“There were two of us that night, Northrup, two of us crawling away from the hell in the dark. You know!”
“Yes, Rivers, I know.”
“I’d never met him––the other chap––before, but we got talking to each other, when we could, so as to––to keep ourselves alive. I told him about Mary-Clare and Noreen. I couldn’t think of anything else. There didn’t seem to be anything else. The other fellow hadn’t any one, he said.
“When help came, there was only room for one. One had to wait.
“That other chap,” Larry moistened his lips in the old nervous fashion that Northrup recalled, “that other chap kept telling them about my wife and child––he said he could wait; but they must take me!
“God! Northrup, I think I urged them to take him. I hope I did, but I cannot remember––I might not have, you know. I can remember what he said, but I can’t recall what I said.”
“I think, Rivers, you played fair!”
“Why? Northrup, what makes you think that?” The haggard face seemed to look less ghastly.
“I’ve seen others do it at such a time.”
“Others like me?”