The Thin Red Line

by James Jones

  “Hey, Keck!” He waited. “Hey, Keck! We got to get out of here!”

  “I know it,” came the muffled answer. Keck was obviously lying with his head turned the other way and had no intention of moving it.

  “What’ll we do?”

  “Well...” There was silence while Keck thought. It was interrupted by a high, quavery voice from a long way off.

  “We know you there, Yank. Yank, we know you there.”

  “Tojo eats shit!” Keck yelled. He was answered by an angry burst of machinegun fire. “Roozover’ eat shit!” the faraway voice screamed.

  “You goddam right he does!” some frightened Republican called from Bell’s blind right side. When the firing stopped, Bell called again.

  “What’ll we do, Keck?”

  “Listen,” came the muffled answer. “All you guys listen. Pass it along so everybody knows.” He waited and there was a muffled chorus “Now get this. When I holler go, everybody up. Load and lock and have a nuther clip in yore hand. 1st and 3d Squads stay put, kneeling position, and fire covering fire. 2d and 4th Squads hightail it back over that little fold. 1st and 3d Squads fire two clips, then scoot. 2d and 4th fire covering fire from that fold. If you can’t see nothin, fire searching fire. Space yore shots. Them positions is somewhere about half way up them ridges. Everybody fire at the righthand ridge which is closer. You got that?”

  He waited while everyone muffledly tried to assure themselves that everybody else knew.

  “Everybody got it?” Keck called muffledly. There were no answers. “Then—GO!” he bellowed.

  The slope came to life. Bell, in the 2d Squad, did not even bother with the brave man’s formality of looking about to see if the plan was working, but instead squirmed around and leaped up running, his legs already pistoning before the leap came down to earth. Safe beyond the little fold of ground, which by now had taken on characteristics of huge size, he whirled and began to fire cover, terribly afraid of being stitched across the chest like Lt Whyte who lay only a few yards away. Methodically he drilled his shots into the dun hillside which still hid the invisible, yammering MGs, one round to the right, one to the left, one to center, one to the left ... He could not believe that any of them might actually hit somebody. If one did, what a nowhere way to go: killed by accident; slain not as an individual but by sheer statistical probability, by the calculated chance of searching fire, even as he himself might be at any moment. Mathematics! Mathematics! Algebra! Geometry! When 1st and 3d Squads came diving and tumbling back over the tiny crest, Bell was content to throw himself prone, press his cheek to the earth, shut his eyes, and lie there. God, oh, God! Why am I here? Why am I here? After a moment’s thought, he decided he better change it to: why are we here. That way, no agency of retribution could exact payment from him for being selfish.

  Apparently Keck’s plan had worked very well. 2d and 4th Squads, having the surprise, had gotten back untouched; and 1st and 3d Squads had had only two men hit. Bell had been looking right at one of them. Running hard with his head down, the man (a boy, named Kline) had jerked his head up suddenly, his eyes wide with start and fright, and cried out “Oh!”, his mouth a round pursed hole in his face, and had gone down. Sick at himself for it, Bell had felt laughter burbling up in his chest. He did not know whether Kline was killed or wounded. The MGs had stopped yammering. Now, in the comparative quiet and fifty yards to their front, 1st Platoon was down and invisible amongst their shell holes and sparse grass. Anguished, frightened cries of “Medic! Medic!” were beginning to be raised now here and there across the field, and 2d Platoon having escaped were slowly realizing that they were not after all very safe even here.

  Back at the CP behind the first fold Stein was not alone in seeing the tumbling, pellmell return of the 2d Platoon to the third fold. Seeing that their Captain could safely stand up on his knees without being pumped full of holes or mangled, others were now doing it. He was setting them a pretty good example, Stein thought, still a little astonished by his own bravery. They were going to need medics up there, he decided, and called his two company aidmen to him.

  “You two fellows better get on up there,” Stein yelled to them above the racket. “I expect they need you.” That sounded calm and good.

  “Yes, sir,” one of them said. That was the scholarly, bespectacled one, the senior. They looked at each other seriously.

  “I’ll try to get stretcherbearers to the low between here and the second fold, to help you,” Stein shouted. “See if you can’t drag them back that far.” He stood up on his knees again to peer forward, at where now and then single mortar shells geysered here and there beyond the third fold. “Go by rushes if you think you have to,” he added inconclusively. They disappeared.

  “I need a runner.” Stein bawled, looking toward the line of his men who had had both the sense and the courage to climb to their knees in order to see. All of them heard him, because the whole little line rolled their eyes to look at him or turned toward him their heads. But not a single figure moved to come forward or answered him. Stein stared back at them, disbelieving. He was aware he had misjudged them completely, and he felt like a damned fool. He had expected to be swamped by volunteers. A sinking terror took hold of him: if he could be that wrong about this, what else might he not be wrong about? His enthusiasm had betrayed him. To save face he looked away, trying to pretend he had not expected anything. But it wasn’t soon enough and he knew they knew. Not quite sure what to do next, he was saved the trouble of deciding: a wraithlike, ghostly figure appeared at his elbow.

  “I’ll go, Sir.”

