Cryptonomicon

He is a prisoner. The lieutenant had decided to execute him for the crime of having surrendered to the enemy, and was in the act of drawing his sword when one of the sergeants prevailed upon him to wait for a while. Impossible as it might seem, Goto Dengo is in far better physical condition than any of the others and therefore useful as a pack animal. He can always be properly executed in front of a large audience when they reach a larger outpost. So he marches in the middle of the group now, unfettered, the jungle serving the purpose of chains and bars. They have loaded him down with the one remaining Nambu light machine gun, which is too heavy for anyone else to carry, and too powerful for them to fire; any man who pulled the trigger on this thing would be shaken to pieces by it, the jungle-rotted flesh scattering from jittering bones.

After a few days have gone by, Goto Dengo requests permission to learn how to operate the Nambu. The lieutenant's reply is to beat him up--though he does not have the strength to beat anyone up properly--so Goto Dengo has to help him, crying out and doubling over when the lieutenant thinks he has landed a telling blow.

Every couple of days, when the sun comes up in the morning, this or that soldier is found to have more bugs on him than any of the others. This means that he is dead. Lacking shovels or the strength to dig, they leave him where he lies and march onward. Sometimes they get lost, march back over the same territory, and find these corpses all swollen and black; when they begin to smell rotting human flesh, they know that they have just wasted a day's effort. But in general they are gaining altitude now, and it is cooler. Ahead of them, their route is blocked by a ridge of snow-capped peaks that runs directly to the sea. According to the lieutenant's maps, they will have to climb up one side of it and down the other in order to reach Nipponese-controlled territory.

The birds and plants are different up here. One day, while the lieutenant is urinating against a tree, the foliage shakes and an enormous bird runs out. It looks vaguely like an ostrich, but more compact and more colorful. It has a red neck, and a cobalt-blue head with a giant helmetlike bone sticking out of the top of its skull, like the nose of an artillery shell. It prances straight up to the lieutenant and kicks him a couple of times, knocking him flat on his ass, then bends his long neck down, shrieks in his face, and runs back into the jungle, using its head-bone as a kind of battering-ram to clear a path through the brush.

Even if the men were not dying on their feet, they would be too startled to raise their weapons and take a shot at it. They laugh giddily. Goto Dengo laughs until he cries. The bird must have delivered a powerful kick, though, because the lieutenant lies there for a long time, clutching his stomach.

Finally one of the sergeants regains his composure and walks over to help the poor man. As he draws closer, he suddenly turns around to face the rest of the group. His face has gone slack.

Blood is fountaining out of a couple of deep stab wounds in the lieutenant's belly, and his body is already going limp when the rest of the group gathers around him. They sit and watch until they are pretty sure he is dead, and then they march onwards. That evening, the sergeant shows Goto Dengo how to disassemble and clean the Nambu light machine gun.

They are down to nineteen. But it seems as though all of the men who were susceptible to dying in this place have now died, because they go for two, three, five, seven days without losing any more. This is in spite of, or maybe because of, the fact that they are climbing up into the mountains. It is brutal work, especially for the heavily laden Goto Dengo. But the cold air seems to clear up their jungle rot and quench the ravenous internal fires of malaria.

One day they break their march early at the edge of a snowfield, and the sergeant orders double rations for everyone. Black stone peaks rise above them, with an icy saddle in between. They sleep huddled together, which does not prevent some of them waking up with frostbitten toes. They eat most of what remains of their food supply and then set out towards the pass.

The pass turns out to be almost disappointingly easy; the slope is so gentle that they're not really aware that they've reached the summit until they notice that the snow is sloping downwards beneath their feet. They are above the clouds, and the clouds cover the world.