When we got back to the LCVP's it was to find that nobody else was either hungry or thirsty....
"We're prisoners," said Captain Haggerty, "that's clear. And according to the laws of war, prisoners are fed. If we've been fed, and given water without eating or drinking, how?"
"Through our pores!" said Preble impetuously.
There was a long moment of silence which somebody had to break pretty soon.
Lieutenant Hoose broke it.
"Personally, I don't want to be sprinkled by something invisible, even if I'm dying of thirst. And if food is being somehow rubbed into us, I'd just as soon nobody rubbed it in! I'm not too lazy to chew for myself!"
It brought the first laugh. Hoose had a drawling manner of speech which sometimes caused the men in ranks some discomfort to keep their faces straight. We were more relaxed than we had been, for we appeared to be in no danger. Besides, we were extremely well armed. If anybody attacked us—but I refused to think too much about that. I had a sneaking hunch that our top-secret weapons were, in this place, just so much metal, value zero.
Now and again, during a comfortable afternoon, I sent out patrols to check on the invisible wall. They always found it. Either it was there continuously, or it was dropped when nobody was near and hurriedly restored when a patrol went out to check.
The feeling that everything we did or said was noted and heard began to make us wary of movement and speech. We tried to pick out vantage points from which we could be seen. Any one of the dunes outside our prison might have hidden something. But discussing it, none of us felt that this was up to the standard of behavior of whatever it was that held us.