The Naked and the Dead (78 page)

            "That big dumb bastard," he muttered to himself. His first impulse was to leave him. But they had to go back for Wilson; that was one of the rules, and he knew there was no other decision possible. Already he was debating what had happened to him, considering which men he could take back with him for the search.

            He talked to Hearn. "I ought to take just a few men with me, Lootenant. Any more ain't gonna be no help, and just that much more chance of some other trooper getting hit."

            Hearn nodded. His big body sagged, and his cold eyes were wary, a little reflective. He ought to go back himself, for it was a mistake to let Croft take the initiative, but he knew Croft's experience would be more effective. Besides, there had been other reactions, things about himself which he distrusted. He had been angry too when he had heard Wilson was lost, and his first impulse had been to leave him.

            There were so many desires in him at the moment, conflicting, ambiguous, things he had never quite felt before. He had to stop and think it out. "All right, take anybody you want." He lit a cigarette, and stared at his leggings, dismissing Croft.

            Around them, the men were pacing moodily through the hollow, agitated, a little hysterical from the suddenness of the ambush and the discovery that Wilson had been lost. They snapped at each other irritably.

            Brown and Red were having an argument. "You bastards weren't in the field, you were sitting there behind that goddam rock. Couldn't you even keep your fuggin heads up high enough to see if anybody got hit?" Red swore.

            "What the hell are you talkin' about, Red? If it hadn't been for us covering you guys, you all woulda been knocked off."

            "Aaah, balls, you yellow bastards, ducking down behind that rock."

            "Fug you, Red."

            Red slapped his forehead. "Jesus Christ, Wilson, of all the guys to be lost."

            Gallagher wandered back and forth, smacking his hand against his forehead. "How the fug did we lose him?" he demanded. "Where is he?"

            "Sit down, Gallagher," Stanley shouted.

            "Blow it out."

            "All you men can just shut your mouth," Croft snapped. "Pack of goddam women." He stood up and looked at them. "I'm gonna take a few men back to find Wilson. Who wants to go?" Red nodded, and Gallagher nodded his head in agreement.

            The others were silent for a perceptible second or two. "Shoot, Ah might as well go," Ridges announced.

            "I want one more man."

            "I'll go," Brown said.

            "I ain't taking any noncoms. The Lootenant'll be needing ya."

            He looked around, staring at them. I shouldn't take any chances, Goldstein told himself. What'll Natalie do if something happens to me? But he felt a sense of guilt when everyone remained silent. "I'll go too," he said abruptly.

            "All right. We'll jus' leave our packs in case we got to move fast."

            They picked up their rifles, and filed out of the hollow, heading back toward the field where they had been ambushed. They moved silently, strung out in a long column, each man ten yards apart. The sun was moving toward the west, and it glared in their eyes. They were a little reluctant now.

            They followed in reverse the route of their retreat, moving quickly without any attempt at concealment except when they crossed a ridge. The country was dotted with groves of bushes and trees, but they gave them only a cursory examination. Croft was certain Wilson had been wounded in the ambush, and hadn't left the field.

            It took them less than half an hour to reach the ledge, and they advanced toward it stealthily, crouching close to the ground. There seemed no one about, no sound at all. Croft bellied forward over the rock slab, raised his head slowly, and searched the field. He could see nothing, and in the grove at the other end of the field, nothing seemed to be stirring.

            "Goddam, goddam sonofabitching belly."

            The men stiffened at the sound. Someone was moaning only ten or twenty yards away. "Goddam, ohhhhhhhh."

            Croft stared into the grass. "Ohhhh, that mother-fuggin. . ." The voice trailed off in a babble of curses.

            He slid down from the ledge, and joined the others, who waited for him nervously, their rifles unslung. "I think it's Wilson. Come on." He worked over to the left, slid up the broad flat slab of the ledge again, and dropped from it into the grass. In a few seconds he found Wilson, turned him over gently. "He's hit, all right." Croft stared at him with a mild pity, mixed with a trace of disgust. If a man gets wounded, it's his own goddam fault, Croft thought.

