"If we have any more trouble with the Bansutos today, we'll have more desertions tonight," White warned. "They may all leave in spite of Kwamudi, and if we're left in this country without porters I wouldn't give a fig for our chances of ever getting out.
"I still think, Mr. Orman, that the sensible thing would be to turn back and make a detour. Our situation is extremely grave."
"Well, turn back if you want to, and take the niggers with you," growled Orman. "I'm going on with the trucks and the company." He turned and walked away.
The whites were gathering at the mess table—a long table that accommodated them all. In the dim light of the coming dawn and the mist rising from the ground figures at a little distance appeared spectral, and the illusion was accentuated by the silence of the company. Every one was cold and sleepy. They were apprehensive too of what the day held for them. Memory of the black soldiers, pierced by poisoned arrows, writhing on the ground was too starkly present in every mind.
Hot coffee finally thawed them out a bit. It was Pat O'Grady who thawed first. "Good morning, dear teacher, good morning to you," he sang in an attempt to reach a childish treble.
"Ain't we got fun!" exclaimed Rhonda Terry. She glanced down the table and saw Bill West. She wondered a little, because he had always sat beside her before. She tried to catch his eye and smile at him, but he did not look in her direction—he seemed to be trying to avoid her glance.
"Let us eat and drink and be merry; for tomorrow we die," misquoted Gordon Z. Marcus.
"That's not funny," said Baine.
"On second thought I quite agree with you," said Marcus. "I loosed a careless shaft at humor and hit truth—"
"Right between the eyes," said Clarence Noice.