by James Jones
While 3d Platoon and Stein’s Company HQ were trooping forward in two parallel single files in their move to the second fold, the 1st Platoon continued to lie in its shellholes. After the first crash and volley and thunder of mortars they all had expected to be dead in five minutes. Now, it seemed unbelievable but the Japanese did not seem to be able to see them very well. Now and then a bullet or a burst zipped by low overhead, followed in a second or so by the sound of its firing. Mortar rounds still sighed down on them, exploding with roaring mushrooms of terror and dirt. But in general the Japanese seemed to be waiting for something. 1st Platoon was willing to wait with them. Leaderless, pinned down, pressing its hands and sweating faces to the dirt, 1st Platoon was willing to wait forever and never move again. Many prayed and promised God they would go to church services every Sunday. But slowly, they began to realize that they could move around, could fire back, that death was not a foregone conclusion and inevitable for all.
The medics helped with this. The two company aidmen, given their orders by Stein, had moved up amongst 2d Platoon along the third fold, and had begun little sorties out onto the shallow slope after wounded. In all there were 15 wounded men, and 6 dead. The two aidmen did not bother with the dead, but slowly they retrieved for the stretcherbearers all of the wounded. With insouciance, sober, serious and bespectacled, the two of them moved up and down the slope, bandaging and salting, dragging and half-carrying. Mortar shells knocked them down, MG fire kicked up dirt around them, but nothing touched them. Both would be dead before the week was out (and replaced by types much less admired in C-for-Charlie), but for now they clumped untouchably on, two sobersides concerned with aiding the sobbing, near-helpless men it was their official duty to aid. Eventually enough 1st Platoon men raised their heads high enough to see them, and realized movement was possible—at least, as long as they did not all stand up in a body and wave and shout “Here we are!” Not one of them had as yet seen a single Japanese.
It was Doll who saw the first ones. Sensing the movement around him as men began to stir and call softly to each other, Doll took his bruised confidence in hand and raised his head until his eyes showed above the slight depression into which he had sprawled. He happened to come up looking at the rear of the little lefthand ridge, just where it joined the rocky rim slope up to Hill 210. He saw three figures carrying what could only be a machinegun still attached to its tripod start across the slope back toward Hill 210, running bent over at the waist in the same identical way he himself had run up here. Doll was astounded and did not believe it. They were about two hundred yards away, and the two men behind ran together carrying the gun, while the man in front simply ran, carrying nothing. Doll slid his rifle up, raised the sight four clicks and, lying with only his left arm and shoulder outside his little hole, sighted on the man in front, leading him a little, and squeezed off a shot. The rifle bucked his shoulder and the man went down. The two men behind jumped sideways together, like a pair of skittish, delicately coordinated horses, and ran on. They did not drop the gun, and they did not lose a stride or even get out of step. Doll fired again and missed. He realized his mistake now: if he had hit one of the men with the MG, they’d have had to drop it and leave it or else stop to pick it up. Before he could fire a third time they were in among the rocks on the rim, beyond which the steep precipice fell to the river. Doll could see their backs or heads from time to time as they went on, but never long enough to shoot. The other man remained where he had fallen on the slope.
So Doll had killed his first Japanese. For that matter, his first human being of any kind. Doll had hunted quite a lot, and he could remember his first deer. But this was an experience which required extra tasting. Like getting screwed the first time, it was too complex to be classed solely as pride of accomplishment. Shooting well, at anything, was always a pleasure. And Doll hated the Japanese, dirty little yellow Jap bastards, and would gladly have killed personally every one of them alive if the US Army and Navy would only arrange him a safe opportunity and supply him the ammo. But beyond these two pleasures there was another. It had to do with guilt. Doll felt guilty. He couldn’t help it. He had killed a human being, a man. He had done the most horrible thing a human could do, worse than rape even. And nobody in the whole damned world could say anything to him about it. That was where the pleasure came. Nobody could do anything to him for it. He had gotten by with murder. He watched the figure on the slope. He would like to know just where he had hit him (he had aimed for the chest), and whether he died right away, or if he was lying there still alive, dying slowly. Doll felt an impulse to grin a silly grin and to giggle. He felt stupid and cruel and mean and vastly superior. It certainly had helped his confidence anyway, that was for sure.
