Ice-Cream Headache (18 page)

“I took a bust from corpul to transfer into this outfit,” Gorman growled. “Because it was shipping out. They put me in Cannon Compny and I took another bust from pfc to get in a rifle compny. All because I wanted to see action.”

“We all enlisted,” Martuscelli said sourly.

“All I ask is they give me a rifle,” Gorman growled. “None of your 155s for this soldier. Just a rifle, a bayonet and a knife. That’s all. Gimme that and I’m ready.” He thought a second, then added inconclusively, “Maybe couple grenades.”

“You talk like my brother Vic,” Zwermann said.

Somebody grunted. On the road that had not been a road a month ago a couple of jeeps hammered by, fighting the mud that came clear up to their belly plates. From where the men sat, the rows of coconut trees wheeled away in every direction like spokes from a hub. The sun was bright and clear in the sea air under the tall trees of the grove. It was a fine summery morning. Whenever the wind veered you could hear the sound of the firing from back in the hills.

“Vic’s up there now,” Zwermann said wonderingly.

“Well, when we do go up,” Quentin said suddenly, committing himself, “I’m putting in for straight duty. With the 2nd Platoon. Soon’s we got our orders to move.”

“What the hell for?” Gorman asked, startled.

“Because I want to,” Quentin said.

“If you do, you’re nuts,” Martuscelli said sourly.

“Ha,” Gorman growled. “He won’t. You know where he’ll be when we go in, don’t you? He’ll be sitting under a hill on the first sarnt’s lap punching his typewriter. That’s where.”

“You think so?” Quentin said.

“I know so. You don’t think the First is going to let his protégé get where it’s dangerous, do you?”

“I’m putting in to the Company Commander,” Quentin said. “Not to the first sergeant.”

“So what, clerk? you think that’ll make any difference?”

“Don’t worry about the clerks,” Quentin said. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about soldiering, too.”

“What do you want to do it for, Quentin?” Zwermann said.

“Oh, a lot of things,” Quentin said vaguely, “but mainly so I’ll be able to look after Shelb.”

“I’m glad my brother’s in Africa,” Martuscelli said sourly.

“I’m gladder yet,” Gorman growled, “I ain’t got one.”

“Vic can take care of himself,” Zwermann said. “Better than me.” He was looking away from them.

“In a war,” Gorman growled, “
every
man’s got to take care of himself. That’s my philosophy.”

“That’s a hell of a thing to say!” Quentin said. Then he began to laugh, feeling a wild need to do something—he didn’t know what—and there was nothing to do.

“What’re you laughing at, clerk?” Gorman said stiffly.

“Because,” Quentin said, stopping himself. “I’m laughing because here comes Shelb with the bottle, and here comes the First back from Regiment just in time to spoil everything.”

“What’ll I do with it?” Shelb said.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” Martuscelli said savagely. “Hide the damn thing.” He grabbed the bottle desperately and stuck it down between two of the stacked water cans.

“If he finds it,” Gorman said bitterly, “I know where it’ll go.”

“Thatcher!” the First bellowed. He was raging.

“Yes, sir,” Shelb said resignedly.

“Not you,” the First raged, “damn it.”

“What do you want?” Quentin said.

“Go down and get Sergeant Merdith. Tell him to get his men together and report to me. The 2nd Platoon is going out on a detail.”

There was a dull pause of adjustment.

“But hell, First,” Martuscelli protested, “we just now got back from one.”

The First said, “And you’re just now going out on another one. Ain’t you heard? There’s a war on. The 1st and 3rd Platoons and the Weapons Platoon already out. Who you think I’m going to send? the cook force?”

“What kind of a detail is it, Sergeant?” Zwermann asked.

“How the hell do I know! You think they tell me anything? All they tell me is how many men. And how soon.” He ran his fingernails through his hair a moment. “You’re going up in the hills,” he said, “with a shavetail from the Graves Registration Corps. You’re going up to dig up casualties and carry them down to the graveyard so the Quartermaster Salvage can come in and clean up.”

“That’s great,” Martuscelli said.

“Well,” the First raged, “what the hell’re you waiting for, Thatcher? Get a move on. The truck’s on its way.”

“Sergeant,” Quentin said, “I’d like to have permission to go along on this detail.”

