and at the height of the excitement , at the top of the first hill on 202 , overlooking the mobbed turnpike behind and the gorged and glutted town at their feet , two huge purple-white spotlights split the air ahead of them and the major was there , drawing away from them in his jeep like an hallucination , holding his salute ramrod stiff , incredibly , fantastically oblivious of the crowd in the gigantic throes of its labor all around him .