I didn't tell the marines to face in any given direction. I merely wanted as many of them as possible to get through the closing cordon.
With a wild, defiant yell the leathernecks charged. As I ran I looked for some opening through the concentric circles. If flesh or skin, clothing or equipment, touched one of the shadows—
It was the queerest ducking and darting game I had ever played. We must not run into one another, we marines, or we might push one another into the shadows—and we knew what had happened to Yount, would never forget it.
It was like trying to dash out through a crowded theater, save that in a theater you didn't lose your life if you happened to touch anything.
I got through, out behind the last circle of Shadow Men. As soon as I was clear, in the cool, starlit waste beyond, I turned and looked back. The circles were still closing, with the LCVP's in their approximate center. To my right and left other marines were emerging from among the Shadow Men.
I looked, and looked away. Some of my own marines were a sight to turn the stomach. It's hell to see an apparently healthy marine standing, stupidly staring at the skeleton of his arm, to the shoulder.... I saw no skeletons in the sand after the marines came through and the Shadows went on. I breathed a sigh of relief. A marine could get along with one arm, and even the skeleton of the other might have possibilities; but a dead marine was dead and done.
I turned and looked back at the closing circles of Shadow Men. As the strange platoon closed in, more and more shadows stepped out of the circles, to form still more concentric circles.
The middle LCVP happened to be the center of the closing circles. The first Shadow Man reached it and stopped, right in the LCVP. Others closed in there—and merged with the first. The Shadow Men were piling themselves into a black heap within the landing craft.
Still the Shadow Men marched inward, converging on that central spot. The heap of blackness in the center did not grow larger. It was as if there were some sort of hole there, into which the shadows were pouring, like water into a funnel.
The last ring of Shadow Men stepped into the LCVP—and vanished.