But which seven?

There's a 1949* novelet by Keith Bennett called The Rocketeers Have Shaggy Ears which details the trials of Ground Expeditionary Patrol One, whose ship crashes during an exploratory mission on Venus.** Thirty-two men set off on a five hundred mile trek back to their main base - seven survive the trip.

The story is told partially from the perspective of Clarence Hague, an inexperienced young gunnery officer who, through the process of attrition, ends up in command of the last remnants of the ship's crew. Near the end of the story, he lists the remaining eight men under his command:

There was young Crosse, his face twitching nervously.  There was Blake, the tall, quiet bacteriologist; Lenkranz, the metals man; Hirooka, the Nisei; Balistierri; Whitcomb, the photographer, with a battered Hasselbladt still dangling from its neck cord against his armored chest. Swenson was still there, the big Swede crewman; and imperturbable Sergeant Brian, who was now calmly cleaning the pneumatic gun's loading mechanism.

Following one last battle with the lizardlike natives of the Venusian jungles, they successfully arrive at the base:

Chapman remembered his field glasses and focused them on the seven approaching men.  "Lieutenant Hague is the only officer."

And so the story ends. Obviously Hague survives that final skirmish, but I've always felt a bit cheated by the fact that we are never told which two of those other eight men fail to complete the journey. I wonder why Bennett decided to omit that crucial bit of information - and why the editor let him get away with it?

 - Sid

* In the interests of complete accuracy, copyright is from 1949, but the story wasn't published in Planet Stories until Spring of 1950.

** There was a point in time where Venus was theorized to be Earth-like but much warmer due to its position closer to the Sun.