by James Jones
At first Tall had kept back four of the eight full cans. Then he had withheld two. He had not forgotten his promise to Charlie Company, but finally he was down to one can. Trembling, shaky men sloshed water over the edges of the cups in trying to pour for each other. In the enormous excitement many men got more than just a half a cup, many got full ones and overfull ones. In the end the eighth can went, too. Tall was sorry that he would have no water for Charlie when they met them at the top of the hill, truly sorry, but today there was something that was more important, counted more than water, and that was victory.
In spite of that, Tall did everything he could for them, little help though it probably would be. “Sergeant James,” he told his beaten Hq sergeant as the line moved forward over the demolished MGs, and he himself prepared to move forward in their wake. “Sergeant James, I have a further sacrifice to ask of you. I want you to go back once more.” Sergeant James appeared to groan though it was actually inaudible, but Tall went on. “You know the Regimental Commander pretty well. I want you to go back to the CP on Hill 209 and attach yourself to him. I want you to make it plain to him how badly we need water up here. Don’t let him out of your sight. Stay with him every minute. Remind him of it all the time. If any general officers are there, or should any general officers come around, so much the better. That’s the time to tell him the loudest. But I want him to know how badly we need water. I want water at the top of Hill 210 at the same time we get there, or failing that as soon after as possible. I want the Regimental Commander to know that even if we take it, we may not be able to hold it without water.”
As he continued to talk, his sergeant’s face had changed from a groaning look to a surprised smile, and finally to an open grin: He was going to get to spend the next few very important hours haranguing the Regimental Commander in appreciably greater physical safety than existed here. He would have to be a little careful, because the Old Man could be ornery, but James knew the Great White Father’s idiosyncrasies pretty well and was sure he could take care of himself, as Tall well knew.
“Well, it’s a hard job, Sir, but I’ll do the best I can,” the sergeant grinned.
Tall watched him walk away. Then he turned back to his runners and private soldier aides. He had to pick out a site for a new CP further up. He had done the best he could for C-for-Charlie. He only hoped they were doing the best they could for him.
C-for-Charlie Company in the fact had no need of Colonel Tall’s solicitude. They did not even have need of the runner Witt he had sent after them to pep them up. They had had a little firefight of their own, in which they demolished a four-man heavy MG outpost with only one casually, and they were moving along quite well. Whether some of the excitement of the fight on the hill had seeped down to them through the humid air, whether the mere survival of yesterday had stiffened them into veterans, whether the progressive numbness they all felt had finally submerged their fear, whether their own successful little firefight had sparked them to enthusiasm, they now passed along the ample trail with alacrity and dispatch. After the firefight they left the wounded scout, who was not too upset by this, alone along the trail where Witt later found him. Although they had no water, it was shady in the jungle, not like the fierce dusty heat on the ridge; and in that murky humidity it seemed that their dehydrated bodies actually sucked in moisture through their pores out of the air, even while they sweated. Witt, as he trailed cautiously along behind them, discovered the same unexpected relief.
Witt had sustained the powerful emotion of his leavetaking from Colonel Tall. All across the long traverse from the old position on the third fold to the jungle’s edge, he kept thinking with fierce sentiment about what great, wonderful guys they all were. The Colonel, Captain Gaff who was not too high-toned to treat an EM like an equal, Bell, Doll, Dale, Big Un, Keck (now dead), Skinny Culn. The truth was Witt had never really much liked Colonel Tall until today. A cold fisheye of an intellectual textbook soldier, had been Witt’s opinion. But now he had to admit he had been wrong. As far as Witt was concerned the most important qualification of an officer was whether he really had the interests of his men at heart, and Tall had proved that today. The truth was, Witt loved them all, passionately, with an almost sexual ecstasy of comradeship. Even Bugger Stein and Welsh came under the magnanimous aura of his warm affection today. As well as everybody else in the company. Which was why he had volunteered just now to go back to them: perhaps his experience and knowledge could help, and he could save somebody. These were his thoughts all the way across the traverse from the third fold and it was only afterwards, after he had entered the jungle and found the trail, that he had any second thoughts and first doubts about the matter.
