The Naked and the Dead (60 page)

            The General smiled, and lit a cigarette. "How're you getting along, Stacey?" he asked the clerk.

            "Fine, thank you, sir." That was one of Cummings's tricks. He always remembered the names of enlisted men he had spoken to once or twice.

            "I'll tell you, Major," Cummings's voice was still impersonal, "I'm afraid your work on Operation Coda was done for nothing."

            "No Navy, sir?"

            "I'm afraid not. My little friend says there's not much chance of it." Cummings shrugged. "We'll launch Operation Plunger as planned. There'll be just one little exception. I think we ought to take the outpost opposite I Company first. I want you to draw up an order tonight for Taylor to start a push in the morning."

            "Yes, sir."

            "Let's take a look at it." He turned toward Hearn. "Lieutenant, will you hand me that map, please."

            "Sir?" Hearn started.

            "I said hand me the map." Cummings turned toward Dalleson again.

            "This one?"

            "What other one is there?" Cummings snapped.

            The map was fastened to a large drawing board with an overlay of celluloid tacked to it. While it was not heavy, it was awkward because of its size, and Hearn, unable to see the floor, had to move cautiously.

            It had been unnecessary to move it, he realized abruptly. Cummings could easily have walked over, indeed Cummings knew the map by heart.

            "Hurry, man," Cummings barked.

            For the moment Hearn was standing over him, everything became magnified. He could see each of Cummings's features, the ruddy skin moist from the heat of the tent, the great bald eyes staring at him with indifference and contempt.

            Cummings extended his arm. "Well, give it to me, man, stop holding it." His hand reached for it.

            Hearn let go of the board prematurely, perhaps he even hurled it down. The distinction was unimportant, for he knew he wanted Cummings to drop it. And he succeeded. The map-board struck the General's wrist with a thump. Then it toppled over.

            As it fell it struck the General across the shins.

            The board bounced once across the floor, and the map and overlay ripped off. Hearn stared at Cummings, feeling something between terror and triumph. He heard his voice issuing coolly, a trifle ironically. "I'm
sorry,
sir."

            The pain was acute. To Cummings at that instant, after the effort of maintaining his poise, it was unbearable. To his horror, he felt tears forming in his eyes, and he shut his eyelids, trying desperately to blink them back.
"Dammit,
man," he roared, "WHY DON'T YOU WATCH IT?" It was the first time any of them had ever heard Cummings shout, and Stacey quivered.

            The shout relieved him, however, and he was able to resist the temptation to rub his shinbone. The ache was subsiding into a dull throb. But Cummings felt himself close to exhaustion, and a spasm of diarrhea cramped him. To ease it, he leaned forward in his chair. "Do you want to repair the overlay, Hearn?"

            "Yes, sir."

            Dalleson and Stacey were scrabbling on the floor picking up the portions of the map that had torn in the fall. Hearn looked at Cummings, his eyes expressionless, and then stooped down for the overlay.

            "Does it hurt, sir?" His voice was flatly solicitous.

            "It's all right, thank you."

            In the tent, the heat had become even more oppressive. Cummings felt a little faint. "After you get the map fixed, will you take care of that movement, Major," he said.

            "Yes, sir," Dalleson said from the floor.

            Cummings stepped outside, leaning against the corner pole for a few seconds. The night air was almost cold against his wet clothing. He looked about and then kneaded his shin tenderly before limping across the bivouac.

            He had extinguished the Coleman lantern in his own tent before leaving, and he lay down on his cot in the darkness, and stared at the dim outlines of the tent. Like a cat his eyes reflected some light, and a man entering the tent would have been able to discern them in the darkness before he could see anything else. His shin was throbbing powerfully now, and his stomach felt a little upset. The crack of the map-board against his legs had unseated all the disorders that the tension and absorption of the past two months had spawned. His flesh crawled as if he had a scabies, and his body was laved with an unreasonable sweat. He was familiar with the process, called it "coming apart at the seams," and it had happened to him at Motome, and at specific times in the past. It was a demand his body exacted of him and with a passive, almost a submissive acceptance, Cummings would let it have its course, allowed his mind to follow in its wake for a miserable hour or two, and then always he would recover from it in a night's sleep, feel refreshed and puissant by the following morning.

