The Thin Red Line (66 page)

“Sure, sure,” Thorne said. “I’ll write her. Just take it easy.”

When the breathlessness really hit him, they knew it wouldn’t be too long. “Christ, I’m cold!” he gasped. “Freezin!” The last thing he said, from somewhere down there inside the breathlessness, was, “Don’t—forget—write—oldlady—diedlike—aman.” He went on gasping for almost another full minute before he finally stopped.

The four men stood up.

“You going to write his wife?” Bell asked.

“Fuck no!” Thorne said. “I don’t know his old lady. That’s the Compny Commander’s job, not mine. You out of your mind? I ain’t no good at writin letters.”

“But you told him you would.” Bell looked back down at him who was no longer Big Un, no longer anything.

“I tell them anything when they’re like that.”

“Somebody ought to do it.”

“Then you write her.”

“I didn’t tell him I would.”

Charlie Dale came over to them. “All over?” Thorne nodded. “Yeah.”

A detail buried him at the edge of the main trail, and jammed his rifle in the ground with his helmet on it and one dogtag tied to the triggerguard. Nobody had a blanket to wrap him in, but it was better than leaving him to be eaten by rats or whatever it was lived in this undergrowth. Once they had covered his face and bare hands first, it wasn’t so hard to fill in the hole over the rest of him.

They put up an arrow sign for B Company to show the water.

Then they went on to find the third hill (if it was the third hill) unoccupied, too. This was early afternoon.

But not the fourth. If it was the fourth.

It was Band who decided to go on and not wait for Baker to catch up. He still had his mind on Boola Boola for the next day, and the next hill was only four hundred yards off by the map. Actually it turned out to be nearer to six hundred yards when they got there, and this time they had to chop trail. Up to now they had been able to follow old trails. This too took its toll, as well as the normal exhaustion of having pressed on so hard, and they arrived at Hill 279 eight men short, all of whom had been left stretched out along the trail in varying states of collapse, with orders to come on when they could, or wait and be picked up by the patrol Band had left back on the third, if it was the third, hill for Baker Company.

It was just before leaving this next to last, third, fourth, or fifth hill that Sgt Beck came to Band again with a request that his 2d Platoon be allowed to relinquish the point to somebody else. Again Band refused him, but he promised that tomorrow—in the morning at least, Band amended quickly—Beck’s platoon could go into reserve. So it was once again the 2d Platoon which was in the lead when the company received fire. This time, John Bell’s squad was the point squad.

It was the most—in fact, it was
the first
—boring situation, and fight, that any of them could remember. That any fight at all could be boring was incredible, but it was true.

They had been listening hard, as they chopped their way along, hoping there would not be any fight at all and they could move right in, and they had not heard or seen anything at all. Then a man in Bell’s point squad hollered and went down as machine-guns and rifles opened up on them. They were about fifty yards from the top of Hill 279 and open ground. The others in the point squad scattered and spread out. The second squad moved into line on the first squad’s left. The prolonged burst had ceased for several seconds. Now a second came. The wounded man lay crying and moaning. The third squad spread out on the first’s right. The tense-faced men lay and looked at each other and up the hill. All this had been without any orders, without a word spoken. Everybody knew his job. Sgt Beck (trailing behind him the new lieutenant, Tomms) crawled up with the fourth squad, Thorne’s, which now had no real second in command. Beck, with his hand, held them there in reserve position. A medic pushed past Beck to get to the wounded man who still writhed and cried out piteously on the ground. Behind them directed by Brass Band the 3d Platoon was already scrambling, but in the noise seeming to glide, through the dense undergrowth on a tangent which would bring them into line on 2d Platoon’s left. 1st Platoon under Skinny Culn and his new lieutenant, The Pain, was moving up to spread out in company reserve. One MG section each from Weapons was on its way to the two front platoons. And the two mortar sections were flat on their faces. The whole thing had taken maybe forty-five seconds since the first shot. Everybody was scared—naturally—but they were also very tired. It would have to happen to them now at the end of the day. Also, the combat numbness had been advancing in all of them since yesterday morning. It was hardly even exciting, and the half hour’s battle which followed was hardly more exciting.

