"There was a broken grouser ... maybe that caused 'er to flip," said Zinc mournfully.
"Maybe."
Landel fished his binocular from its case; focusing it he scrutinized the woodland, the intervening fields, a remote farm, its heap of manure, haystacks.
"We ought to bury our guys," someone said.
"Yeah ... let's bury them," Stragoni said, filling his pipe, shaking tobacco back into a leather pouch.
"Nobody's gonna bury them!" Landel yelled. "They're buried already." Fools for sentiment. "We've got to shove out of here. We'll be spotted ... our buses all along the highway!"
Near a wire gate he caught a solitary figure: the figure reminded him of his father before they imprisoned him: the field man had the same defeated air, the same stoop.
Their company commander, Colonel Fraser, bumped up in a fast jeep: he and his staff did not have much to say: his brown, middle-aged face expressed great chagrin: maps under his arm he checked 67, one of his lieutenants scribbling in a field book.
"You were right behind her," he said to Landel. "Did you see her go over?"
"I didn't see her go over."