            This time he took a mild sedative, and fell asleep in less than an hour. When he awakened it was still dark, but he felt restless, and his mind was extremely active. The shin was still sore, and after massaging it for a minute or two in the dark he lit the Coleman lantern by his cot, and examined the bruise gingerly.

            It had been no accident. Hearn had dropped the board purposely, or at the very least it had been only a partial accident, Cummings was certain. And in reassurance his heart began to thump powerfully. Perhaps he had even wanted it to happen; there had been a certain alertness to Hearn, an awareness of him, when he had told him to bring over the map-board. Cummings shook his head. It was unprofitable to plumb that sort of thing. He understood himself and it was best to let it go at that. Although he had awakened only a few minutes previously, his mind was painfully clear, and beneath the threshold of speech he was containing anxiety.

            He would transfer Hearn. It would be dangerous to keep him under his thumb. There would be further episodes, further rebellions, and it might come to a court-martial, which was always messy, always unpleasant. That time with the cigarette butt, he would have carried it through, as he would now if anything developed, but the appeal could be nasty for him. They would never override him in higher echelons, but it could be a black mark.

            Hearn would have to go. Cummings was feeling a mingled triumph and frustration. He could move Hearn where he wanted, and yet there was still an area of rebellion he had not been able to override completely. That was the burr. He squinted his eyes against the glare of the lantern, turned it down a trifle, and then kneaded his thigh with one of his hands, realizing with annoyance it was one of Hearn's gestures.

            Where should he send him? It was not terribly important; that reconnaissance platoon Dalleson had mentioned would do well enough. And it would keep Hearn in headquarters. He would have an idea of what was happening to Hearn. In any case he could take care of that in the morning. When he saw Dalleson about the I Company outpost, he could maneuver it so that the decision seemed to come from Dalleson. It would be better that way, less apparent.

            Cummings lay down again, his hands clasped under his head, staring once more at the ridgepole. As if it were mocking him, he could see the map of Anopopei superimposed on the canvas, and he twisted over uncomfortably, feeling again the frustration and anger he had suffered when he received the message that he would probably get no Navy support. His hopes had been too great. Now he could not divert his mind from the idea of invading Botoi Bay. There might be another maneuver, there should be one, and yet his mind kept picturing the pincers of a frontal assault and an invasion from the rear. He wondered if he should chance it without naval support, but it would be a massacre, the rubber boats again. He could do it only if Botoi were undefended beach.

            There was the nucleus of an idea in that. If he could level the beach defenses first with one force, and then send in his landing craft. . . Perhaps a small detachment could capture the beach at night, and in the morning the others could land. But that was far too risky. A night invasion -- he had no troops who were skilled enough for that.

            A striking force to take Botoi, that could be his substitute for the Navy. But how to do it? It would be impossible to send a company through from his own lines, it would take a break-through for that. Perhaps he could land troops twenty miles behind the Japanese lines and have them advance along the coast. But the jungle was too thick. There were places where they would have to leave the shore and there was an impenetrable forest along the coast behind Botoi. If he could. . .

            An idea had formed, not even articulated, and he held it numbly, conscious at first only that he had an idea. He got out of bed, and trod over the duckboards in his bare feet to examine some aerial photographs in his desk. Could a company do it?

            It was quite possible. He could send a company in assault boats completely around the island, have them land on the unexplored northern shore, which was separated from Toyaku and his troops by the Watamai mountain range. They could strike out directly across the middle of the island, go through the pass adjacent to Mount Anaka and descend into the Japanese rear, where they could attack the beach at Botoi Bay and hold it until he could land a battalion. It would be a plausible attack, for the beach defenses at Botoi were pointed toward the sea; like almost all Japanese positions, there was little maneuverability in the fire lanes.