Just then a mortar shell sighed down for a half-second and ten yards away exploded a fountain of terror and dirt, and Doll discovered his confidence hadn’t been helped so much after all. Before he could think he had jerked himself and his rifle down onto the floor of his little depression and curled up there, fear running like heavy threads of quicksilver through all his arteries and veins as if they were glass thermometers. After a moment he wanted to raise back up and look again but found that he couldn’t. What if just as he put up his head another one exploded and a piece of it took him square between the eyes, or knifed into his face, or ripped through his helmet and split his skull? The prospect was too much. After a while, after his breathing had quieted, he again put his head up to the eye level. This time there were four Japanese preparing to leave the grassy ridge for the uphill road to Hill 210. They came into sight from somewhere on the ridge already running. Two carried the gun, another carried handled boxes, the fourth had nothing. Doll pulled his rifle up into position and aimed for the gun-carriers. As the party crossed the open space, he fired four times and missed each time. They disappeared into the rocks.
Doll was so furious he could have bitten a piece out of his own arm. While cursing himself, he remembered he had now fired six rounds. He released the clip and replaced it with a fresh one, sliding the two unused rounds into his pants pocket, then settled down to wait for more Japanese. Only then did he realize that what he was watching might have more implication and importance than whether he got himself another Jap.
But what to do? He remembered Big Queen had been running near him when they hit the dirt.
“Hey, Queen!”
After a moment, there was a muffled answer. “Yeah?”
“Did you see them Japs leavin that left ridge?”
“I ain’t been seein much of nothin,” Queen called with muffled honesty.
“Well, why don’t you get your fuckin head up and look around?” Doll could not resist the gibe. He suddenly felt very powerful and in command of himself, almost gay.
“Go fuck yourself, Doll,” was Queen’s muffled answer.
“No, Sarge,” (he used the title deliberately), “I’m serious. I counted seven Japs leavin that lefthand grassy ridge. I got me one of them,” he added modestly without, however, mentioning how many times he’d missed.
“So?”
“I think they’re pullin out of there. Maybe somebody ought to tell Bugger Stein.”
“You want to be the one?” Queen called back with muffled sarcasm.
The idea had not occurred to Doll. Now it did. He had already seen the two aidmen moving about on the slope, and apparently nothing had happened to them. He could see them now, simply by turning his head a little. “Why not?” he called cheerfully. “Sure. I’ll carry the message back to Bugger for you.” Suddenly his heart was beating in his throat.
“You’ll do no such a goddam fucking thing,” Queen called. “You’ll stay right the fuck where you are and shut up. That’s an order.”
Doll did not answer for a moment. Slowly his heart returned to normal. He had offered and been refused. He had committed himself and been freed. But something else was driving him, something he could not put a name to. “Okay,” he called.
“They’ll get us
out of this in a little bit. Somebody will. You stay put. I’m ordering you.”
“I said okay,” Doll called. But the thing that was driving him, eating on him, didn’t recede. He had a strange tingling all through his belly and crotch. Off to the right there was a sudden burst of the MG fire his ear now knew as Japanese, and immediately after it a cry of pain. “Aidman! Aidman!” somebody called. It sounded like Stearns. No, it wasn’t all that easy. In spite of the two aidmen moving all around. The tingling in Doll got stronger and his heart began to pound again. He had never in his life been excited quite like this. Somebody had to get that news to Bugger. Somebody had to be a—hero. He had already killed one man, if you could call a Jap a man. And nobody, not a single soul in the world, could touch him for it, not a single soul. Doll raised his left eyebrow and pulled up his lip in that special grin of his.
