The Naked and the Dead (81 page)

            Goldstein and Stanley were talking, and Brown turned to them. "Keep it down. We don't want to get him stirred up again."

            "Yeah," Stanley agreed softly, without rancor at the reprimand. He and Goldstein had been talking about their children, eagerly, companionably, welded by the darkness.

            "You know," Stanley went on, "we're really missing the best part of them. Here they are growing up, getting to understand things, and we're not even there."

            "It's hard," Goldstein agreed. "When I left, Davy could hardly talk, and now my wife tells me he carries on a conversation on the telephone just like an adult. It's a little difficult to believe it."

            Stanley clucked his tongue. "Sure. I'm telling you, we're missing the best part of them. When they get older, it'll probably never be the same. I remember when I started growing up, there wasn't a thing my old man could tell me. What a damn fool I was." He said this modestly, almost sincerely. Stanley had discovered that people liked him when he made confessions like that.

            "We're all like that," Goldstein agreed. "I should think it's a process of growing up. But when you get older you see things more clearly."

            Stanley was silent for a minute. "You know I don't care what they say, you can't beat it, being married." His body was stiff, and he turned over carefully in his blanket. "Marriage can't be beat."

            Goldstein nodded in the dark. "It's very different from the way you think it's going to be, but personally I'd be a lost soul without Natalie. It steadies you down, makes you realize your responsibilities."

            "Yeah." Stanley pawed the ground for a moment with his hand. "Being overseas is no way to have a marriage, though."

            "Oh, no, of course not."

            This was not quite the answer Stanley had wanted. He deliberated a moment, seeking a way to phrase it. "Do you ever get. . . well, you know, jealous?" He spoke very softly so that Brown could not hear them.

            "Jealous? No, I can't say I ever do," Goldstein said with finality. He had an inkling of what was bothering Stanley, and automatically he tried to soothe him. "Listen," he said, "I've never had the pleasure of meeting your wife, but you don't have to worry about her. These fellows that are always talking about women that way, they don't know any better. They've fooled around so much. . ." Goldstein had a perception. "Listen, if you ever notice, it's always the ones who go around with a lot of, well, loose women who get so jealous. It's because they don't trust themselves."

            "I guess so." But this didn't satisfy Stanley. "I don't know, I guess it's just being stuck out here in the Pacific with nothing to do."

            "Certainly. Listen, you've got nothing to worry about. Your wife loves you, doesn't she? Well, that's all you got to think about. A decent woman who loves a man doesn't do anything she shouldn't do."

            "After all. she's got a kid," Stanley agreed. "A mother wouldn't fool around." His wife seemed very abstract to him at the moment. He thought of her as "she," as
"x."
Still he was relieved by what Goldstein had said. "She's young, but you know she made a good wife, she was serious. And it was. . . cute the way she took up responsibilities." He chuckled, deciding instinctively to salve all the sore spots of his mind. "You know we had a lot of trouble on our marriage night. Of course we worked it out later but things weren't so good that first night."

            "Oh, everybody has that problem."

            "Sure, Listen, I'll tell ya, all these guys who are always braggin', even a guy like Wilson here." He lowered his voice. "Listen, you can't tell me they didn't have the same troubles."

            "Absolutely. It's always hard to get adjusted."

            He liked Goldstein. The amalgam of the night, the rustling of the leaves in the wood, worked subtly on him, opening the door to all his uncertainties. "Look," he said abruptly, "what do you think of me?" He was still young enough to make this question the climax of any confidential talk.

            "Oh." Goldstein always answered a question like this by telling people what they wanted to hear. He was not being consciously dishonest; he always generated warmth for the person who asked him even if he had never been a friend. "Mmm, I'd say that you're an intelligent fellow with your feet on the ground. And you're kind of ambitious, which is a good thing. I'd say you'll probably go places." And until this moment he had never quite liked Stanley for exactly these reasons, although he had not admitted it to himself. Goldstein had a formal respect for success. But once Stanley had exposed his weaknesses, Goldstein was ready to make virtues of all his other qualities. "You're mature for your age, very mature," Goldstein finished.

