four o'clock
Hope long since was dead ; resolve wore thin under friction of disaster ; like a rat , hunger gnawed at them hour after hour ; the cold was one unending agony . Still Bennett was unbroken , still he urged them forward . For so long as they could move he would drive them on . Toward four o'clock on the afternoon of one particularly hard day , word was passed forward to Bennett at the head of the line that something was wrong in the rear . `` It 's Adler ; he 's down again and ca n't get up ; asks you to leave him . '' Bennett halted the line and went back some little distance to find Adler lying prone upon his back , his eyes half closed , breathing short and fast . He shook him roughly by the shoulder .