by James Jones
“I don’t think you understand what’s going on down here, Sir.” Stein said patiently. “We’re taking a lot of fire down here. We’ve had heavy casualties. I was planning to reinforce them right away, but something bad happened. We had a man—” he did not actually hesitate or gulp over the word, but he wanted to gulp— “gutshot out on the slope, and he caused quite a bit of upset. But that’s taken care of now, and I’m planning to reinforce now.” Stein swallowed. “Over?”
“Fine,” Colonel Tall’s voice said crisply, without his former enthusiasm. “By the way, who was that man who ran out on the slope? Was that what he was doing? The Admiral—Admiral Barr—saw him through the glasses; the Admiral couldn’t tell for sure but thought he had gone out to help someone. Was that it? The Admiral wants to recommend the man for something. Over.”
Stein had listened wanting suddenly to laugh hysterically. Help him? Yes, he had helped him all right. Boosted him right on off the old cinder and out and away. “There were two men who went out, Sir,” he said. “One was our senior medic. He was killed. The other,” he said, remembering what he now thought of as his conspiratorial promise to Welsh, “was one of the privates. I don’t know which one yet, but I’ll find out. Over.” And fuck you. And the Admiral.
Fine. Fine, fine. And now, Tall wanted to know, what about those reinforcements? Stein went on to lay out, while the mortars continued to search unabated along and around the fold, his little plan of bringing his reserve platoon forward to this slope, while sending the remaining two squads of 2d Platoon up with the other three—other two now, rather, after casualties—up on the ridge. “I lost Keck, you know, too, Colonel. Up there. He was one of my best men,” he said. “Over.”
The answer he got was an unexpected outburst of official fury. Two squads! What the hell did he mean, two squads! When Tall said reinforcements, he meant reinforcements. Stein should throw every man he had in there, and should do it now. Should have done earlier, as soon as the lodgment was made. That meant commit the reserve platoon and all. And what about Stein’s 1st Platoon? They were lying on their fat asses down there doing nothing. Stein should move them by the flank in to the ridge, should get a man down there to them right now with orders to attack—attack around the left of the ridge. Send his reserve platoon to attack around the right. Leave the 2d Platoon there to hold and press the center. An envelopment. “Do I have to give you a ten cent lesson in infantry tactics while your men are getting their ass shot off, Stein?” Tall howled. “Over!”
Stein swallowed his wrath. “I don’t think you fully understand what’s going on down here, Colonel,” he said more quietly than he felt. “We’ve already lost two officers dead, and a lot of men. I don’t think my company alone can take that position. They’re too well dug in, and have too much firepower. I formally request, Sir, and I have witnesses, to be given permission to make a patrol reconnaissance around to the right of Hill 210 through the jungle. I believe the entire position can be outflanked by a maneuver there in force.” But did he? Did he really believe that? Or was he only grasping at straws? He had a hunch, that was the truth. He had a real hunch but that was all. There had been no fire from there all day. But was that enough? “Over,” he said, trying to muster all his dignity—then blinked and ducked down flat, as a mortar shell went up roaring ten yards away along the little crest and somebody screamed.
“NO!” roared Tall, as if he had been waiting fuming, dancing a little dance of frustration at the other end, until he could push his button and speak his piece into this maddening one-way phone. “I tell you, no! I want a double envelopment! I order you, Stein, to attack, and attack now, with every available man at your disposal! I’m sending B-for-Baker in too on your left! Now, ATTACK, Stein! That’s a direct order!” He paused for breath. “Over!”
Stein had heard himself talking of “formally request” and “have witnesses” with a sort of astonished, numb disbelief. He had not really meant to go that far. How could he be sure that he was right? And yet, he was sure. At least, reasonably sure. Why had there been no firing from down there, then? In any case, he had now either to put up or shut up. His heart suddenly up in his throat, he said formally, “Sir, I must tell you that I refuse to obey your order. I again request permission to make a patrol reconnaissance in force around to the right. The time, Sir, is 1321 hours 25 seconds. I have two witnesses here listening to what I’ve said. I request, Sir, that you inform witnesses there. Over.”
“Stein!” he heard. Tall was raging. “Don’t pull that guardhouse lawyer shit with me, Stein! I know you’re a goddamned lawyer! Now shut up and do like I said! I didn’t hear what you just said! I repeat my order! Over!”
