Fifteen minutes later McBride lay awake. The great urge to sleep was still there, but sleep wouldn't come. No, that was not it exactly. He wouldn't let it come. He was fighting it. The question wouldn't go away, and it really did need answering after all.
Moving around quietly in the darkness he made sure that the men were sleeping. Then he returned to the bed next to his, the one in which Flaunders slept.
"Flaunders," he said softly.
The question grew in his mind. "Flaunders," he called more urgently. He jostled the quiet form.
"What's wrong?" said Flaunders, half asleep.
"Nothing exactly. I want to talk a bit."
"Better sleep. The time is—"
"Go on," McBride said intently.
Flaunders fought himself awake. "Nothing. Half asleep. Didn't know what I was saying. What do you want?"
McBride lay down on his own bed, hardly able to keep his eyes open. "Maybe I want to talk about the Garden of Eden, about the pair who were told that a certain fruit was death to them, and about a serpent who told them it wasn't."