He had followed them in from the edge easily enough by the trampled swath of undergrowth they had chopped down or walked over, but at the trail the swath stopped. He had checked all around to make sure. This left him two choices, right or left along the trail, and certainly they would not have turned right away from Hill 210. So he had struck off left along the trail confidently, if cautiously. The green gloom under the tall jungle giants was eerie. His feet slipped in the mud. He had not known what he expected to find, but he supposed it was that they would be dug in along here somewhere, engaged in a firefight trying to force their way to the hill. Instead, all he heard was silence punctuated by rustles and crackles and the whistles of them crazy birds. Setting his jaw against the nervous chill which crept up his back, he moved along with his rifle ready and it was then that his first doubt hit him. He remembered that Bugger Stein had wanted to come down here yesterday on the theory that this spot was undefended, and that Colonel Tall had refused. His doubts were reenforced when he met the wounded 3d Platoon scout, a man named Ash, who grinned at him from the side of the trail.
“I’d of had you, Kaintuck, if you was a Jap—long ago!”
“They leave you here?”
“I would of slowed them up. I don’t really mind. Medic fixed me up before they left. I got plenty of ammo and Welsh left me his pistol. They’ll be somebody along for me evenshully.” He seemed about three-fourths drunk from shock, morphine and the pain of his bandaged wound, which he displayed for Witt. “Right in the knee. I’m out of this war for good, I think, Witt. But what the hell’re you doin’ down here?”
Witt explained about his message, and about the water.
“That’s good,” Ash said. “But they better hurry if they want to beat old C-for-Charlie.”
“How’s the company doin’, you think?”
“Fine! I ain’t heard a shot fired since they left here. I don’t think there’s anything back in here except that one heavy MG we got up the way, which you will see when you pass it. And we owe it all to old Bugger Stein. He wanted to bring us back down around here yesterday. If he had of, we’d of saved ourselves a lot of good men.”
“I know.”
“Well, give all them boys my best up there.”
“You can come with me if you want. I’ll help you along.”
“Nah, it’s nice and quiet and peaceful here. Anyway I’d slow you up. Somebody’ll be along for me.”
“I’ll remind them.”
“Okay,” Ash said drunkenly.
Witt left him not feeling much about him one way or the other. It was just one of them things that happened to guys. He passed the destroyed machinegun and its four dead Japanese, who looked more like bundles of dirty old rags than dead people. But then they all did, including your own side, unless it was a face you happened to know personally. He kicked the helmeted head of one who lay half out in the path, and the head rolled back and forth. At the first bend of the trail he turned back and waved. Ash did not see him because he was grinning drunkenly at the trees across the trail. He would die, C-for-Charlie would find out a long time later, of gangrene after a year in a General Hospital and a series of successive amputations which did not arrest the infection.
After the second bend the trail began to mount noticeably uphill as it curved away an
d around to the right. Cutting around back of Hill 210, the Elephant’s Head, to meet the open rising ground of the Elephant’s Trunk, Witt decided. The escape route. He trudged on, occasionally slipping in the slanting mud, keeping his eyes out for snipers in the trees. But he saw nothing, nothing at all. There was nobody anywhere, and he could not help thinking again of Colonel Tall and yesterday. Ash had said it pretty well: If Bugger had of brought them down here yesterday, they’d of saved themselves a lot of good men. Men like Keck, men like Tella, men like Grove, and Wynn, and his old buddy Catch, and Bead, and Earl. Not a one of whom Witt had been able to save. And why was that? After all his big talk to himself? Hell, he couldn’t be everyplace at once! What did Tall and those others expect of him? He couldn’t do it all, could he? Not to mention them two punk lieutenants dead. A deep, angry bitterness filled Witt at the impossibility of even his experience and knowledge being able to handle such a snafu operation. It was a bitterness so deep and so angry that it was totally inarticulate even inside his own head in his thoughts. And its object was Colonel Tall. He was ashamed of the bullshit he had eaten from the hand of Tall so short a time ago, embarrassed by the emotion he had felt crossing the traverse, and this made him even angrier. If it wasn’t for Bugger Stein, whom he had once disliked but had changed his mind about, he would for two cents after delivering his message turn right around and walk back to Hill 209 and report back in to Cannon Company. He was free, white and twenty-one and from Kentucky, and he didn’t have to take this shit. This was his state of mind when he finally came upon the rear guard of C-for-Charlie, and it was a strange experience to find himself suddenly once again—as he had just been before—among so many enthusiastic men.