“Colonel, I refuse to take my men up there in a frontal attack. It’s a suicide! I’ve lived with these men two and a half years. I won’t order them all to their deaths. That’s final. Over.” Someone was blubbering now not far away along the crest, and Stein tried to see who it was and couldn’t. Tall was stupid, ambitious, without imagination, and vicious as well. He was desperate to succeed before his superiors. Otherwise he could never have given such an order.
After the little pause, Tall’s voice was cool, and sharp as a razorblade. “This is a very important decision you’re making, Stein. If you feel that strongly, perhaps you have reason. I’m coming down. Understand: I’m not rescinding my order to you, but if I find there are extenuating circumstances when I get down there, I’ll take that into account. I want you to hold on there until I get there. If possible, get those men up on the ridge out and moving. I’ll be there in” he paused “ten or fifteen minutes. Over and out.”
Stein listened unbelieving, mentally stunned, feeling scared. To Stein’s knowledge, which he knew was not universal but nevertheless, no Battalion Commander had come forward with his fighting troops since this battle started and the division entered combat. Tall’s inordinate ambition was a Regimental joke, and he certainly had every bigshot on the island here today to perform for, but Stein still had not anticipated this. What had he expected, then? He had expected, if he made his protest strong enough, to be allowed to make his patrol in force and test the right before having to face a necessity of this frontal attack,—even though he knew it was a little late in the day now for that kind of an operation. And now he was really scared. It was almost funny, how even lying here terrified and half-expecting to be dead at any moment, his bureaucratic fear of reprimand, of public embarrassment was stronger than his physical fear of dying. Well, at least as strong.
Well, he had two things to do, while he waited for Tall. He must see about that man who was wounded a moment ago. And he must get the other two squads of 2d Platoon up there on the ridge to Beck and Dale.
The wounded man proved to be little Pfc Bead from Iowa, Fife’s assistant clerk, and he was dying. The mortar round had exploded five yards away from him on his left, sending a piece probably no bigger than a silver dime into his left side after tearing its way through the triceps muscle of his upper left arm. The chunk out of his arm would never have killed him though it might have crippled him a bit, but blood was pouring from the hole in his side into the compresses somebody had stuck on it, and from the soaked gauze dripping down to stain the ground. When Stein arrived, trailed by the wide-eyed Fife with the telephone, Bead’s eyes were blank and he spoke just barely above a whisper.
“I’m dying, Captain!” he croaked, rolling his eyes toward Stein. “I’m dying! Me! Me! I’m dying! I’m so scared!” He closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed. “I was just laying there. And it hit me right in the side. Like somebody punched me. Didn’t hurt much. Doesn’t hurt much now. Oh, Captain!”
“Just take it easy, son. Just take it easy,” Stein said in a kind of fruitless, bootless anguish.
“Where’s Fife?” Bead creaked, rolling his eyes. “Where’s Fife?”
“He’s right here, son. Right here,” Stein said. “Fife!” He himself turned away, feeling like an old, old, useless man. Grandfather Stein.
Fife had stopped behind the Captain, but now he crawled closer. There were two or three others clustered around Bead. He had not wanted to look; at the same time he could not convince himself of the reality of it. Bead hit and dying. Someone like Tella, or Pvt Jockey Jacques, was different. But Bead, with whom he had worked so many days in the office, in the orderly room. Bead, with whom he had—His mind balked away from that. “I’m here,” he said.
“I’m dying, Fife!” Bead told him.
Fife could not think of anything to say, either. “I know. Just take it easy. Just take it easy, Eddie,” he said, repeating Stein. He felt impelled to use Bead’s first name, something he had never done before.
“Will you write my folks?” Bead said.
“I’ll write them.”
“Tell them it didn’t hurt me much. Tell them the truth.”
“I’ll tell them.”
“Hold my hand, Fife,” Bead croaked then. “I’m scared.”
For a moment, a second, Fife hesitated. Homosexuality. Fagotism. Fairies. He didn’t even think them. The act of hesitation was far below the level of conscious thought. Then, realizing with horror what he had done, was doing, he gripped Bead’s hand. Crawling closer, he slid his other arm under his shoulders, cradling him. He had begun to cry, more because he suddenly realized that he was the only man in the whole company whom Bead could call friend, than because Bead was dying.
