by James Jones
Still looking dapper although he was now almost as dirty as themselves, Colonel Tall with his little bamboo baton in his armpit and his hand resting on his rakishly lowslung holster, strode among them to tell them good luck. He shook hands with Bugger Stein and Brass Band. Then they trudged away in the ghostly light, moving away eastward back down the ridge to face their new day while thirst gnawed at them. Before dawn lightened the area, they had crossed back over the third fold—where they had lain so long in terror yesterday, and where the familiar ground now looked strange—and had traversed the low between the folds to the edge of the jungle where they were hidden, where Col Tall would not let them go yesterday, and where not a single Japanese was in sight. Approaching it cautiously with scouts out, they found nobody at all. A hundred yards inside the jungle they discovered a highly passable, much used trail, its mud covered with prints of Japanese hobnailed boots, all pointing toward Hill 210. As they moved along it quietly and without trouble, they could hear the beginning of the fight on the ridge—where they had left the previously four, but now five volunteers with Captain Gaff.
Tall had not waited long. B-for-Baker now manned the line of holes behind the ledge. Tall sent them forward to the ledge itself, and as soon as it was light enough to see at all, sent the middle platoon forward in an attack whose objective was to wheel right in a line pivoted on the ledge so that they would be facing the strongpoint. This would place them in a position to aid Gaff.
But the middle platoon’s move was not successful. MG fire from the strongpoint, and other hidden points nearby, hurt them too badly. Four men were killed and a number of others were wounded. They were forced to return. That was the noise of the fight C-for-Charlie heard; and its failure left everything up to Gaff and his now five volunteers. They would have to take the strongpoint alone. Tall walked over to them where they lay.
This fifth volunteer with Gaff was Pfc Cash, the icy-eyed taxi-driver from Toledo with the mean face, known in C-for-Charlie as “Big Un.” Earlier, before C-for-Charlie moved out, Big Un had come up to Tall in the dark and in a ponderous voice had asked to be allowed to stay behind and join Gaff’s assault group. Tall, who was not used to being approached by strange privates anyway, could hardly believe his ears. He could not even remember ever having seen this man. “Why?” he asked sharply.
“Because of what the Japs done to them two guys from 2d Battalion three days ago on Hill 209,” Big Un said. “I ain’t forgotten it, and I want to get myself a few of them personally before I get knocked off or shot up without getting a chance to kill some. I think Capn Gaff’s operation’ll be my best oppratunity.”
For a moment Tall could not help believing he was being made the victim of some kind of elaborate and tasteless hoax, perpetrated by the wits of Charlie Company who had sent this great oaf up to him deliberately with this stupid request for personal, heroic vendetta. 1st Sgt Welsh, for one, had a mind capable of such subtle ridicule.
But when he looked up (as he was forced to do; and Tall was by no means a small man) at this huge, murderous face and icy, if not very intelligent eyes, he could see despite his flare of anger that the man was obviously sincere. Cash stood, his rifle slung not from one shoulder but across his back, and carrying in his hands one of those sawed-off shotguns and bandolier of buckshot shells which some fool of a staff lieutenant had had the bright idea of handing out for “close quarter work” the night before the attack—which meant that Cash had hung onto the damned thing all through the danger of yesterday. Tall thought they had all been thrown away. A sudden tiny thrill ran through Tall despite himself. The brute really was big! But his own reaction made him even more angry.
“Soldier, are you serious?” he snapped thinly. “There’s a war on here. I’m busy. I’ve got a serious battle to fight.”
“Yes,” Big Un said, then remembering his manners added, “I mean: Yes, sir: I’m serious.”
Tall pressed his lips together. If the man wanted to make such a request, he should know he was supposed to go through channels: through his Platoon Leader and his Company Commander to Gaff himself; not come bothering the Battalion Commander with it when the Battalion Commander had a battle to fight.
“Don’t you know—” he began in frustration, and then stopped himself. Tall prided himself on being a professional and such requests for personal vendetta offended and bored him. A professional should ignore such things and fight a battle, or a war, as it developed on the ground. Tall knew Marine officers who laughed about the jars of gold or gold-filled Japanese teeth some of their men had collected over the campaign, but he preferred to have nothing to do with that sort of thing. Also, though his protégé Gaff had lost two men yesterday evening, they had decided between them that the experience and the knowledge of the terrain gained by the survivors more than made up for the adding of two green replacements who would probably be more liability than help. Still…
And anyway, here this great oaf still stood, waiting dumbly, as though his wishes were the only ones in the world, and blocking Tall’s path with his huge frame so Tall could not see anything that was going on.