Everyone Witt talked to felt the same thing: it was a shame Bugger had not been allowed to bring them down here yesterday. But none of them, apparently, took it quite as seriously as Witt. And anyway, nothing could disrupt their enthusiasm for their new position.
Stein had placed them in three lines across the open space of The Elephant’s Trunk, and they were now in the process of beginning to move up it. 3d Platoon who had suffered the least yesterday had the first line, 1st Platoon had the second, and 2d Platoon which had suffered most had the third. Behind them was the Company Hq with MacTae and Storm and his cooks, and last was the little rear guard Witt had encountered first. So far they had received no fire, and everyone looked elated. They had outflanked the enemy with scarcely a shot and entered his rear, and now they sat athwart his escape route. For the first time they had something like the upper hand, and they did not mean to let go of it.
Down below, the long skinny ridge which everybody now referred to simply as “The Trunk” had gentle side slopes, allowing the jungle to encroach more deeply on the open ridge; but up above the side slopes steepened, forcing the jungle back and widening the open space in the center. The whole thing was about two hundred and fifty yards long. A little over halfway up the side slopes steepened until they became impassable to troops, and Stein had made this his first objective. A line here, with both ends anchored on cliffs, could not be outflanked by fleeing Japanese. It could even be dug in and defended, once it was reached. And Stein’s forward 3d Platoon reached it without firing a shot, at about the same time Witt came up with his message. The second line composed of the 1st Platoon was fifty yards behind them. All this in itself seemed incredible to Stein: apparently the Japanese had no outposts up there at all. From here he could see his own men when they were standing up, and standing himself he waved them on furiously. He watched 3d Platoon rush forward another twenty-five or thirty yards and 1st Platoon move up to take over their position. All of them disappeared in the grass. Not far in front of Stein his battered tough old, and now favorite, 2d Platoon kneeled formed in two staggered lines so each man could fire, commanded by Buck Sergeant Beck the old martinet, and now Stein motioned them forward to close up the gap. One more such move would put 3d Platoon over the top, and he wanted the other two to be as close as they could to give aid. He loved them all, he thought suddenly, all of them, even the ones he didn’t much like. No man ought to have to go through an experience like this—not even the ones who enjoyed it. It wasn’t normal. Or was it that it was just too goddam fucking normal? He watched 2d Platoon run up bent over at the waist in that ridiculous posture which gave a sense of security but aided nobody. Thirty yards behind 1st Platoon they disappeared in the grass, and he sank back down himself to find Witt kneeling beside him.
When he had delivered his message about the strongpoint and the water Stein nodded, debating whether to send a runner up with the news; it ought to provide added incentive, especially about the water. His tongue felt like sandpaper on the roof of his mouth. He himself had not had any water since—? he could not remember. Deciding in favor, he motioned for the last of his little clerks, the middle-aged draftee Weld, and sent him forward with the information and orders to 1st and 2d Platoons to move up behind the 3d to a distance of twenty yards. When the 3d moved, they were both to move forward and occupy the vacated positions. If 3d was not stopped, they were to move forward again and join it. Then he turned to Witt and grinned out of his dirt-blackened, stubbled face. “It looks like we’re in luck today, Witt.”
Witt could have thrown his arms around his commander and kissed him on his dirt-crusted, stubbled cheek in an ecstasy of loving comradeship. Except that it might have looked faggoty, or get taken the wrong way. Emotions were coursing through Witt today that he had never known existed in him in his life. He was, he found strangely enough, really very happy.