He did not wait for Big Queen, or bother with his permission. When he had squirmed himself around facing the rear, he lay a moment lifting himself to the act, his heart pounding. He could not quite bring himself to begin to move. But he knew he would. There was something else in it, also. In what it was that was driving, pulling him to do it. It was like facing God. Or gambling with Luck. It was taking a dare from the Universe. It excited him more than all the hunting, gambling and fucking he had ever done all rolled together. When he went, he was up in a flash and running, not at full speed, but at about half speed which was better controlled, bent over, his rifle in both hands, even as the Japanese he himself had downed. A bullet kicked up dirt two feet to his left and he zigged right. Ten yards further on he zagged left. Then he was over the third fold into the 2d Platoon, who stared at him uncomprehendingly. Doll giggled. He found Capt Bugger Stein behind the second fold where he had just arrived, ran almost headon into him in fact and did not even have to hunt. He was hardly even winded.
1st Sgt Welsh was crouching with Stein and Band behind the crest of the second fold, when Doll came trotting up, bent over, giggling and laughing, so out of breath he could not talk. Welsh, who had always disliked Doll for a punk, and still did, thought he looked like a young recruit coming giggling out of a whorehouse after the first real fuck of his life, and he eyed him narrowly, wanting to know why.
“What the hell are you laughing at?” Stein snapped.
“At the way I fooled them yellow bastards shooting at me,” Doll gasped, giggling, but soon subsided before Stein’s gaze.
Welsh, with the others, listened to his story of the seven Japanese and two guns he had seen leaving the left ridge. “I think they’re pullin completely out of there, sir.”
“Who sent you back here?” Stein said.
“Nobody, sir. I came myself. I thought it was something you’d want to know.”
“You were right. It is.” Stein nodded his head sternly. Welsh, watching him from where he crouched, wanted to spit. Bugger was acting very much the company commander, today. “And I won’t forget it, Doll.”
Doll did not answer, but he grinned. Stein, on one knee, was now rubbing his unshaven chin and blinking his eyes behind his glasses. Doll was still standing straight up.
“God damn it, get down,” Stein said irritably.
Doll looked around leisurely, then consented to squat, since it was obviously an order.
“George,” Stein said, “get a man with glasses and have him spot the back of that ridge. I want to know the second anybody leaves it. Here,” he said, removing his own, “take mine.”
“I’ll do it myself,” Band said, and bared his teeth in a brilliant-eyed, weird smile. He took off.
Stein looked after him a long moment, and Welsh wanted to laugh. Stein turned back to Doll and began to question him about the attack, casualties, the present position and state of the platoon. Doll didn’t really know very much. He had seen Lt Whyte die, knew Sgt Grove was down but not whether he was dead. He had—they all had, he amended—been pretty busy when the first big bunch of mortars began to hit. He thought he had seen a group of about squad size go into the deep grass at the base of the right ridge, but wasn’t sure. And he had seen the machinegun squad run far out ahead and all go down together with one mortar burst. Stein cursed at this, and demanded what they were doing there in the first place. Doll of course didn’t know. He thought that the center, ensconced in their U.S.-made shellholes and depressions in the bottom, were safe enough for the moment, provided the Japs did not lay a heavy mortar barrage on them. No, he himself had not been very scared the whole time. He didn’t know why, really.
Welsh hardly listened to them. He was looking over the crest at the 2d Platoon flattened out in a long line behind the crest of the third fold, and thinking his own thoughts. 2d Platoon was as flattened as it could get, cheeks and bellies pressed tight to the earth, faces scarred with the white of staring eyeballs and bared teeth, all looking back his way, watching for their Commander, who conceivably might order them to go over this crest again. 2d Platoon would make a great photograph to send back home, Welsh’s eyes told him—without in the least disturbing his thinking—except that of course when the newspapers, government, army, and Life got ahold of it, it would be subtly changed to fit the needs of the moment and probably captioned: TIRED INFANTRYMEN REST IN SAFETY AFTER HEROIC CAPTURE OF POSITION. THE FIRST TEAM AT HALFTIME. BUY BONDS TILL IT HURTS YOUR ASSHOLE.