  It was Charlie Dale the second cook, scowling with intensity, his face dark and excited.

  Stein told him what he wanted about the stretcherbearers, and then watched him go trotting off bent over at the waist toward the slope of Hill 209 which he would have to climb. Stein had no idea where he had been, or where he had come from so suddenly. He could not remember seeing him all day today until now. Certainly he had not been one of the line of kneeling standees. Stein looked back at them, somewhat restored. Dale. He must remember that.

  There were now twelve men standing on their knees along the little fold of ground, trying to see what was going on up front. Young Corporal Fife was not, however, one of these. Fife was one of the ones who stayed flattened out, and he was as absolutely flattened as he could get. While Stein stood above him on his knees observing, Fife lay with his knees drawn up and his ear to the soundpower phone Stein had given him care of, and he did not care if he never stood up or ever saw anything. Earlier, when Stein had first done it with his stupid pleased pride shining all over his face, Fife had forced himself to stand straight up on his knees for several seconds, in order that no one might tag him with the title of coward. But he felt that was enough. Anyway, his curiosity was not at all piqued. All he had seen, when he did get up, was the top two feet of a dirt mushroom from a mortar shell landing beyond the third fold. What the fuck was so great about that? Suddenly a spasm of utter hopelessness shook Fife. Helplessness, that was what he felt; complete helplessness. He was as helpless as if agents of his government had bound him hand and foot and delivered him here and then gone back to wherever it was good agents went. Maybe a Washington cocktail bar, with lots of cunts all around. And here he lay, as bound and tied by his own mental processes and social indoctrination as if they were ropes, simply because while he could admit to himself privately that he was a coward, he did not have the guts to admit it publicly. It was agonizing. He was reacting exactly as the smarter minds of his society had anticipated he would react. They were ahead of him all down the line. And he was powerless to change. It was frustrating, maddening, like a brick wall all around him that he could neither bust through nor leap over and at the same time—making it even worse—there was his knowledge that there was really no wall at all. If early this morning he had been full of self-sacrifice, he now no longer was. He did not want to be here. He did not want to be here at all. He wanted to be over there w
here the generals were standing up on the ridge in complete safety, watching. Sweating with fear and an unbelievable tension of double-mindedness, Fife looked over at them and if looks of hatred could kill they would all have fallen down dead and the campaign would be over until they shipped in some new ones. If only he could go crazy. Then he would not be responsible. Why couldn’t he go crazy? But he couldn’t. The un-stone of the stone wall immediately rose up around him denying him exit. He could only lie here and be stretched apart on this rack of double-mindedness. Off to the right, some yards beyond the last man of the reserve platoon, Fife’s eyes recorded for him the images of Sergeants Welsh and Storm crouched behind a small rock outcrop. As he watched, Storm raised his arm and pointed. Welsh snaked his rifle onto the top of the rock and checking the stock, fired off five shots. Both peered. Then they looked at each other and shrugged. It was an easily understood little pantomime. Fife fell into an intense rage. Cowboys and Indians! Cowboys and Indians! Everybody’s playing cowboys and Indians! Just as if these weren’t real bullets, and you couldn’t really get killed. Fife’s head burned with a fury so intense that it threatened to blow all his mental fuses right out through his ears in two bursts of black smoke. His rage was broken off short, snapped off at the hilt as it were, by the buzzing whistle of the soundpower phone in his ear.

  Startled, Fife cleared his throat, shocked into wondering whether he could still talk, after so long. It was the first time he had tried a word since leaving the ridge. It was also the first time he had ever heard this damn phone thing work. He pushed the button and cupped it to his mouth. “Yes?” he said cautiously.

  “What do you mean, ‘yes’?” a calm cold voice said, and waited.

  Fife hung suspended in a great empty black void, trying to think. What had he meant? “I mean this is Charlie Cat Seven,” he said, remembering the code jargon. “Over.”

  “That’s better,” the calm voice said. “This is Seven Cat Ace.” That meant 1st Battalion, the HQ. “Colonel Tall here. I want Captain Stein. Over.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Fife said. “He’s right here.” He reached up one arm to tug at the skirt of Stein’s green fatigue blouse. Stein looked down, staring, as if he had never seen Fife before. Or anybody else.

  “Colonel Tall wants you.”

  Stein lay down (glad to flatten himself, Fife noted with satisfaction) and took the phone. Despite the racketing din overhead, both he and Fife beside him could hear the Colonel clearly.

  When he accepted the phone and pushed down the button, Bugger Stein was already casting about for his explanations. He had not expected to be called upon to recite so soon, and he had not prepared his lessons. What he could say would of course depend on Tall’s willingness to allow any explanation at all. He could not help being a guilty schoolboy about to be birched. “Charlie Cat Seven. Stein,” he said. “Over.” He released the button.

  What he heard astounded him to speechlessness.