            "Well, I've always tried to do more things than I had to." Stanley fingered his long straight nose, scratched at his mustache, which had become scraggly in the past two days. "I was president of our junior class in high school," he said deprecatingly. "I don't mean that that's anything to beat my meat about, but it taught me how to get along with people."

            "It must have been a valuable experience," Goldstein said wistfully.

            "You know," Stanley confided, "a lot of the guys in the platoon are pissed off at me 'cause I came in after them and made corporal. They think I brown-nosed and there ain't a goddam bit of truth in that. I just kept my eyes open, and did what I was told to do, but I'll tell ya it's a damn sight harder job than you realize. These guys who been around in the platoon for a long time, they think they own it, when all they do is fug-off on the details, and just try to make it hard for you. They give me a pain in the ass." His voice became husky with admission. "I know I got a tough job, and I don't say I haven't made mistakes, but I'm learning, and I want to try hard. I take it seriously. Could anyone ask for more than that?"

            "No, they couldn't," Goldstein agreed.

            "I tell you, I've watched you, Goldstein, and you're a good man. I've seen the way you work on details, and no noncom could ask for more. I don't want you to think it ain't appreciated." Indefinably, Stanley felt superior to Goldstein once more; his voice, warm, pliable, had the faintest touch of condescension. He was the noncom talking to the rookie. Effectively, he had forgotten that two minutes before he had waited tensely for Goldstein to say that he liked him.

            Goldstein was pleased, and yet his satisfaction was cloyed. That's what it's like in the Army, he told himself. The opinion of a youngster is so important.

            Wilson was moaning again. They stopped talking, and turned about in their blankets, propped on their elbows to listen. Brown, with a sigh, had sat up, and was trying to soothe him. "What's the matter, boy, what's the matter?" he asked softly, as if trying to comfort a puppy.

            "Ohh, mah belly is killin' me. Sonofabitch."

            Brown wiped away his perspiration. "Who's this talking to you, Wilson?"

            "That's you, Brown, ain't it?"

            "Yeah." He felt relieved. Wilson must be better. It was the first time he had recognized him. "How're you feelin', Wilson?"

            "Ah'm okay, but Ah cain't see a damn thing."

            "It's dark out."

            Wilson began to giggle weakly. "Ah thought that hole in mah belly made me blind." He worked his mouth dryly, and in the darkness it sounded like the tense choking murmurs of a woman in grief. "It's a sonofabitch." He seemed to roll on the stretcher. "Where the hell am I?"

            "We're takin' you back to the beach, Stanley and Goldstein and Ridges and me."

            Wilson digested this slowly. "Ah'm out of the patrol, huh?"

            "Yeah, all of us, boy."

            He giggled again. "Ah bet Croft was mad as a goosed bee. Sonofabitch, they're gonna op-per-rate on me now, an' cut out all that pus, ain't they, Brown?"

            "Yeah, they'll fix you up."

            "By the time Ah git done, Ah'll have two belly-buttons, one right on top of t'other. Goddam that's gonna make me a hell of an attraction to the women." He tried to laugh, and began to cough softly. "On'y thing beat that would be two peters."

            "You old bastard."

            Wilson shivered. "Ah can taste blood in mah mouth. Is that good?"

            "Can't hurt ya," Brown lied. "Just comes out both ends."

            "Ain't that a sonofabitch though, man who's been around's long as me in the platoon gettin' hit in a lousy shit-storm like that." He lay back reflecting. "Ah wish to hell that hole in mah belly would stop actin' up."

            "It'll be all right."

            "Listen, they was Japs after me in that field, jus' a couple of yards away from me. They was talkin', jus' jabberin' away, doky cola kinda it sounded like. But they was right after me." He began to tremble.

            He's off again, Brown thought. "You feeling cold, boy?"

            At the suggestion, Wilson shuddered. Slowly, as he had been talking, his body had been losing its fever, becoming increasingly chill and damp. Now he shivered with cold.

