The Naked and the Dead (97 page)

            Late into the afternoon Ridges and Goldstein struggled along with Wilson. They moved at a torturously slow pace, toting him forward for ten yards or at most fifteen before they set him down. An ant traveling in a straight line would have gone literally as fast. They did not think of quitting or continuing, they hardly ever listened to Wilson's ramblings, there was nothing in all the heat and effort but the dumb imperative to carry him on. They did not talk, they were exhausted beyond speech, they only shambled forward like blind men crossing a strange and terrifying street. Their fatigue had cut through so many levels, had blunted finally so many of their senses that they were reduced to the lowest common denominator of their existence. Carrying him was the only reality they knew.

            And so for hours they labored forward, ready to collapse at any moment, but somehow never quite falling unconscious. Toward the end they had only a dumb wonder that they could abuse their bodies so mightily and have them still function.

            Wilson fell into a fever and drifted along in a heavy swell of fog. The jolting of the litter became dull and leaden, almost pleasant. The few words he heard, the hoarse panting communications between Ridges and Goldstein, the sound of his own voice, indeed all sensations entered his head quite separately like doors opening into individual closets. His senses were exceptionally vivid, he felt every spasm of their muscles in the tremors of the litter, and obversely the pains of his wound seemed remote, something that came to him outside the envelope of his body. But one thing had deserted him. He had no will. He was completely passive, blissfully tired, and it took him minutes to decide to ask for anything, or to bring his hand up to his forehead to chase an insect. And when he did, his fingers remained motionless on his face for almost as long before he dropped his arm again. He was almost happy.

            He rambled on about anything that came into his mind, talking for minutes at a time, his voice rasping weakly or rising to a shout without any control. And the men carrying him listened without understanding the meaning of his words or even caring.

            "They was woman in Kansas when Ah was out at Riley, she used to take me up and live wi' me jus' as if Ah was her husband. Ah never even stayed in the goddam barracks, Ah jus' use' to tell 'em mah wife was in town. That woman use' to cook for me and mend mah uniforms and starch 'em nice as you please, they wa'n't a damn thing she wouldn' do for me." He smiled dreamily. "Ah gotta picture of her Ah'd like to show ya if you jus' wait a minute." His hand would fumble at his pocket, then forget about it. "Figgered Ah wasn't married and Ah never set her right, Ah figgered Ah might even shack up with her after the waw, and what was the goddam sense of jus' losin' a good woman, Ah never could see the point to that. Ah jus' tole her Ah was a collidge gradjit, and she believe' me. Goddam women'll believe any damn thing if en you just keep layin' 'em regular." He sighed, coughed feebly, a little blood inching once more out of his mouth. It stirred a few ripples of fear in him, and he shook his head. He was weary and yet he couldn't give up. "They get me back damn doctors'll fix me up good as new." He shook his head. The bullet had whanged into his flesh with incredible force and he had bled at intervals for a day and a half, had been shocked and jolted on the litter, had undergone the torments of his wound. But it never occurred to him to quit. There were so many things he wanted to do.

            "Ah tell you men Ah ain't sayin' screwin' a nigger is right thing to do, but Ah git a little tempted ever' now and then. They was a nigger gal use' to pass mah pappy's house almost ev' day, an' Ah can still see way her ass wiggle."

            He roused himself almost on his elbow, looked at Ridges evenly for a moment.

            "Eveh screw any nigger stuff?" he asked him.

            Ridges stopped, set the stretcher down. For once he had heard Wilson. "You can shut up that kine of talk," he told him. His breath came in heavy sobs and he stared at Wilson vacantly as if he could not focus his eyes. "Nuff of that," he blurted out. Even in his exhaustion he was profoundly shocked. "Ought know better talk like that," he panted.

            "Ridges, you're jus' chickenshit," Wilson said.

            Ridges shook his head like a bull. All his life there had been any number of things he could not do. Making love to a Negro was a luxury as well as a sin to him; it was one of the excessive things you could not do and survive. "Shut up, Wilson."