But all of this more or less visual thinking had nothing to do with what Welsh was thinking on another, deeper level. Mostly, he was thinking about himself. He found it satisfying to contemplate the fact that if he got it, got knocked off, the government wouldn’t have anybody to send a Regrets card to for him. He knew how those fuckfaces of government whitecollar workers loved their jobs and their authority. When he first enlisted, he had given a false first name and middle initial. He and his family had not heard from each other since. On the other hand if he only got crippled, maimed, his enemies the government would have to take care of him, since they had no next-of-kin for him. So he had the bureaucracy fucked both ways. His view of 2d Platoon misted over slightly with a vision of himself in one of those horrible Veterans Hospitals across the country, an aged man in a wheelchair, with a pint bottle of gin hidden in his cheap flimsy robe, cackling and quacking at the weight-lifter lesbian Napoleons of nurses, at the pinheaded, pipsqueak, hard-jawed Alexander-the-greats of doctors. He’d give them a hard time.…
“You’re not really pinned down, then,” he heard Stein say. “I was told—”
“Well, we are, in a way, sir,” Doll said. “But, like you see, I got back all right. We couldn’t all come back at once.”
Stein nodded.
“But two or three at a time could make it, I think. With 2d Platoon firing covering fire,” Doll suggested.
“We don’t even know where those goddamned fucking emplacements are,” Stein said sourly.
“They could fire searching fire, couldn’t they?” Doll suggested professionally.
Stein glared at him. So did Welsh. Welsh wanted to boot the new hero in the ass: already giving the company commander advice—about searching fire, yet.
Welsh interrupted them. “Hey, Cap’n!” he growled. “You want me to go down there and get them men back up here for you?” He glared murderously at Doll, whose eyebrows went up innocently.
“No.” Stein rubbed his jaw. “No, I can’t spare you. Might need you. Anyway, I think I’ll leave them there a while. They don’t seem to be getting hurt too bad and if we can get up onto that right ridge frontally maybe they can flank it.” He paused. “What interests me is that squad on the right that got into the deep grass on the ridge. They—”
He was interrupted by George Band who, bent over, came running down the little slope. “Hey, Jim! Hey, Captain Stein! I just saw five more leaving the left ridge, with two MGs. I think they really are pulling out.”
“Really?” Stein said. “Really?” He sounded as relieved as if he had just been told the battle had been called off until another time. At least now he could act. “Gore! Gore!” he began to bel
low. “Lt Gore!”
It required fifteen minutes to summon Gore, instruct him, assemble his 3d Platoon, and see them off on their venture.
“We’re pretty sure they’re pulling out completely, Gore. But don’t get overeager; like Whyte. They may have left a rearguard. Or maybe it’s a trap. So go slow. Let your scouts look it over first. I think your best approach is down the draw in front of Hill 209. Go left behind this middle fold here till it hits the draw, and then down the draw. If you get hit by mortars like they did there yesterday, you got to keep going, though. If there’s a waterhole in that brush at the foot of the ridge, let me know about it. We’re running very short of water; already. But the main thing. The main thing, Gore, is not to lose any more men than you absolutely have to.” It was becoming an increasingly important point to Stein, almost frantically so. And whenever he was not actually occupied with something specific, that was what he brooded over. “Now, go ahead, boy; and good luck.” Men; men; he was losing all his men; men he had lived with; men he was responsible for.
It required another half hour for Gore’s reserve 3d Platoon to reach its jumpoff point at the foot of the grassy ridge. He was certainly following orders and going slow, Stein thought with impatience. It was now after 9:00. In the meantime Band had come back from the crest of the fold with a report that he had counted three more small bodies of men leaving the left ridge with MGs, but had counted none in the last fifteen minutes. Also in the meantime little Charlie Dale the second cook had returned, his narrow closeset eyes snapping bright, and at the same time dark and thunderous. He showed Stein where he had brought the stretcher bearers to the low between the first and middle folds, four parties of four, sixteen men in all, who were already starting to collect the first of the eight litter cases which had by now accumulated. Then he asked if there were any more little jobs for him to do.
