“I did sail when I was a boy, you know. I had my own sloop and sailed all around Long Island.” Oppy stared at the clouds. “This was the sort of weather I liked most, in fact. I’d run with the wind and go out on the tide race just to fight my way back in, one reach after another. There was one inlet in particular you had to clear. The riptide would curl around and try to take you into the breakers. It was the first time I knew I had courage. First time I proved it.” He cupped his cigarette from the rain. “It would take hours to clear the inlet and reach the bay. You see, it was the struggle that was important, the patience and the strength to find the right angle, the right piece of water and the right wind. As we’re doing right now, Joe. Struggling.”

A low, unbroken belly of clouds stretched from one end of the valley to the other. They seemed to be descending by their very weight, bringing a second, thicker night. Joe could see pinpoints of light on the ground where another party had abandoned another jeep and were running with flashlights. “Did I ever tell you how I got out of Bataan?” he asked.

“No, you never told anyone. I thought it was a point of honor.”

“No honor involved. It’s a sailing story.”

“On Bataan?”

“I got shot in the ass and in the back, then I caught some kind of jungle crud and a fever.” He lit a cigarette off Oppy’s. “I had five Filipino scouts, and we had a field piece we moved from hill to hill, holding the line though there wasn’t any line to hold anymore. When I got the fever and went off my head, the Filipinos ditched the piece to carry me. Problem was, there wasn’t any place to take me. The last barges had gone to Corregidor and we were too far from the depot at Mariveles or Manila. I knew the Japs would shoot me because I couldn’t walk. So the scouts took me down the water because there was no place left to go. They stole a fishing boat and put me in. I could just sit up and I was still trying to give orders—like an officer, you know. It was low tide. I could see the shark net sticking out of the water, so I knew there were mines right below the surface. There were mines off all the beaches.”