To Croft and Ridges, even to Wilson, it brewed...
To Croft and Ridges, even to Wilson, it brewed vague warm images of farm lands in summer heat, quiet and bountiful, stirring only in the fragile traceries a butterfly might make against the skyThey drifted through a train of memories, idly, as if they were sauntering down a country road, seeing again the fertile roll of the fields, smelling in the musty damp germination of this earth after the rain the ancient redolent odors of plowed land and sweating horses
The sunlight, the heat, was everywhere, dazzling
For an hour they marched uphill almost constantly, and then halted at a stream to fill their canteensThey rested for fifteen minutes and went on againTheir clothing had been wet at least a dozen times, from the ocean spray, from the river, their sweat, from sleeping on the ground, and each time it dried it left its stainsTheir shirts were streaked with white lines of salt, and under their cheap prada handbags armpits, beneath their belts, the cloth was beginning to rotThey were chafed and blistered and sunburned; already some of them were limping on sore feet, but all these discomforts were minor, almost unnoticed in the leaden stupor of marching, the fever they suffered from the sunTheir fatigue had racked them, exploited all the fragile vaults of their bodies, the leaden apathy of their musclesThey had tasted so many times the sour acrid bile of labor, had strained their overworked legs over so many hills, that at last they were feeling the anesthesia of exhaustionThey kept moving without any thought of where they went, dully, stupidly, waving and floundering from side to sideThe weight of their packs was crushing, but they considered them as a part of their bodies, a boulder lodged in their backs
The bushes and thickets grew higher, reached almost to their chestsThe brambles kept catching in their rolex watches ladies rifles, and hooking onto their clothingThey thrashed forward, plunging through the brush until halted by the barbs clinging to their clothing, and then stopped, picked the barbs loose, and swooped forward againThe men thought of nothing but the hundred feet of ground in front of them; they almost never looked upward to the crest of the hill they were climbingIn the early afternoon, they took a long break in the shadow of some rocksThe time passed sluggishly in the chirping of the crickets, the languid flights of the insectsThe men, wretchedly tired, began to sleepHearn had no desire to move, but the break was too prolongedHe stood up slowly, hitched on his pack, and called out, "Come on, men There was no response, which furnished him with a sharp irritationThey would have obeyed Croft quickly"Come on, let's get going, menWe can't sit around on our butts all day His voice was taut and impersonal, and balenciaga bag the soldiers rose out of the grass slowly and sullenlyHe could hear them muttering, was aware of a glum crabbed resistance
His nerves were more keyed than he had realized"Quit the bitching and let's go," he heard himself pipingHe was damn tired of them, he realized suddenly
"That sonofabitch," one of them muttered
It shocked him, and generated resentmentHe repressed it, howeverWhat they were doing was understandable enoughIn the fatigue of the march, they had to have someone to blame, and no matter what he did they would hate him sooner or laterHis approach would end by confusing and annoying themCroft they would obey, for Croft satisfied their desire for hatred, encouraged it, was superior to it, and in turn exacted obedienceThe realization depressed him"We've still got a long way to go," he told them more quietly
They continued to plod onThey were much closer to Mount Anaka nowEvery time chanel handbags collection they crossed a ridge-line they could see the towering cliff walls bordering the pass, could distinguish even the individual trees in the forests on its middle slopesThe country, even the air, had changedIt was cooler here, but the air was perceptibly thinner, and burned faintly in their lungs
They reached the approach to the pass by three o'clockCroft climbed the crest of the last hill, crouched behind a bush, and examined the land before themBeneath the hill, a valley extended for perhaps a quarter of a mile, an island of tall grass surrounded by the mountain range in front, and by hills to the left and rightBeyond the valley the pass wound through the range in a twisting rocky gorge between sheer walls of stoneThe floor of the defile was hidden in foliage, and might conceal any number of men
He stared at the few knolls set in the opening of the pass, searching the jungle that circled about its gucci black bag foot