“I’ve got it,” he said.
“Squeeze,” Bead croaked. “Squeeze.”
“I’m squeezing.”
“Oh, Fife!” Bead cried. “Oh, Captain!”
His eyes did not go shut but they ceased to see.
After a moment Fife put him down and crawled away by himself, weeping in terror, weeping in fear, weeping in sadness, hating himself.
It was only five minutes after that that Fife himself was hit.
Stein had followed him when he crawled away. He obviously did not fully understand Fife’s weeping. “Lie down somewhere for a little bit, son,” he said, and briefly patted his back. He had already taken the sound power phone from Fife when he sent him up to Bead, and now he said, “I’ll keep the phone for a few minutes myself. There won’t be any calls coming in for a while anyway, now,” he said with a bitter smile. Fife, who had listened to the last call to Tall, had in fact been one of Stein’s two witnesses, knew what he meant, but he was in no condition or mood to make any answer. Dead. Dead. All dead. All dying. None left. Nothing left. He had come unstrung, and his unnerving was the worse because he was helpless, could do nothing, could say nothing. He must stay here.
The mortar rounds had continued to drop at random points along the fold with strict regularity, all during the time it had taken Bead to die, all during the time after. It was amazing how few men they actually wounded or killed. But everyone’s face wore that same vague-eyed, terrorized, in-drawn look. Fife had seen an abandoned, yellowdirt hole a few yards off to his right and he crawled to this. It was hardly even a hole, really. Someone had scooped out with his hands, bayonet or entrenching tool a shallow little trough perhaps only two inches below the surface. Fife crouched flat in this and put his cheek to the mud. Slowly he stopped weeping and his eyes cleared, but as the other emotions, the sorrow, the shame, the selfhatred seeped out of him under the pressure of self-preservation, the fourth component, terror, seeped in to replace them until he was only a vessel completely filled with cowardice, fear and gutlessness. And that was the way he lay. This was war? There was no superior test of strength here, no superb swordmanship, no bellowing Viking heroism, no expert marksmanship. This was only numbers. He was being killed for numbers. Why oh why had he not found and taken to himself that clerkish deskjob far in the rear which he could have had?
He heard the soft “shu-u-u” of the mortarshell for perhaps half a second. There was not even time to connect it with himself and frighten him, before there was a huge sunburst roaring of an explosion almost on top of him, then black blank darkness. He had a vague impression that someone screamed but did not know it was himself. As if seeing some dark film shown with insufficient illumination, he had a misty picture of someone other than himself half-scrambling, half-blown to his feet and then dropping, hands to face in a stumbling, rolling fall down the slope. Then nothing. Dead? Are we, that other one, is I? am he?
Fife’s body came to rest rolling in the lap of a 3d Platoon man, who happened to be sitting up, his rifle in his lap. Tearing itself loose, it scrambled away on elbows and knees, hands still to the face. Then Fife returned to it and opened its eyes and saw that everything had become a red flowing haze. Through this swirling red he could see the comic, frightened face of the 3d Platoon man whose name was Train. Never was there a less likely, less soldierly looking soldier. Long fragile nose, chinless jaw, pipsqueak mouth, huge myopic eyes staring forth in fright from behind thick glasses.
“Am I hit? Am I hit?”
“Y-yes,” Train mumbled. “Y-you are.” He also stuttered. “In the head.”
“Bad? Is it bad?”
“I c-can’t tell,” Train said. “Y-you’re b-bleeding from your h-head.”
“Am I?” Fife looked at his hands and found them completely covered with the wet red. He understood now that peculiar red haze. It was blood which flowing down through his eyebrows had gotten in his eyes. God, but it was red! Then terror blossomed all through him like some ballooning great fungus, making his heart kick and his eyes go faint. Maybe he was dying, right now, right here. Gingerly he probed at his skull and found nothing. His fingers came away glistening red. He had no helmet and his glasses were gone.
“I-it’s in the b-back,” Train offered.
Fife probed again and found the tornup spot. It was in the center of his head, almost at the peak.
“H-how d-do you f-feel?” Train said fearfully.
“I don’t know. It don’t hurt. Except when I touch it.” Still on hands and knees Fife had bent his head, so that the blood flowing into his eyebrows now dripped to the ground instead of into his eyes. He peered up at Train through this red rain.
