"To your post."
The private turned on his heel and marched off to take his place in a company formation that was rapidly taking shape near by. My turn was next. What was the number of my cave? A mistake now, and I was through.
I saluted. "No one in cave twenty, sir."
"To your post."
Had I hit it? When the final check-up came would there be two reports for one cave, none for another?
A front rank man moved aside. Good: that meant my place was just behind him. My luck was holding. And never did a man need luck more!
Now was my first chance to look about, to discover what sort of place this was. It was an oval plain, roughly a mile wide by five miles long. Buildings, squat structures of corrugated iron, were scattered here and there. In the distance, to my left, what seemed a great hole in the ground glowed; a huge disk of light.
Dry land, here, where there should be nothing but a waste of waters!
