the anxiety and terror the mountain had roused on the rock stairwayIf he had gone alone, the fatigue of the other men would not have slowed him but he would not have had their company, and he realized suddenly that he could not have gone without themThe empty hills would have eroded any man's courage
Ha' past seven
She thought she was in heaven
In a few hours they would be back, pitching their pup tents in the darkness, getting a canteen cup of hot coffee, perhapsAnd tomorrow the endless routine of harsh eventless days would begin once moreAlready the patrol was unfamiliar, unbelievable, and yet the bivouac before them also was unrealIn transit everything in the Army was unrealThey sang to make a little noiseroll me over
And do it again
Croft kept looking at the mountainHe had lost it, had missed some tantalizing revelation of himself
Of himself and much more
Mute Chorus:
ON WHAT WE DO WHEN
WE GET OUT
(Sometimes spoken, usually covert, varying with circumsta |