“C-can you w-walk?” Train said.
“I-I don’t know,” Fife said, and then suddenly realized that he was free. He did not have to stay here any more. He was released. He could simply get up and walk away—provided he was able—with honor, without anyone being able to say he was a coward or courtmartialing him or putting him to jail. His relief was so great he suddenly felt joyous despite the wound.
“I think I better go back,” he said. “Don’t you?”
“Y-yes,” Train said, a little wistfully.
“Well—” Fife tried to think of something final and important to say upon such a momentous occasion, but he failed. “Good luck, Train,” he managed finally.
“Th-thanks,” Train said.
Tentatively Fife stood up. His knees were shaky, but the prospect of getting out of here gave him a strength he might not otherwise have had. At first slowly, then more swiftly, he began to walk rearward with his head bent and his hands to his forehead to keep the still flowing blood from getting in his eyes. With each step he took his sense of joyous release increased, but keeping pace with it his sense of fear increased also. What if they got him now? What if they hit him with something else now just when he was free to leave? As much as he could, he hurried. He passed a number of 3d Platoon men lying prone with those terror-haunted, inward-looking faces, but they did not speak and neither did he. He did not take the longer route back the way they had come, over the second and first folds, but took the direct one, walking straight along the hollow between the folds to the forward slope of Hill 209. Only when he was halfway up the steep slope of Hill 209 did he think of the rest of the company, and pausing he turned and looked back to where they lay. He wanted to yell something to them, encouragment or something, but he knew that from here they could never hear him. When several sniper bullets kicked up dirt around him, he turned and pressed on to come over the crest and down into the crowded Battalion aid s
tation on the other side. Just before he breasted the crest, he met a party of men coming down from it and recognized Colonel Tall. “Hold on, son,” the Colonel smiled at him. “Don’t let it get you down. You’ll be back with us soon.” At the aid station he remembered his one nearly full canteen and began to drink greedily, his hands still shaking. He was reasonably sure now that he would not die.
When Fife got hit, Bugger Stein had just crawled away from him. Fife had crawled one way and Stein the other, to instruct the two remaining squads of 2d Platoon to advance and reinforce Beck and Dale on the grassy ridge. He might just as easily have crawled along with Fife and so have been there when the mortar-shell landed. The element of chance in it was appalling. It frightened Stein. Anyway he was dead-beat tired and depressed, and scared. He had watched Fife stagger bloodily to the rear, but there was nothing he himself could do because he was already in the midst of instructing the two squads from 2d Platoon about what they were to do when they got to the ridge, and what they were to tell Beck—which was, mainly, that he was to get his ass out and moving and try to knock out some of those machineguns.
None of them in the two squads looked very happy about their assignment, including the two sergeants, but they did not say anything and merely nodded tensely. Stein looked back at them earnestly, wishing there was something else, something important or serious, he could tell them. There wasn’t. He told them good luck and to go.
This time, as he had the last, Bugger watched their run down through his glasses. He was astonished to see that this time not one man was hit. He was even more astonished, when he watched through the glasses as they worked their way up through the grass to the little waisthigh ledge, to see that here no one was shot down, either. Only then did his ears inform him of something they ought to have noticed earlier: the volume of the Japanese fire had diminished considerably since Sergeant Welsh’s run down to aid the mutilated Private Tella. When he raised his glasses to the ledge itself, as he did immediately, even before the first of the newcomers began to arrive, Stein was able to see why. Only about half of Beck’s little two squad force was visible there. The rest were gone. On his own hook, without orders, Beck obviously had sent part of his group off raiding and, apparently, with some success. Lowering his glasses, Stein turned to look at George Band, who by now had appropriated glasses of his own somewhere (Stein remembered Bill Whyte’s father had presented him with a fine pair as a parting gift), and who now was looking back at Stein with the same astonished look on his face that Stein knew he himself wore. For a long moment they simply looked at each other. Then, just as Stein was turning to the newly arrived replacement medics to tell them he thought they might cross over to pick up the wounded with some degree of safety now, a cool, calm voice behind him said, “Now, Stein!” and he looked up to see Colonel Tall his Battalion commander walking leisurely toward him carrying beneath his arm the unadorned little bamboo baton he had carried there ever since Stein had known him.