  “Magnificent, Stein, magnificent.” Tall’s clear cold calm boyish voice came to him—came to both of them—rimed over with a crust of clear cold boyish enthusiasm. “The finest thing these old eyes have seen in a long time. In a month of Sundays.” Stein had a vivid mental picture of Tall’s closecropped, boyish, Anglo-Saxon head and unlined, Anglo-Saxon face. Tall was less than two years older than Stein. His clear, innocent, boyish eyes were the youngest Stein had seen in some time. “Beautifully conceived and beautifully executed. You’ll be mentioned in Battalion Orders, Stein. Your men came through for you beautifully. Over.”

  Stein pressed the button, managed a weak “Yes, Sir. Over,” and released the button. He could not think of anything else to say.

  “Best sacrificial commitment to develop a hidden position I have ever seen outside maneuvers. Young Whyte led beautifully. I’m mentioning him, too. I saw him go down in that first melee. Was he hurt very bad? But sending in your 2d too was brilliant. They might very well have carried both subsidiary ridges with luck. I don’t think they were hurt too bad. Blane led well too. His withdrawal was very old pro. How many of the emplacements did they locate? Did they knock out any? We ought to have those ridges cleaned out by noon. Over.”

  Stein listened, rapt, staring into the eyes of Fife who listened also, staring back. For Fife the calm, pleasant, conversational tone of Col Tall was both maddening and terrifying. And for Stein it was like hearing a radio report on the fighting in Africa which he knew nothing about. Once in school his father had called him long distance to brag about a good report card which Stein had thought would be bad. Neither listener betrayed what he thought to the other, and the silence lengthened.

  “Hello? Hello? Hello, Stein? Over?”

  Stein pressed the button. “Yes, Sir. Here, Sir. Over.” Stein released the button.

  “Thought you’d been hit,” Tall’s voice came back matter-of-factly. “I said, how many of the emplacements did they locate? And did they knock any of them out? Over.”

  Stein pressed the button, staring into the wide eyes of Fife as if he might see Tall on the other side of them. “I don’t know. Over.” He released button.

  “What do you mean you don’t know? How can you not know?” Tall’s cool, calm, conversational voice said. “Over.”

  Stein was in a quandary. He could admit what both he and Fife knew, or perhaps Fife did not know, which was that he knew nothing about Whyte’s attack, had not ordered it, and until now had believed it bad. Or he could continue to accept credit for it and try to explain his ignorance of its results. He could not, of course, know that Tall would later change his opinion. With a delicacy of sensibility Stein had never expected to see at all in the army, and certainly not on the field under fire, Fife suddenly lowered his eyes and looked away, half turned his head. He was still listening, but at least he was pretending not to.

  Stein pressed the button, which was a necessity, but which was beginning to madden him. “I’m back here,” he said sharply. “Behind the third fold.

  “Do you want me to stand up? And wave? So you can see me?” he added with caustic anger. “Over.”

  “No,” Tall’s voice said calmly, the irony lost on him. “I can see where you are. I want you to do something. I want you to get up there and see what the situation is, Stein. I want Hill 210 in my hands tonight. And to do that I have to have those two ridges by noon. Have you forgotten the corps commander is here observing today? He’s got Admiral Barr with him, flown in specially. The Admiral got up at dawn for this. I want you to come to life down there, Stein,” he said crisply. “Over and out.”

  Stein continued to listen, gripping the phone and staring off furiously, though he knew nothing more was forthcoming. Finally he reached out and tapped Fife and gave it to him. Fife took it in silence. Stein rolled to his feet and ran crouching back down to where the mortars were periodically firing off rounds with their weird, other-world, lingering gonglike sound.

  “Doing any good?” he bellowed in Culp’s ear.

  “We’re getting bursts on both ridges,” Culp bellowed back in his amiable way. “I decided to put one tube onto the right ridge,” he said parenthetically, and then shrugged. “But I don’t know if we’re doin’ any damage. If they’re dug in—” He let it trail off and shrugged again.

  “I’ve decided to move forward to the second fold,” Stein yelled. “Will that be too close for you?”

  Culp strode three paces forward up the shallow slope and craned his neck to see over the crest, squinting. He came back. “No. It’s pretty close, but I think we can still hit. But we’re running pretty low on ammo. If we keep on firing at this rate—” Again he shrugged.

  “Send everybody but your sergeants back for fresh ammo. All they can carry. Then follow us.”

  “They don’t any of them like to carry them aprons,” Culp yelled. “They all say if they get hit with one of those things on them ...”

  “God damn it, Bob! I can’t be bothered with a thing like that at a time like this! They knew what they were gonna have to carry
!”

  “I know it.” Culp shrugged. “Where do you want me?”

  Stein thought. “On the right, I guess. If they locate you, they’ll try to hit you. I want you away from the reserve platoon. I’ll give you a few riflemen in case they try to send a patrol in on our flank. Anything that looks like more than a patrol, you let me know quick.”

  “Don’t worry!” Culp said. He turned to his squads. Stein trotted off to the right, where he had seen Al Gore, Lt of his 3d Platoon, motioning at the same time for Sgt Welsh to come over to him. Welsh came, followed by Storm, for the orders conference. Even Welsh, Stein noticed parenthetically, even Welsh had that strained, intent, withdrawn look on his face—like a greasy patina of guilty wishful thinking.