The upshot of it was that they kept drifting left trying to find a hole. And that was the form the battle took. It was soon clear there would be no counter-attack. Band overestimated the enemy force at just under a company. He sent 1st Platoon around to the left of 3d Platoon, but they found no hole either. The three platoons hid behind trees and the huge tree roots and fired back with no appreciable effect. It was tiring, uninspired, nervousmaking work which everybody wanted to get over and done with; but the Japanese defended their little hill expertly and toughly. Two more men had been wounded now, and with their crying and moaning added their small but important bit to the general noise. Finally Band decided on a frontal attack. A charge. It was the only thing he could think of, since his mortars could not fire because of overhead obstruction.

In front of 3d Platoon was a gently sloping depression up onto the hilltop which seemed to present a sort of psychological entrance channel. So 3d Platoon was given the rather dubious honor of making the charge. They wouldn’t just charge, of course. They would work their way forward as far as they could, then give them a grenade shower, and rush. The MGs and the other two platoons would give them fire support and be prepared to join them as soon as they were in. Lt Al Gore, a thin, hollowcheeked, anguish-faced young man, and Sgt Fox, a heavier, hollowcheeked, anguish-faced man, crawled forward to have a look. They would go in two waves of two squads each.

Corporal Fife, as he got himself ready in Jenks’ squad which would be in the first wave, could hardly believe this was happening to him. Somehow he had always thought he would be spared this experience, that somehow something would always intervene to prevent him having to face Japanese in close proximity with bayonets or knife. He was not at all sure that he could kill somebody who was looking right at him. As they started the crawl under the fire the other two platoons were trying to draw away from them, his teeth were chattering and he was shaking like a leaf from head to foot with terror and lack of confidence.

Earlier, when the first fire had opened on them, wounding and breaking the arm of that man in Bell’s squad, Fife’s squad had been directly behind 2d Platoon. While the others were starting their quick move to the left, Fife had simply frozen, standing there crouched in his tracks unable to move, until Jenks had to yell at him irritably to “Come on, damn it! Get to movin!” After that he was able to move, but his mind simply would not function and he could not think about anything. He knew this sort of thing could get you killed, but that did not help him. And anyway you could get killed in a lot of ways, in just about any way at all in fact. This thing about all the ways you
could
get killed had been with him ever since his own wounding, and now its sheer unreckonability unnerved him. The cries and moans of the hurt man unnerved him further. Why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut? Fife had. This was not just another day’s work to him like it apparently was to Jenks. And also Jenks had never been hit. Getting hit made you realize that you—…

He had tried to do better, helping Jenks herd the squad, pretending he was not unnerved, that he was not thinking of all the unreckonable ways to get killed. But his performance was at best mechanical. And the worst thing in his mind was that he might not be able to kill some Japanese or other who confronted him, and who, therefore, would kill him.

And the same thing was in his mind now as they crawled. Suddenly, for no real reason, he found himself remembering that young, foolish, innocent, gullible Corporal Fife, that total stranger, who once had stood forth in the dawn on Hill 209 and had stretched out his arms willing to be killed for mankind, and the love of mankind. Well, fuck mankind, that bunch of ‘honorable’ animals. Piss and shit on them. That was what they deserved.

They were on their feet before the grenade shower had even exploded. They ran uphill, hollering and yelling. Fife scampered along with them, panting and sweating. Nothing touched him. On his right the usually imperturbable Jenks let out a long, shrill, screeching, quavering rebel yell. Three men went down hollering in the rush. Nothing touched Fife. Then they were in. The second two squads were right behind them. Fife had no trouble shooting. When he first saw those scrawny, tattered, scarecrow yellow men firing their rifles and MGs intently, he could hardly believe it and felt astonished. When he saw one Japanese in a hole whirl with a grenade in his hand and stare at him wide-eyed, he shot him through the chest and watched him fall, the phrase repeating itself over and over in his mind happily that “I can kill, too! I can! Just like everybody! I can kill, too!” Then he looked around for more targets and saw a Japanese running, trying to make the jungle. Head down, arms pumping, he ran in total despair like a man on a too-swift treadmill which was carrying him backward. Fife led him just a hair and shot him through the left side just below the armpit, shouting with elation as the man tumbled with a yell just feet away from the jungle and safety. Then it was all over. 2d and 1st Platoons were pouring in on both sides of them.