            They knelt in the grass around him, careful to keep their heads low. Wilson had become unconscious again. "How're we going to get him back?" Goldstein asked in a whisper.

            "Let me worry about that," Croft murmured coldly. He was concerned with something else for the moment. Wilson had been groaning loudly, and if the Japs were still in the grove they must have heard him. It was inconceivable that they wouldn't have come out to kill him, and therefore the only answer was that they had retreated. Their fire had been too sporadic, too small in volume, to have come from more than a squad of men. Undoubtedly it had been only an outpost with orders to retreat if any patrols were sighted.

            Then the entrance to the pass was no longer guarded. He wondered if he should leave Wilson, and take the others with him on a reconnaissance. But it seemed pointless; there would certainly be more Japs deeper in the pass, and they would never get through. Their only chance was to go over the mountain. He stared up at it again, and the sight roused a delicate shiver of anticipation.

            There was Wilson to be taken care of. It angered him. And he had to face something else. When the ambush had started, he had been paralyzed for a few seconds. It had not been fear, he had merely been unable to move. In remembering this he felt a little balked, almost teased, as if he had missed an opportunity. To do what. . .? He was uncertain, but the emotion was similar to the one he felt now because he could not reconnoiter the pass. There had been a gap before he fired, and in that. . . Something he had wanted. I fugged up, he told himself bitterly, not quite certain of what he meant.

            And here was Wilson. Properly, it would take six men to carry him back to the beach. Croft felt like swearing.

            "All right, let's drag him through the grass until we get to the ledge and then we can carry him." He grasped Wilson by the shirt, and began tugging him along the ground, Red and Gallagher helping. They reached the ledge in less than a minute, and passed Wilson over it. On the other side of the shelf they set him down, and Croft began to fashion an emergency stretcher. He removed his shirt, buttoned it, and slipped his rifle through one sleeve, and Wilson's rifle through the other. The barrels protruded at the waist, and the stocks projected through the cuffs of the sleeves. With his belt he bound Wilson's wrists together, and wrapped him in a blanket from his discarded pack.

            When the stretcher was completed it was about three feet long, the length of the shirt. They put it under Wilson's back, slid his bound arms over Ridges's neck, and Ridges then grasped the rifle stocks at the rear. Red and Goldstein each supported one of the muzzles at Wilson's thigh, and Gallagher stood at the front, holding Wilson's ankles. Croft guarded them.

            "Let's get out of here," Gallagher muttered. "The damn place is spooky."

            They listened uneasily to the silence, staring at the rock precipices.

            They looked at Wilson, watched the slow pulse of his bleeding. His face had become blanched, almost white. He looked unfamiliar. They could not believe it was Wilson. It was just an unconscious wounded man.

            Red had a vague sadness for a moment. He liked Wilson, and Wilson had been full of hell, but he couldn't feel very much. He was too tired, and he wanted to get out of this place. "We oughta put a goddam compress on him."

            "Yeah."

            They set Wilson down again. Red opened his first-aid packet, and took out the flat cardboard box that held the bandage. He peeled it open with stiff fingers, set the aseptic surface against Wilson's wound, and bound it about him lightly. "Should I give him wound tablets?"

            "Not with a belly wound," Croft said.

            "Think he's gonna last?" Ridges asked hoarsely.

            Croft shrugged. "He's a big ox."

            "You can't kill ol' Wilson," Red muttered. Gallagher looked away. "Come on, let's get going."

            They started out, progressing slowly and carefully over the hills back to the hollow where they had left the rest of the platoon. It was hard labor, and they took frequent rests, alternating the guard for the litter-bearers.

            Wilson gained consciousness slowly, muttering incoherently for minutes at a time. He seemed awake for almost a minute, but he recognized none of them.

            "Doko koko cola," he muttered several times, giggling feebly.