            "You want another blanket?" Brown asked.

            "Yeah, can you gimme that?"

            Brown stepped away from him, moved over to where the others were talking. "Anybody got two blankets?" he asked.

            None of them answered immediately. "I have just one," Goldstein said, "but I can sleep in my poncho." Ridges was slumbering. "I'll sleep in my poncho too," Stanley offered.

            "The two of you bunk together with a blanket and a poncho, and I'll take one from each of you." Brown returned to Wilson, covered him with his own blanket, and the blanket and poncho the others had donated. "You feel better, boy?"

            Wilson's shuddering was becoming less frequent. "Feels good," he murmured.

            "Sure."

            Neither of them said anything for a moment or two, and then Wilson began talking once more. "Ah want you to know Ah 'preciate what you men are doin'." A spasm, of gratefulness welled in him, and tears formed in his eyes. "You're pretty goddam good men, an' they ain't a damn thing good enough for ya. The on'y thing worth a damn is when a man's got good buddies, an' you men are really stickin' to me. Ah swear, Brown, we maybe got a little pissed off at each other from time to time, but they ain't a thing Ah won' do for ya when Ah git fixed up. Ah always knew you was a buddy."

            "Aw, shit."

            "No, a man wants, wants. . ." In his eagerness he began to stutter. "Ah 'preciate it, an' Ah jus' want you to know that Ah'm always gonna be your buddy. You're gonna be able to know that they's one man, Wilson, who'll never have a bad thing to say about ya."

            "Better take it easy, boy," Brown said. Wilson's voice was rising.

            "Ah'm gone to sleep, but don' think Ah don' 'preciate it." He was beginning to ramble again.

            After a few minutes he became silent.

            Brown stared into the darkness. Once more he swore to himself. I gotta get him back. More than anything else it was a plea to whatever powers had formed him.

The Time Machine:

WILLIAM BROWN

NO APPLE PIE TODAY

           
About medium size, a trifle fat, with a young boyish face, a snub nose, freckles, and reddish-brown hair. But wrinkles had formed about his eyes and there were jungle ulcers on his chin. At second glance he was easily twenty-eight years old.

            The neighbors always like Willie Brown, he is such an honest boy, he has such an average pleasant face, you can see it in all the stores, in the framed pictures on the desks of all the banks and offices in the country.

            Nice-looking boy you have there, they always say to his father, James Brown.

            Fine boy, but you ought to see my daughter, she's the bee-yootey.

            Willie Brown is very popular. The mothers of his friends always take to him, the teachers always make him a pet.

            But he has a knack for squaring it. Aw, that old crow, he says of the teacher, I wouldn't spit on her. (Proceeding to spit on the dusty baked sod of the schoolyard.) I don' know why in tee hell she don' lea' me alone.

            And his family is nice. Good stock. The father works for the railroad in Tulsa but he is an office man even if he has started in the yards. And they have their own house in the suburbs, a decent plot of ground behind it. Jim Brown is dependable, always improving his house a little bit, fixing the plumbing or planing the sill of a door that jams.

            Isn't the kind of man who runs into debt.

            Ella and me try to hold to one of those budgets, he says deprecatingly. If we find we're gone a little over, we jus' cut down on the liquor for the week. (Half-apologetically) I kinda look on liquor as a luxury, especially now when you gotta break a law to get it, and you're never sure when it'll leave you blind.

            Keeps up with things too. The
Saturday Evening Post
and
Collier's
and back in the early twenties a charter subscriber to
Reader's Digest.
It all comes in handy for small talk when you're visiting, and the only dishonesty people have ever noticed him in is that he has a habit of talking about the articles without crediting the source.

            Do you know thirty million people smoked cigarettes in 1928? he'll say.

           
The Literary Digest
keeps him informed on politics. I voted for Herbert Hoover in the last election, he admits pleasantly, even though I've been a Democrat as long as I can remember. But I think I'll vote Democrat in the next. The way I look at it, one party's in power for a while and then you give the other a turn.