He and Dennison had located Robinson by flash. Dennison had brought his arms and placed them across his mutilated body, on a stretcher in a converted supply tank. Robinson's ID fell beside the tank and Zinc brushed off sand and stuck it inside Robinson's torn shirt and buttoned the shirt over the crushed leather.
"Well, he doesn't have to be buried here," Dennison said, folding some canvas over him. "Who's better off ... Chuck ... or Robinson? Chuck or..."
Zinc was too weary to reply; his eyes were swollen from the heat, sand, and lack of sleep: numb, he stumbled toward the chow wagon, shoes sinking into the sand: everything he saw was indistinct: everything difficult.
Behind trucks, sitting on the sand, on gasoline drums, oil drums, boxes, the crewmen ate, no light, no smoking.
Shivering as night came on, the two bedded together on the floor of a truck, under blankets and tarpaulin. Wind scraped at the tarp with a sandpapering sound: it tapped on the truck cab and clicked on its glass.
"We attack early in the morning," Dennison said.
"I know," Zink said.
"Hope we have luck."
"Yeah."
Overhead, Libyan sleep was dropping lower and lower: Dennison squinted at the stars, wondering how many more miles they had to travel before the war ended. Three stars burned in a ragged triangle: gradually, the upper star assumed a greenish pallor. While digging out Robinson's body a star had glittered above the cliff ...