            They stopped, wiped the blood from his mouth, and then set out again. It took them more than an hour to reach the platoon, and they were very tired when they got there. They laid Wilson down, slipped him off the stretcher, and flopped on the ground to rest. The other men gathered about them nervously, asking questions, mildly jubilant that Wilson had been found, but they were too weary to talk much. Croft began to swear. "Goddam it, you men, stop standing around with your finger in your ass." They looked at him in bewilderment.

            "Minetta and Polack and Wyman and. . . Roth, git over there in that grove, and cut two poles about six feet long, and about two inches in diameter, and bring back a couple of struts about eighteen inches wide?"

            "What for?" Minetta asked.

            "What the hell do you think it's for? For a stretcher. Now git goin', you men."

            Muttering, they picked up a couple of machetes, and filed out of the hollow to the grove. In a minute or so, the platoon could hear them hacking away at the trees. Croft spat disgustedly. "Them men are enough to frost your nuts." There was a restless titter. Wilson, unconscious now, lay in the center of the hollow, very still. Despite themselves, they all kept looking at him.

            Hearn had joined Croft, and after talking for a moment or two, they called Brown and Stanley and Martinez over to them. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, and the sun was still hot. Croft, afraid of becoming sunburned, pulled the rifles out of his shirt sleeves, flapped it a few times, and put it on. He grimaced at the bloodstains on it, and then began to talk. "The Lootenant thinks that all the noncoms ought to talk this over now." He mentioned this flatly as if to convey that the idea had not come from him. "We're gonna send some men back with Wilson, an' I think we ought to figure out who we don't want."

            "How many you sending with him, Lootenant?" Brown asked.

            Hearn hadn't thought about that until now. How many would it be? He shrugged, trying to remember the number of men specified in the manual. "Oh, I think six will about do it," he said.

            Croft shook his head, made an abrupt decision. "We ain't gonna be able to spare six, Lootenant, we'll have to make it four."

            Brown whistled. "It's gonna be a sonofabitch with four men."

            "Yeah, four men, not so good," Martinez said sarcastically. He knew he would not be chosen as one of the litter-bearers, and this once it made him bitter. His nerves were still taut from the ambush. He knew Brown would maneuver himself into going back with Wilson, while he would have to go ahead with the platoon.

            Hearn interrupted. "You're right, Sergeant, we can spare only four litter-bearers." His voice was easy, forceful, as if he had been commanding them for a long time. "We never can tell when some other man jack is going to get hit, and we'll need bearers for him."

            This was the wrong thing to say. They all looked glum, and their mouths tightened. "Goddammit," Brown blurted out, "we been pretty lucky up to now this campaign. Outside of Hennessey and Toglio. . . why in the hell did it have to be Wilson?"

            Martinez rubbed his fingertips, staring at the ground. He slapped at an insect on his neck. "His number up."

            "We might be able to get him back okay," Brown said. "You're gonna send a noncom with the litter-bearers, aren't you, Lootenant?"

            Hearn didn't know the procedure, but there was no point in admitting it. "I think we can spare one of you noncoms."

            Brown wanted to be picked. He had concealed it from the others, but nevertheless he had gone to pieces behind the ledge. "I guess it's Martinez's turn to go back," he said, however, not without guile, for he knew Croft would want Martinez with him. Yet on another level Brown was trying to be fair.

            "I need Japbait," Croft said shortly. "I guess it'll be you, Brown." Hearn nodded.

            "Any way you want it." Brown rubbed his hand over his cropped brown hair, fingered a jungle ulcer on his chin. He felt vaguely guilty. "Who'll I take?"

            Croft reflected. "How 'bout Ridges and Goldstein, Lootenant?"

            "You know the men better than I."

            "Well, they ain't much fuggin good, but they're strong enough, an' if you push 'em, Brown, they ain't gonna goof-off on ya. They were awright when we carried Wilson back from where he got hit." Croft looked at them. He remembered that Stanley and Red and Gallagher had almost got into a fight on the boat. Stanley had crawfished, and he wouldn't be much use now. Still, he was a smart kid, Croft thought, probably smarter than Brown.

            "Who else?"

            "I figure you need a good man since you got a coupla fug-ups. How about takin' Stanley?"