A number of the Japanese—maybe half—had got out, running and diving into the jungle leading to their own rear. If such a term as rear applied, in this crazy campaign. The rest, including the two or three who tried to surrender, were shot out of hand by tense-faced, nerve-racked men who wanted no fucking nonsense. The whole thing had lasted just under half an hour. They were all exhausted, by the long trailchopping jungle trek, by the difficult maneuvering through the dense undergrowth, by the fight itself. Now all they had left to do, as soon as they got their breath back, was to get rid of the corpses and make a perimeter defense and dig in for the night. C-for-Charlie had lost two dead and six wounded. The Japanese had lost twenty-three dead. There were no Japanese wounded. But some might have escaped with the others.

Standing with the others of his platoon as they panted and sweated and slowly came back to themselves, or presumed to, Corporal Geoffrey Fife ex-company clerk was astonished to realize that he had personally killed two Japanese. He did not, like most of the others, take part in the poking and looking and souvenirhunting because the corpses made him feel queasy and vaguely guilty. But he watched. Was this the way they’d done it at The Elephant’s Head? And when Charlie Dale whipped out his pliers and Bull Durham sacks and began yanking gold teeth, Fife had to turn away. A few others appeared to view Dale’s toothpulling with distaste, but nobody said anything, and nobody looked as upset as Fife felt. And this upset Fife even more. Don Doll, for instance, was watching Dale and grinning broadly. What was wrong with him? If the rest of the guys could be this tough, why couldn’t he be? He had killed two, hadn’t he?—one of whom had been looking straight at him.

Taking himself in hand, he made himself turn back and watch. He even grinned a little. Doll was grinning. So Fife grinned too. Casually—much more casually than he actually felt—he made himself walk over to one of the cadavers and look at it. He thought of sticking his bayonet in it, to show he didn’t give a damn, but he was afraid that would look too affected. So instead he squatted, taking the stragglybearded greasy chin in his hand, and turned the head so he could look directly into the face. The eyes were still open and a tiny thin trickle of blood had run out of the halfopen, mutilated mouth where Dale had worked on it. Fife gave it a push and stood up and walked away. That ought to show them! He had a strong impulse to wipe his hand vigorously on his pantsleg, but he resisted it. Instead he started getting out his entrenching tool off his belt because soon they’d have to start digging, that much was for sure.

Fife was quite right. That was the next major chore that faced them, before they themselves could face the night. Digging. Their neverending, universal digging. Sweating and panting with exhaustion, digging. Like last night. And almost every night in the world. And sometimes two or three times in the day. A place to lay your head. Three by three by seven, slit trench. Only the very lucky ever inherited another outfit’s holes. Nobody dug the round deep foxholes here because there weren’t any tanks. Here the home was the slit trench. There might not be any atheists in foxholes, John Bell thought with a grim smile, like that dumb Catholic Chaplain in the Philippines said, because nobody here dug foxholes. But he knew a lot of them in slit trenches, and getting more and more every day.

A detail was sent to complete the remaining fifty yards of trail. A patrol was sent back to collect the stragglers and inform Baker where they were. The wounded went out with the patrol. Of the six wounded, only three were litter cases. This meant that one of the four litter teams could stay with the company. Replacement litter teams were to be requested and sent forward, in the morning, perhaps shuttled up from Baker. Everything done, Brass Band decided not to call Battalion. He had not called them last night. After all, they had told him he was an independent command. Independent command! And he was well within the schedule, and even ahead of it.

It was about a half hour after dark—when both of the patrols, and all of the stragglers, were back safely inside the perimeter defense—that the men awake in the section of holes overlooking the trail, heard themselves hailed from the trail in a strong Kentucky accent.

“Charlie Compny! Charlie Compny! Hold your fahr! It’s Witt! It’s Witt! Acting-P-F-C Witt!” the voice added in a burst of sly humor, “of Cannon Compny!”