The Thin Red Line (44 page)

John Bell, for one, had forgotten all about the Japanese torture killing of the two George Company men three days before. It was too long ago and too much had happened to him since. When Big Un recalled it with such surprise to them all, Bell found it didn’t really matter so much any more. Guys got killed, one way or another way. Some got tortured. Some got gutshot like Tella. Some got it quick through the head. Who knew how much those two guys suffered, really? Only themselves; and they no longer existed to tell it. And if they no longer existed, it didn’t either and was no longer important. So what the fuck? A wall existed between the living and the dead. And there was only one way to get over it. That was what was important. So what was all this fuss about? Bell found himself eyeing Big Un coolly and wondering what his real angle was, behind all this other crap. The others in the little group obviously felt the same way, Bell noted, from the peculiar looks on their faces; but nobody said anything. Thirty-five yards away beyond and above the little protective ledge the middle platoon of Baker still fired and fought and now and then yelled just a little bit. If Bell was any judge by the sound of it, what was left of them would be coming back pretty quickly. A rough fingernail of excitement picked at his solar plexus when he thought what this would mean soon for himself. Then, suddenly, like a bucket of cold water dashed in his face, his own supreme callousness smashed into his consciousness and shook him with a sense of horror at his own hardened brutality. How would Marty like being married to this husband, when he finally did get home? Ah, Marty! so much is changing; everywhere. Therefore, when the middle platoon of B did come rolling and tumbling and cursing and sobbing back over the ledge with their white eyeballs in their faces and their open mouths, Bell watched them with an anguish which was perhaps out of all proportion even to their own.

How the others in the assault group felt about the return of the platoon, Bell could not tell. From their faces they all, including Cash, seemed to feel the same cool, guarded callousness he himself had just been feeling, and now was so desperately wanting not to feel. The Baker Company men lay against the ledge staring at nothing and seeing nobody and breathing in long painful gasps through their parched throats. There was no water to give them and they needed water badly. Though the day was not yet really hot, they were all sweating profusely, thus losing even more precious moisture. Making a noise like a battery of frogs in a swamp two of them rolled up their eyeballs and passed out. Nobody bothered to help them. Their buddies couldn’t. And the assault group only lay and watched them.

This lack of water was becoming a serious problem for everybody, and would be more of one as the glaring equatorial sun mounted, but whatever the reason—though there was plenty of it in the rear—no water could be got this far forward to them. Curiously enough, it was little Charlie Dale the insensitive, rather than Bell or Don Doll, who voiced it for all of them in the assault group. Imaginative or not he was animal enough to know what his belly told him and be directed by it. “If they don’t get us some water up here soon,” he said loud enough to be heard by everybody in the vicinity, “we ain’t none of us going to make it to the top of this hill.” Abruptly, he rolled over to face the looming shape of Hill 209 in their rear and began to shake his fist at it. “Dirty Fuckers! Dirty bastards! Pig bastards! You got all the fucking water in the world, and you drinking ever fucking drop of it, too! You ain’t lettin any of it get past you up to us, are you! Well you better get some of it up here to your goddam
fightin men
, or you can take your goddam fucking battle and shove it up your fat ass and lose it!” He had yelled this much of his protest, and it verberated off along the ledge where nobody, least of all the middle platoon of B, paid any attention to it. The rest of it tapered away into an intense, unintelligible mutter which, as Colonel Tall now sauntered toward them from his command hole baton in hand, became a respectful and attentive silence.

The Colonel whose walk was leisurely and erect—as straight up as he could get, in fact—condescended to squat while he talked in a low serious voice to Gaff. Then they were off and crawling again along the by now so familiar ledge—familiar to the point of real friendliness almost, John Bell thought, which could be a bad trap if you believed it—as it curved away out of sight around the hill’s curve, Gaff in the lead.

Bell crawled around Charlie Dale in the second spot and touched the Captain on the behind. “You better let me take the point, Sir,” he said respectfully.

Gaff turned his head to look at him with intense, crinkled eyes. For a long moment the two, officer and ex-officer, looked honestly into each other’s eyes. Then with an abrupt gesture of both head and hand Gaff admitted his small error and signaled Bell to go on past him. He let one more man, Dale, pass him and then fell into the third spot. When Bell reached the point where the trough began and Lieutenant Gray had died, he stopped and they all clustered up.