            He rubbed his chin. The timing will be a bitch on that. But what a conception it was. There was an unorthodoxy, a daring about it, which appealed to him greatly. Cummings did not concern himself with that, however. As in all such moments when he was considering new plans, his mind had become practical and direct. Quickly, he was estimating the distances. It was twenty-five miles across the island to the Japanese side of the pass, and from there it was seven miles to Botoi Bay. Without any delaying incidents a company could do it in three days, two if they were to push themselves. He studied the aerial maps. The terrain was formidable, of course, but not impassable on the other side of the island. There was a fringe of jungle not more than a few miles wide at the water's edge, and then a relatively open march over hills and kunai grass until they would reach the mountains and the pass. It could be done. The problem was to find a route through the jungle in the Japanese rear once they were through the pass. If he were to send a company out they would almost certainly blunder into an ambush.

            Cummings sat back in his chair and mused. He would need reconnaissance first. It would be too expensive, too risky, to tie up a company for a week when the thing might be impossible. A patrol of a few men, a squad or two, would be the better idea. They could go out, break a route, reconnoiter the trails in the Japanese rear, and then return over the way they had come to be picked up by the boats. If they got back without trouble, he could send out a company and pull off the plan. Cummings stared at the lamp for a few seconds. The first reconnaissance patrol would take five days, at most six, and on their return he could dispatch a company that could reach Botoi in three days. For safety's sake, he could allow ten days altogether, or eleven actually since he couldn't start it until tomorrow night. His attack would begin in two days, and by the time he would be ready to launch the Botoi Bay invasion it would be nine days old. With luck some penetration might be made by them, but it was unlikely the frontal assault would be that successful. As it was, the timing might be very opportune. He lit a cigarette. The thing had its appeal.

            Whom could he send out on the first patrol? He thought at once of recon, and then deliberated, searching his memory for what he knew of them. They had been in the rubber boats but there were only a few of those men left, and since then they had been relatively inactive. The night the Japanese had attacked across the river they had acquitted themselves well, very well. There was that platoon leader Croft whom Dalleson had mentioned. Best of all, they were a small platoon, and he could send them all out. If he were to split a larger platoon, the men who would have to go would be bitter at their bad luck in being selected.

            With a little shock he realized that Hearn was to be assigned to recon tomorrow. It wasn't a particularly good idea to send out an officer who would be unfamiliar with his platoon, but he couldn't leave the success of a patrol like this to a noncom. And Hearn was intelligent with the physical requirements necessary for such an extended mission -- at this instant Cummings considered Hearn coldly, as though he were totting up the merits and demerits of a horse. Hearn could manage it; he probably had a flair for command.

            A reaction was setting in. This new plan had a great many risks, almost too many to depend on it. For a few moments Cummings considered dropping it. But the initial investment was cheap enough. A dozen or fifteen men and if it went badly for them nothing was lost. In the meantime, the Navy was not irretrievably lost. He could make a trip perhaps to GHQ once the attack was launched, and see if he couldn't promote those destroyers.

            He walked back to his bed and lay down. In his pajamas the tent was suddenly cold, and he shivered, feeling a muffled anticipation and elation. He might as well try it. Hearn could be sent out.

            If he were ever successful with this. For an instant he allowed himself to dwell on the kudos such a victory would be worth. He turned out the lantern and rested on his cot, looking again into the darkness. Somewhere in the distance artillery was firing.

            He knew he would not fall asleep again before morning. Once he could feel his shin throbbing again, and he laughed out loud, almost startled by the sound of his voice in the empty tent and the night. This had not been casual. It was a process which had developed in his mind along subterranean routes, directed, coming to fruition when it was necessary. Some of his actions toward Hearn were fitting together now. You could always find a pattern if you looked for it.