            But Wilson was far away already. The warmth in his body, the pleasantly heavy lassitude of his limbs tricked him. He thought it was sexual anticipation, and a thick foundationless lust rose in his throat. He closed his eyes, recalling a moonlit night and the creekbank of the river outside his town. He chuckled weakly, some phlegm burbling into his throat. He swallowed it again. He felt his cheeks puckering, and he lapsed into a gentle weeping which issued easily out of him. He noticed it with surprise.

            Suddenly he was aware of his mouth again, felt his tongue lolling in his throat. "Gimme some water, huh, men?" There was no answer and he said again patiently. "Jus' a little drink, huh, men?"

            They would not answer him, and he was angry.
"Goddammit,
men, gimme a little water."

            "Hold off," Ridges said hoarsely.

            "Men, Ah do anythin' for ya, y' gimme a little water."

            Ridges set him down. Wilson's cries rasped against his senses. It was the only thing that could arouse him by now.

            "You men are just sonsofbitches."

            "You cain't have it," Ridges said. He could see no harm in it, which made it harder for him to refuse, but he was also bitter at Wilson. We done without, neveh made any fuss, he told himself. "Wilson, you cain't have it." His voice was final and Wilson lapsed into reverie again.

            They picked up the stretcher and tugged forward a few yards, laid it down again. The sun was drifting toward the western horizon and it grew cooler, but they paid little attention. Wilson was a burden they had to carry; it would go on and on and they could never let him go. They did not understand this, but comprehension was lurking behind their fatigue. They only knew that they must move on, and they did. All afternoon until it was dark Ridges and Goldstein staggered forward their few inches at a time, and slowly the inches added up. By the time they had stopped for the night, covered Wilson with one of their two blankets and bundled up together beside each other to sleep in stupor, they had advanced Wilson five miles from the place where they had left Brown and Stanley. Already the jungle was not too far away. Although they did not say it, they had glimpsed it from the top of the last hill they had crossed. Tomorrow they might be sleeping on the beach, waiting for the boat to bring them back.

11

            Major Dalleson was in a quandary. The General had left that morning -- the third morning of the patrol -- for Army Headquarters in an attempt to get a destroyer for the invasion of Botoi Bay, and Dalleson effectively had been left in command. Colonel Newton, the CO of the 460th, and Lieutenant Colonel Conn technically ranked Dalleson, but in the General's absence Dalleson was in charge of operations, and now he had a tough problem before him.

            The attack had been grinding ahead for five days, had bogged down only yesterday. They had expected it, for the advance had been ahead of schedule, and it was probable the Japanese would increase their resistance. In consideration of this, Cummings had told him to mark time. "Things are going to be quiet, Dalleson. I suspect there'll be an attack or two from the Japs but nothing to worry about. Just keep up your pressure on the front as a whole. If I can waggle a destroyer or two, we'll be able to knock off the campaign in a week."

            Simple enough instructions, but things were not turning out that way. An hour after the General's plane had taken off, Dalleson received a bewildering patrol report. A squad from E Company had patrolled a thousand yards into the jungle beyond their latest positions and found a Japanese bivouac deserted. Unless the co-ordinates they reported were completely incorrect, that bivouac should have been nearly in the rear of the Toyaku Line.

            At first Dalleson didn't believe the report. There was the memory of Sergeant Lanning and the false reports he had given, the indications that any number of squad and platoon leaders were not fulfilling their missions. But still it seemed unlikely. If a man was going to falsify a report, he was more likely to say he had encountered resistance and turned back.

            The Major scratched his nose. It was eleven o'clock and the morning sun had been baking long enough on the operations tent to make the air inside unbearably hot, leavened with the dry unpleasant smell of heated canvas. The Major was sweating, and the portion he could see of the bivouac clearing through the furled side walls of the tent shimmered in the heat and blared back in his eyes. He was thirsty and debated emptily for a few minutes whether to send one of the enlisted clerks to officers' mess for an iced beer from the refrigerator. But it seemed too much trouble. This was the kind of day when he would have preferred to do nothing except sit before his desk and wait for reports to be forwarded to him. A few feet away two officers were discussing the possibility of getting away in a jeep for the afternoon to go swimming on the beach. The Major burped. His stomach was bothering him, as it did on all particularly hot days, and he fanned himself slowly, vaguely irritable.

