📸 Photo

Without consciously deciding to do so, we had broken up into pairs. Karl and Marcus walked together in the lead with Kevin and me close behind them. Our marching arrangement affected our social relations as well. Karl and Marcus spoke German to each other. Kevin and I spoke English. Besides that, I was happy to be in Kevin’s company and was feeling less friendly toward Marcus. Somehow he had changed. He was too kind, overly sensitive, and polite enough to drive one to distraction. We were in the jungle, carrying heavy packs, hiking through rugged terrain for no less that ten hours each day. We were wading through the river, plodding through mud, and fighting through the foliage. It was natural that we would all become tougher. Except Marcus. When he saw a bramble bush, he would stop and hold its branches aside until we had all gone past, or he would call out, ‘Watch it, there’s a thorny bush here,’ or ‘Be careful that that branch sticking out doesn’t scratch you.’ It got to be ridiculous. If he happened to be walking behind us and got hit by a branch or scratched, he was insulted that we hadn’t warned him. Kevin and I couldn’t help deriding him privately. Among ourselves we called him Girl Scout.

I had felt a gulf opening between Marcus and me ever since the beginning of the trip. We couldn’t bridge the widening gap, and our conversations centred around purely practical matters. Neither one of us felt comfortable with this change in our relationship.