So I forced myself on, till the red flashes crossed my eyeballs and the blackness crept into my head. I must have stayed down for three minutes.
When I surfaced this time, though, nothing happened, and I trod water and gasped.
I made my way to the left bank and grabbed hold of the trailing undergrowth.
I looked all around me. We were running short on trees at this point, and the fires hadn’t gotten this far. Both banks seemed empty, but so did the river. Could I have been the only survivor? It didn’t seem possible. After all, there had been so many of us when the last march began.
I was half dead with fatigue and my entire body was laced with aches and pains. Every inch of my skin seemed to have been burned, but the waters were so cold that I was shaking and probably blue. I’d have to leave the river soon, if I wanted to live. I felt that I could manage a few more underwater expeditions, and I decided to chance them before departing from the sheltering depths.
Somehow I managed four more laps, and I felt then that I might not come up again if I tried a fifth. So I hung onto a rock and caught my breath. then crawled ashore.
I rolled onto my back and looked all around. I didn’t recognize the locale. The fires hadn’t reached it yet, though. There was a thick clump of bushes off to my right and I crawled toward it, crawled into it, fell flat on my face and went to sleep.
When I awoke, I wished I hadn’t. Every inch of me ached, and I was sick. I lay there for hours, half delirious, and finally managed to stagger back to the river for a long drink of water. Then I headed back for the thicket, made it, and slept again.
I was still sore when consciousness came once more, but a little bit stronger. I walked to the river and back, and by means of my icy Trump found that Bleys was still alive.
“Where are you?” he asked, when I had made the contact.
“Damned if I know,” I replied. “Lucky to be anywhere at all. Near the sea, though. I can hear the waves and I know the smell.”
“You’re near the river?”
“Yes.”
“Which bank?”
“Left, as you’d face the sea. North.”
“Then stay put,” he told me, “and I’ll send someone after you. I’m assembling our forces now. I’ve already got over two thousand together, and Julian won’t come near us. More keep straggling in every minute,”
“Okay,” I said, and that was it.
I stayed put. I slept as I did so.
I heard them bashing about in the bushes and was alert, I pushed some fronds aside and peered forth.
It was three of the big red guys.
So I straightened my gear and brushed all my garments, ran a hand through my hair, stood erect and swayed, took several deep breaths, and stepped forth,
“I am here,” I announced.
Two of them did double-takes, blades in their hands, as I said it.
But they recovered, smiled, paid me deference, and conducted me back to the camp. It was perhaps two miles distant. I made it without leaning.
Bleys appeared and said, “We’ve got over three thousand now.” Then he called for a medical officer to take care of me again.
We were undisturbed all through the night, and the rest of our troops straggled in that night and the following day.
We had perhaps five thousand by then. We could see Amber in the distance.
We slept another night and on the following morning we set forth.
By afternoon we had made maybe fifteen miles. We marched along the beach, and there was no sign of Julian anywhere.
The feeling of pain from my burns began to subside. My thigh was healthy, but my shoulder and arm still hurt from here to hell and back again.
We marched on, and soon we were within forty miles of Amber. The weather stayed clement and all of the wood to our left was a desolate, blackened ruin. The fire had destroyed most of the timber in the valley, so for once there was a thing in our favor. Julian nor anybody else could ambush us. We’d see them coming a mile off. We made another ten miles ere the sun fell and we bivouacked on the beach.