Gaff did not bother to give them any peptalk. He had already explained the operation to them thoroughly, back at the position. Now all he said was, “You all know the job we’ve got to do, fellows. There’s no point in my going over it all again. I’m convinced the toughest part of the approach will be the open space between the end of the trough here and the shoulder of the knob. Once past that I think it won’t be so bad. Remember that we may run into smaller emplacements along the way. I’d rather bypass them if we can, but we may have to knock some of them out if they block our route and hold us up. Okay, that’s all.” He stopped and smiled at them looking each man in the eyes in turn: an excited, boyish, happy, adventuresome smile. It was only slightly incongruous with the tensed, crinkled look in his eyes.

“When we get up to them,” Gaff said, “we ought to have some fun.”

There were several weak smiles, very similar to his own if not as strong. Only Witt’s and Big Un’s seemed to be really deep. But they were all grateful to him. Since yesterday all of them, excepting Big Un, had come to like him very much. All last evening, during the night, and again during the predawn movements, he had stayed with them except during his actual conferences with Colonel Tall, spending his time with them. He kidded, cajoled and boosted them, cracking jokes, telling them cunt stories about his youth at the Point and after, and all the kooky type broads he had made—had in short treated them like equals. Even for Bell who had been one it was a little thrilling, quite flattering to be treated as an equal by an officer; for the others it was moreso. They would have followed Gaff anywhere. He had promised them the biggest drunk of their lives, everything on him, once they got through this mess and back down off the line. And they were grateful to him for that, too. He had not, when he promised, made any mention about ‘survivors’ or ‘those who were left’ having this drunk together, tacitly assuming that they would all be there to enjoy it. And they were grateful for that also. Now he looked around at them all once more with his boyish, young adventurer’s eager smile above the tensed, crinkled eyes.

“I’ll be leading from here on out,” he said. “Because I want to pick the route myself. If anything should happen to me, Sergeant Bell will be in command, so I want him last. Sergeant Dale will be second in command. They both know what to do.

“Okay, let’s go.” It was much more of a sigh than a hearty bellow.

Then they were out and crawling along the narrow, peculiarly sensed dangerousness of the familiar trough, Gaff in the lead, each man being particularly careful of the spot where the trough opened out into the ledge and Lieutenant Gray the preacher had absentmindedly got himself killed. Big Un Cash, who was new to all this, was especially careful. John Bell, waiting for the others to climb out, caught Charlie Dale staring at him with a look of puzzled, but nonetheless hateful enmity. Dale had been appointed Acting Sergeant at least an hour before Bell, and therefore should have had the seniority over him. Bell winked at him, and Dale looked away. A moment later it was Dale’s turn to go, and he climbed out into the trough without a backward look. Only one man, Witt, remained between them. Then it was Bell’s own turn. For the—what was it? third? fourth? fifth time? Bell had lost track—he climbed out over the ledge and crawled past the thin screen of scrub brush. It was beginning to look pretty bedraggled now from all the MG fire which had whistled through it.

In the trough ahead with his head down Charlie Dale was thinking furiously that that was what you could always expect from all goddam fucking officers. They hung together like a pack of horse thieves, busted out or not. He had broke his ass for them all day yesterday. He had been appointed Acting Sergeant by an officer, by Bugger Stein himself, not by no rucking platoon sergeant like Keck. And about a hour before. And look who got command? You couldn’t trust them no further than you could throw them by the ears, no more than you could trust the government itself to do something for you. Furiously, outraged, keeping his head well down, he stared at the motionless feet of Doll in front of him as if he wanted to bite them off.

Up ahead Gaff had waited, looking back, until they were all safely in the trough. Now there was no need to wait longer. Turning his head to the right he looked off toward the strongpoint, but without raising his head high enough to see anything above the grass. Were they waiting? Were they watching? Were they looking at this particular open spot? He could not know. But no need in spotting them a ball by exposing himself if they were. With one last look back directly behind him at Big Un Cash, who favored him with a hard, mean, gimleteyed grin that was not much help, he bounced up and took off with his rifle at high port, running agonizingly slowly and pulling his knees up high to clear the matted kunai grass like a football player running through stacks of old tires. It was ludicrous to say the least, not a dignified way to be shot, but not a shot was fired. He dived in behind the shoulder of the knob and lay there. After waiting a full minute he motioned the next man, Big Un, to come on. Big Un, who had moved up, as the others had moved up behind him, took right off at once running in the same way, his rifle pounding against his back, the shotgun in his hands, his helmet straps flapping. Just before he reached the shoulder a single machinegun opened up, but he too dived to safety. The machinegun stopped.