            "There's a rumor, utterly unfounded, of course," one of the lieutenants drawled, "that we're getting some Red Cross girls after the campaign."

            "We'll have to fix up a part of the beach, have lockers built. It might end up quite nicely, you know."

            "We'll be moving out again. Infantry always gets the worst of it." That lieutenant lit a cigarette. "But, God, I wish the campaign was over."

            "What for? We'll just have to write the history when it is. That's always the worst time."

            Dalleson sighed again. Their talk about the end of the campaign depressed him. What was he going to do about that patrol report? He felt a gentle tug at his bowels. It would not be unpleasant sitting here, contemplating going to the latrine, if he had nothing to worry about. In the distance an artillery battery had fired, sending a moody echo through the sultry morning air. The Major picked up the field telephone on his desk and cranked it twice. "Give me Potential Red Easy," he grunted at the operator.

            He asked for the Commanding Officer of E Company. "Listen, Windmill, this is Lanyard," he said. He was using the code names.

            "What do you want, Lanyard?"

            "I got a patrol report this morning from you. Number 318, you know the one I mean?"

            "Yes."

            "Is the goddam thing true? And let's have it, Windmill. If one of your boys made it up and you cover for him, I'll have your ass over a barrel."

            "No, it's true. I checked on it myself, I talked to the squad leader. He swears he didn't goof-off."

            "All right, I'm going to proceed on the --" the Major looked for the word he had heard so often -- "on the assumption that it's okay. And Heaven help ya if it isn't."

            The Major mopped his face again. Why did the General have to be away on this of all days? He had a subdued resentment that Cummings had not foreseen it. He should get something in motion right away but he was confused. Instead, he decided to go to the latrine.

            Sitting on the boards, feeling the sun bake sentiently on his exposed belly, the Major tried to think. But other things distracted him. The latrine stench was extremely powerful on this hot morning and he noticed it, made a decision to have a detail dig a new officers' latrine that afternoon. His red face sweated profusely in the open sun. This time they would have a canopy built over it. He stared morosely at the bamboo enclosure.

            Well, what the hell could he do but send a platoon up to occupy that empty bivouac? If they were able to do it without difficulty, he would start worrying then about what to do next. A fragile breeze stirred against his face and he thought with longing of the beach and the pleasantly chill ocean water, the palm trees silhouetted against the shore. Somewhere in the jungle miles away from him something was happening to the Japanese. Maybe their G-3 was sitting on the can now too. The Major grinned.

            But something was wrong with them. The Jap corpses lately looked skinnier. All these islands were supposed to be blockaded, not getting any supplies, but of course you could never depend on the Navy to tell the truth on that. The Major was weary. Why did he have to make these decisions? He lost track of the minutes listening to the rapt absorptive buzzing of the flies under the latrine boards. One or two whipped against his naked flanks and he grunted with displeasure. They damn sure needed a new latrine.

            He lifted himself, did a makeshift job with the sodden paper which had become drenched in the night's rain. There ought to be some better way of making a cover for it than to use a No. 10 tin can. The Major tried to think of some other way to keep the paper dry. What a lazy day it was.

            He got up and stopped off at officers' mess to get a can of iced beer. "How're you doin', Major?" one of the cooks asked.

            "Awright." He rubbed his chin. Something was bothering him. "Oh, yeah, listen, O'Brien, I been gettin' the GIs again. You keeping your pots clean?"

            "You ought to know, Major."

            He grunted again, looked about under the tent at the empty wooden tables, the benches flanking them. The gray metal officers' dishes were already laid out. "You oughtn't to make the setting too early," the Major said. "It just lets the flies horse around on them."