Once,
he had gone for two hours in a direction that was fifty degrees off
course. The rest stops also were more frequent now, with each boy
throwing his pack to the ground and lying flat on his back, to enjoy the
cool breeze that never failed to soothe their scorched faces.
When the sun rose out of the desert on the morning of the ninth day,
they stopped, ate a light breakfast of preserved figs, divided the juice
evenly among them, and, ripping the space cloth into three sections,
wrapped it around themselves like Arabs and continued to walk.
By noon, with the sun directly overhead, they were staggering. At
two-thirty the sun and the heat were so overpowering that they stopped
involuntarily and tried to sit on the hot sand only to find that they
couldn't and so they stumbled on.
Neither Roger nor Astro asked for water. Finally Tom stopped and faced
his two unit-mates wobbling on unsteady legs.
"I've gone as far as I can without water. I--I don't think I can go
another step. So come on, we'll finish what we've got."
Astro and Roger nodded in quiet agreement. They watched with dull eyes
as Tom carefully opened the plastic container of water. He gave each a
cup and slowly, cautiously, measured out the remaining water into three
equal parts. He held the container up for a full minute allowing the
last drop to run out before tossing the empty bottle to one side.
Pages:
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230