midnight
Here one would drowse -- there another lose consciousness and sink to the ground , but always men were talking . The talk never ceased . They were ashamed to talk of women while they were facing death , so they kept upon the only other subjects that will hold men long -- God and politics . The talk droned on into morning , through the forenoon , into the night , past midnight , with the thread taken from one man sinking to sleep by another waking up , but it never stopped . The water that seeped into the puddle on the floor moistened their lips as they talked . There was no food save in two lunch buckets that had been left in the room by fleeing miners , and thus went the first day . The second day the Welsh tried to sing -- perhaps to stop the continual talk of the Irish .