After biting the inside of his lip, he snapped out coldly, “If you want to go with Captain Gaff, you’ll have to go talk to him about it and ask him. I’m busy. You can tell him that I don’t object to your going. Now, God damn it, go away!” he yelled. He turned away. Big Un was left holding his shotgun.
“Yes, Sir!” he called after the Colonel. “Thank you, Sir!” And while Tall had continued with getting C-for-Charlie moving, Cash had gone in search of Gaff.
Big Un’s cry of thanks after the Colonel had not been without his own little hint of sarcasm. He had not been a hack pusher all his life not to know when he was being deliberately snubbed by a social better, high intelligence or low. As far as intelligence went, Big Un was confident he could have been as intelligent as any—and more intelligent than most—if he had not always believed that school and history and arithmetic and writing and reading and learning words were only so much uninteresting bullshit which took up a man’s time and kept him from getting laid or making an easy buck. He still believed it, for his own kids as well as for himself. He had never finished his first year of high school and he could read a paper as well as anybody. And as for intelligence, he was intelligent enough to know that the Colonel’s statement about not objecting was tantamount to acceptance by Gaff. In fact, all the time he was talking there to the Colonel, Big Un had intended to tell Gaff that, anyway. Now he could tell him truthfully.
So, in the still dark predawn, Gaff and his four volunteers were treated to the awesome spectacle of Big Un looming up over them through the dark, still clutching his shotgun and bandolier of shells which he had clung to so dearly all through the terror of yesterday in his US-made shellhole among the 1st Platoon. Stolidly and without excitement, Big Un made his report. As he had anticipated, he was immediately accepted—although Gaff, too, looked at his shotgun strangely. All he had left to do was find Bugger Stein and report the change, then come back and lie down with the others to wait until B Company’s middle platoon made its attack and it was their own turn. Big Un did so with grim satisfaction.
There was little for them to do but talk. During the half hour it took the middle platoon of B Company to fail and come tumbling and sobbing back over the ledge with drawn faces and white eyes, the six of them lay a few yards back down the slope behind B’s right platoon which in addition to holding the right of the line along the ledge was also acting as the reserve. It was amazing how the longer one lasted in this business, the less sympathy one felt for others who were getting shot up as long as oneself was in safety. Sometimes the difference was a matter of only a very few yards. But terror became increasingly limited to those moments when you yourself were in actual danger. So, while B’s middle platoon shot and were shot, fought and sobbed thirty yards away beyond the ledge, Gaff’s group talked. Cash the new addition more than made his presence felt.
Big Un himself did very little
of the talking, after explaining his reason for wanting to come with them, but he made himself felt just the same. Unslinging his rifle, he arranged it and the shotgun carefully to keep their actions out of the dirt, and then simply lay, toying with the bandolier of shotgun shells and slipping them in and out of their cloth loops, his face a stolid, mean mask. The slingless shotgun was a brandnew, cheap-looking automatic with its barrel sawed off just behind the choke and a five shell magazine; the shot shells themselves were not actually buckshot at all, but were loaded with a full load of BB shot capable of blowing a large, raw hole clear through a man at close range. It was a mean weapon, and Cash looked like the man to use it well. Nobody really knew very much about him in C-for-Charlie. He had come in as a draftee six months before and while he had made acquaintances, he had made no real friends. Everybody was a little afraid of him. He kept to himself, did most of his drinking alone, and while he never offered to challenge anybody to a fight, there was something about his grin which made it plain that any challenges he received would be cheerfully and gladly accepted. Nobody offered any. At six foot four and built accordingly, in an outfit where physical fighting prowess was considered the measure of a man’s stature, nobody wanted to try him. Except for Big Queen (over whom he towered by five inches, though he did not weigh as much) he was the biggest man in the company. There were those who were not above trying slyly to promote this battle of the giants between Big Un and Big Queen, just to see who would win; and many bets might have been taken, except that nothing ever came of it. Curiously enough, the nearest Big Un ever came to having a real friend was Witt the Kentuckian who hardly came up to his waist, and who used to go on pass with him before Witt was forcibly transferred. This turned out to be because in Toledo Big Un had known and admired so many Kentuckians who had come up north to work in the factories, and had liked their strong, hardheaded sense of honor which showed itself in drunken brawls over women or fistfights over particular prize seats at some bar. But now, today, he did not even speak to Witt beyond a perfunctory grunt of greeting. The rest of them watched him and his shotgun curiously. Despite the fact that they were now seasoned veterans of this particular assault and could look down on Big Un from this height of snobbery, they were all somehow a little reluctant to try it.
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 s
imilar 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.
