There was silence, and it looked as if the muddy figures were too exhausted to reply. Then Sergeant Brian spoke.
"The Rocketeers have a legend, sir."
"What legend, Brian?" Hague snorted.
"Here is the legend, sir. 'George Easy Peter One'."
Hague laughed hollowly, but the Sergeant continued as if he hadn't heard.
"Ground Expeditionary Patrol One—the outfit a planet couldn't lick. Venus threw her grab bag at us, animals, swamps, poison plants, starvation, fever, and we kept right on coming. She just made us smarter, and tougher, and harder to beat. And we'll blast through these lizard-men and the jungle, and march into Base like the whole U.S. Armed Forces on review."
"Let's go," Hague called, and they staggered up again, nine gaunt bundles of sodden, muddy rags, capped in trim black steel helmets with cheek guards down. The others slipped off the trail, and Hague, Brian, and Crosse pulled on the cart harness and lurched forward. The cart wheel hub jammed against a tree bole, and as they strained blindly ahead to free it, a horn note drifted from afar.
"Here they come again," Crosse groaned.
"They—won't be—up—with us—for days," Hague grunted, while he threw his weight in jerks against the tow line. The cart lurched free with a lunge, and all three shot forward and sprawled raging in the muddy trail.
They sat wiping mud from their faces, when Brian stopped suddenly, ripped off his helmet and threw it aside, then sat tensely forward in an attitude of strained listening. Hague had time to wonder dully if the man's brain had snapped, before he crawled to his feet.