Well, there was route march, and then there was route march. As practiced by good soldiers, such as the fighters of the Che Loi Brigade, it was a spread-out formation in which one burst from a gun could not hit more than a few men, one small chemical-reaction explosive couldn't take down more than one or two.

They walked in a single file.

When the morning broke, they found that the vessel had forged over the reef, about four or five miles, not having more than two feet water; the reef extending for nine or ten miles to the S.E.

For a moment she was lost in the pursuit of an unseizable clue--the explanation of this monstrous last perversity of fate.