The third man, Doll, fell. He was only about five yards out when several MGs opened up. They were watching this time. It was only twenty or twenty-five yards across, the open space, but it seemed much longer. He was already breathing in ripping gasps. Then his foot caught in a hole in the mat of old grass and he was down. Oh, no! Oh, no! his mind screamed at him in panic. Not me! Not after all the rest that’s happened to me! Not after all I’ve lasted through! I won’t even get my medal! Blindly, spitting grass seeds and dust, he clambered up and staggered on. He only had ten yards more to go, and he made it. He fell in upon the other two and lay sobbing for breath and existence. The bright, washed sun had just come up over the hills in the east.

By now in the early morning sunshine and stark shadows all the MGs from the strongpoint were firing, hosing down the trough itself as well as the open space. Bullets tore over the heads of Charlie Dale, Witt and Bell in bunches which rattled and bruised the poor thin little bushes. It was now Dale’s turn to go, and he was still furious at Bell. “Hey, wait!” Bell yelled from behind him. “Wait! Don’t go yet! I got an idea!” Dale gave him one hate-filled contemptuous look and got to his feet. He departed without a word, chugging along solidly like a little engine, in the same way he had gone down and come back up the slope in front of the third fold yesterday. By now a sort of semi-path had been pushed through the grass, and this aided him some. He arrived behind the shoulder and sat down, apparently totally unmoved, but still secretly angry at Bell. Nothing had touched him.

“You must be out of your mind!” Captain Gaff shouted at him.

“Why?” Dale said. Maliciously, he settled himself to see what fucking Bell would do now. Heh heh. Not that he wanted him to get hurt, or anything.

Bell demonstrated his idea immediately. When he and Witt had crawled to the end of the trough, the MGs still firing just over their heads, Bell pulled the pin on a grenade and lobbed it at the strongpoint. But he did not throw it straight across; he threw it into the angle formed by the ledge and the trough, so that it landed in front of the bunker but further back much closer to the ledge. When the MGs all swung that way, as they did immediately, he and Witt crossed in safety before they could swing back. Clearly the three of them could have done it just as easily, and when he threw himself down grinning in the safety behind the shoulder, Bell winked at Charlie Dale again. Dale glowered back. “Very bright,” Gaff laughed. Bell winked at Dale a third time. Fuck him. Who did he think he was? Then suddenly, after this third wink, like some kind of a sudden stop, Bell realized the fear he had felt this time had been much less, almost none at all, negligible. Even when those bullets were sizzing just over his head. Was he learning? Was that it? Or was he just becoming inured. More brutalized, like Dale. The thought lingered on in his head like an echoing gong while he sat staring at nothing, then slowly faded away. And so what? If answer is yes, or if question does not apply to you, pass on to next questionnaire. What the hell, he thought. Fuck it. If he only had a drink of water, he could do anything. The MGs from the strongpoint were still hosing and belaboring the empty trough and its poor straggly bushes as the party moved away.

Gaff had told them that he thought the rest of the route would be easier once they were past the open space, and he was right. The terrain mounted steeply around the knob which jutted out of the ridge and up here the mat of grass was not quite so thick, but now they were forced to crawl. It was next to impossible to see the camouflaged emplacements until they opened up, and they could not take any chances. As they moved along in this snail’s way, sweating and panting in the sun from the exertion, Bell’s heart—as well as everybody else’s—began to beat with a heavier pulse, a mingled excitement and fear which was by no means entirely unpleasant. They all knew from yesterday that beyond the knob was a shallow saddle between the knob and the rock wall where the ledge ended, and it was along this saddle which they were to crawl to come down on the Japanese from above. They had all seen the saddle, but they had not seen behind the knob. Now they crawled along it, seeing it from within the Japanese territory. They were not fired upon, and they did not see any emplacements. Off to the left near the huge rock outcrop where the seven Japanese men had made their silly counterattack early yesterday, they could hear the tenor-voiced Japanese MGs firing at Baker Company at the ledge; but nothing opened up on them. When they reached the beginning of the saddle, sweating and half-dead from the lack of water, Gaff motioned them to stop.