“What do you think this is, Thatcher? A vacation resort? There’s work to be done.”

“I’ve done everything you had laid out for me.”

The First looked at him shrewdly. “Okay,” he said. “Go.
Now get the hell down
there and get Sergeant Merdith.”

“Right,” Quentin said, and took off.

Behind him, he heard the First say, “The rest of you men can wait here. But first Martuscelli, I want that bottle. Maybe it’ll teach you not to be so slow the next time. You men know better than to have whisky in camp. It’s against Army Regulations.”

There were four trucks with the GRC second lieutenant. The detail rode in the first two. They wound away down through the endless coconut grove, breasting the mud like swimmers, the two empty trucks lumbering along behind.

“I always wondered how they got them down to the cemetery,” Martuscelli said.

“Well, now you know,” Gorman growled.

It took them an hour to get through the belt of jungle in low gear. Then they came up out of it into the hills like submarines surfacing and ground on for another hour up the hills before they stopped at one that had a crumbling line of slit trenches along the rearward slope.

“Okay, everybody out,” the GRC lieutenant said briskly, climbing out of the cab of the first truck. “Each man get a shovel.”

The drivers dropped the tail gates and the detail clambered down and went immediately to the lip of the hill. Beyond the crest was a wide saddle that led up to the next hill. The saddle was littered with all kinds of equipment—packs, entrenching tools, helmets, rifles, bayonets, abandoned stretchers, even stray shoes and empty C ration cans. It gave the impression that everyone had suddenly dropped everything in a mad rush to cover ground.

“If any of you are interested in tactics,” the GRC lieutenant said, pointing to a faint haze of smoke three miles to the east, “that’s the present line of the 35th Infantry over there. Three days ago the 35th was here, and jumped off across this saddle.”

The men looked at the distant hills, then at the far-off line of smoke from which sporadic sounds of firing came faintly, then at the saddle below them. There were a few half-muttered comments.

“Okay, fellows,” the GRC lieutenant said briskly. “First, I want to warn you about duds and unexploded grenades. Don’t touch them. There’s nothing to worry about as long as nobody gets wise, but the Ordnance hasn’t been in here yet.

“Now,” he said, “I want you to spread out. We’re only covering the saddle today. Make a line and whenever you see a grave, stop. Some of them, as you see, are marked with bayoneted rifles stuck in the ground. Others are marked with just helmets on sticks. Still others aren’t marked at all, so be watchful. We don’t want to miss any.

“If there are dog tags on them, make sure one is fastened securely to them and give the other to me. If there’s only one, leave it on them, and come get me and I’ll note the information. If there’s no dog tags, just forget it.

“It’s best to work in threes or fours. Two men can’t handle one very well, as advanced as the decomposition is by now. And there’s no rush, men. We’ve got all day to cover the area and we want to do a good job. Someday after the war they’ll be shipped home to their families.

“There are shelter-halfs to roll them in in the last two trucks. The best way is to work shovels in under the head, the knees and the buttocks; that’s why it’s best for three to work together on one; and then roll them up out of the hole with one concerted movement onto the shelter-half which you have already placed alongside. That way you don’t get any on you, and you also keep them from coming apart as much as possible.

“Now. Any questions?” the GRC lieutenant said briskly. “No? Okay then, let’s go to work,” he said, and sat down on the running board of the first truck and lit a cigarette.

The line spread out and moved forward down the crest out onto the saddle and began breaking up into little huddles of moving shovels from which there began to come strained exclamations followed by weak laughter and curses.

As each mound was opened, the smell, strange and alien as the smell of the jungle, burst up out of it like a miniature explosion and then fell heavily back to spread like mercury until it met and joined the explosions from other mounds to form a thick carpet over the whole saddle that finally overflowed and began to drip down into the jungled valleys.

“Just like a treasure hunt back home in the Y.M.C.A.,” Martuscelli muttered sourly, sweating heavily.

“You don’t reckon I’ll ever look like that, do you?” Gorman growled, grinning.

“If you do,” Shelb said, “I won’t speak to you.”

“What his best friends wouldn’t tell him,” Quentin laughed wildly.