“How did it go with the strongpoint?” Stein asked him. He had some minutes to wait anyway.
Witt told him a little bit about it, about Big Un Cash and his shotgun—and about his own big fat Jap sergeant, shyly. He showed him his rifle.
“How many did they get altogether?”
“About thirty-five,” Witt said, batting his lashes in a shy, abashed embarrassment he could not control.
“Thirty-five!”
“But more than ten of those was bombed out in the bunkers. Seven was knocked out beforehand, and Big Un got six with his shotgun. That only left around nine. I only got three myself.”
“Pretty damn good job. Okay, why don’t you stay here with us and have yourself a rest?”
“I ruther be with the company, Sir,” Witt said, then added hastily: “I mean, you know, with the platoons. I always feel like maybe I could help somebody, you know? Maybe save somebody.” It was the first time he had ever told anyone his secret.
Stein stared at him quizzically, and Witt cursed himself. He had learned long ago in his life never to tell anybody anything about what he really felt, what had made him do it now? Stein shrugged. “Okay. Report to Beck then. He needs noncoms badly. Tell him I just appointed you Acting Sergeant.”
“But I’m not even in the compny, Sir, officially.”
“We’ll worry about all that later.”
“Aye, Sir.” Witt crawled away.
“If you hurry,” Stein called softly, “you can get there before we start. I won’t signal for a couple of minutes.” Motioning to the Hq and the rearguard, he moved them forward.
But he never did signal. Before he could, they had been discovered. But they were discovered in the most delicious way any infantryman ever can be. A party of fourteen or fifteen unprepared Japanese, all packing portions of dismantled heavy mortars they were carrying to the rear and safety, came over the crest. Needless to say, none of them survived. 3d Platoon took them from right, left and center. Stein was on his feet as soon as the first shot was fired and saw most of them go down.
They had left all of their weapons platoon back with Colonel Tall except for one machinegun. Stein had placed it on the extreme left flank of the 3d Platoon in the first line with orders to fire when they heard him blow four short blasts on his whistle. Now, with his lungs crammed full of air, his mouth open, his head pushed back and his whistle moving in his hand to his mouth, he heard the MG open up, a
nticipating him. He exhaled, and watched them put a covering fire down all along the crest, which was much less a sharp line from where they crouched than from where he watched, as 3d Platoon led by Al Gore leaped to its feet and rushed the crest. It was almost exactly like the G Company charge against the crest of Hill 209 which Stein had witnessed from the basin, and for an insane moment Stein thought he was back there and that none of all this had happened yet. He had to blink his eyes to bring himself out of it. But this wasn’t G Company’s charge against Hill 209, these were his men, this his company, and also this charge was, apparently, successful. His MG was answered only by a very weak scattering of riflefire. It continued to fire until to go on would endanger 3d Platoon, then Stein saw its crew—without any orders or suggestions from him—pick it up and run it up over the crest. Two men carried the gun on its tripod and the other two staggered along behind with all the ammo boxes. It disappeared over the crest. 3d Platoon disappeared over the crest. The MG began firing again. 1st Platoon was moving up to replace the 3d. 2d Platoon was moving up to replace the 1st. “Go on! Go on!” Stein heard his own voice bellowing. “Don’t stop now!” He knew nobody could hear him but he could not stop it, and he could not stop waving his arms. Nevertheless, almost as if they actually could hear him, 1st Platoon led by S/Sgt Skinny Culn hesitated only a moment at 3d Platoon’s old position, then themselves charged on up and disappeared over the crest, from which was now coming the sound of a great amount of American smallarms fire and very little of the Japanese. “Hot damn! Hot damn!” Stein kept yelling over and over. 2d Platoon, much farther down the slope, was still toiling toward the 1st Platoon’s old position where the impassable side slopes began, and Stein suddenly realized that he did not want them to go over the crest, too.