“Well, I hope you’re happy now, clerk,” Gorman growled. “You finally got to come along and find out what straight duty in a rifle company’s like. You still putting in for it?”

“Sure,” Quentin said. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

Al Zwermann, of them all, was the only one who did not say anything, but nobody noticed. They were all too busy trying to carry off the collective fantasy that they were unmoved.

It was Quentin’s turn to feel for the tags at the sixth mound, and when he brought them out and cut one off and read it he was somehow not surprised at all. The tag read:

ZWERMANN VICTOR L

12120653 T43 B

and Quentin put it in the handkerchief with the other five and straightened up and wiped his hand off and heard his voice saying toughly, “Well, let’s get him out.”

“Let me see that tag, will you, Quentin?” Zwermann said.

“What tag?” he heard his voice say. “This one?”

“I’ve seen all the others. Let me see that one.”

“I don’t even know which one it was, now, Al.”

“Quentin, let me see that tag!”

Shelb, Martuscelli and Gorman were still standing at the head, knees and buttocks with their shovels. They had all known Vic back at Schofield, and Vic’s battalion of the 35th had come over on the same transport with them. Quentin noticed that there was an odd, distant look on all their faces except Zwermann’s and it made him think of those slugs in the garden with their eyes on the ends of two horns and when they got scared or worried they pulled in the horns.

“Well,” Martuscelli said with a voice that had been pulled in along with the horns, “we might as well get him out of there.”

“Don’t touch him,” Zwermann said, still holding the tag.

“But, Al,” Quentin said, “We got to get him out of there, Al. We can’t leave him there,” he said reasonably. “That’s against orders.”

“I said don’t touch him, damn you!” Zwermann yelled. He picked up one of the shovels and started for Martuscelli and Gorman and Shelb, who were still holding theirs and standing all together like three hens in the rain. “You’re not going to put any shovels on
him,
damn you!”

They let go of their shovels and stepped back guiltily, still all together like three hens in the rain. Zwermann stopped and brandished the shovel at them and then flung it over the edge of the saddle into the jungle.

“Nobody’s going to touch
him
with shovels!” he yelled.

The four of them backed off slowly, back up the saddle toward the hill where the GRC lieutenant and Sergeant Merdith were watching. The men working at the other mounds near them began to back off, placatingly in the same way, still holding their shovels, collecting the men at the further mounds as they moved, until the whole line that had descended into the saddle was slowly backing up out of the saddle.

“Nobody’s going to touch
him!
I’ll shoot the first man that touches
him!
Nobody’s going to see
him
!”

The line went on backing placatingly out of the saddle, and Zwermann stood holding them off as if at gun point and cursing, his bald head shining in the afternoon sun.

“My Lord,” the GRC lieutenant said dismally, when they were hidden behind the number one truck. “I wouldn’t’ve had this happen for anything. What do you suppose he’s going to do?”

They stood, milling a little like nervous sheep, listening to Zwermann moving around down on the saddle. Then they heard him staggering up the slope to the number two truck, where he dropped something heavily onto the iron floor and then clambered in. Then there was silence. It was Sergeant Merdith who finally peered over the hood.

Zwermann was sitting on the bench of the truck, glaring out at them. He had gotten his brother out of the hole by himself and wrapped him up in the shelter-half and carried him up and put him instinctively, without thinking, in the same truck he himself had ridden out in.

“Let’s just leave him alone,” the GRC lieutenant said. “He’ll be all right now.”

Sheepishly they straggled back down onto the saddle and went back to work. When they had the rest of the corpses wrapped and stacked in the two empty trucks, as many men as could squeezed into the first truck. Only an unlucky handful rode home in the second truck. Zwermann sat on the bench, holding a shovel, and glared at them forbiddingly all the way down.

At the cemetery on the Point there was a moment of unpleasant suspense when the handful of GRC men, who had taken over with the swift efficiency of long practice, prepared to unload the number two truck. But Zwermann only glared at them with a kind of inarticulate fury and seemed to feel he had relieved himself of some obscure obligation and did not protest. He climbed down and started off to walk the mile and a halfback to the bivouac.

“Somebody better go with him,” the GRC lieutenant said apprehensively. “He’s liable to wander off in the jungle or something. I’m still responsible for you men till I deliver you back to your outfit.”