The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [186]
Hearn flipped over the letter a little distastefully. "Man had to destroy God in order to achieve Him, equal Him." Cummings again. Or had Cummings said it? There were times when the demarcation between their minds was blurred for him. Cummings could have said it. Effectively, it was Cummings's idea. He folded the letter and put it away again.
Where did all this leave him? All right, just where? There had been a time, many times when it would have appealed, more than appealed, to whatever impulse there had been in him to. . . to do what Cummings was capable of doing. That was it. Divorced of all the environmental trappings, all the confusing and misleading attitudes he had absorbed, he was basically like Cummings. Without "the wife is a bitch" kind of urges, but even there, could he label it for certain? Cummings had been right. They were both the same, and it had produced first the intimacy, the attraction they had felt toward each other, and then the hatred.
It was between them still as far as he was concerned. Every time he saw Cummings, if even for an instant, there was the same clutch of fear and hatred inside him, the same painful evocation of that moment when he had stooped to pick up the cigarette. It was still humiliating, still informative. He had never realized the extent of his own vanity, the hatred it was capable of generating when wounded. Certainly, he had never hated anyone the way Cummings affected him now. The week he had spent in G-3 under Dalleson had been lived at half-throttle; he had absorbed the procedures, done his work automatically, and had smoldered inside with an almost unbearable frustration. Lately, he had begun to step out; this afternoon he had been flip with Dalleson, and that was an indication of something else, something not so pleasing. If he remained here he was likely to dissipate himself in a series of insignificant rebellions that would end only in further humiliation. The thing to do was to move out, be transferred, but Cummings would not let him. And the rage he had kept tightly throttled all week was surging again. If only he could go up to Cummings and ask for a front-line platoon, but that would be fatal. Cummings would give him anything but that.
The phone rang, and Hearn picked it up. The voice at the other end spluttered at him. "This is Paragon Red, negative report from 0030 to 0130."
"Okay." Hearn hung up, and stared at the message he had scribbled on a pad. It was a completely automatic report which was phoned in every hour from every battalion. On an ordinary night fifty such reports would come in. He picked up his pencil, about to mark it in the Journal, when Dalleson stepped into the tent. Stacey, the clerk, who had been drowsing over his magazine, straightened up. Dalleson's hair had been been quickly combed, and his heavy face was reddened from sleep; he looked inquiringly about the tent, his eyes blinking from the light. "Everything okay?" he asked.
"Yes," Hearn said. He realized suddenly that Dalleson had awakened worrying about the campaign and it amused him.
"I heard the phone ringing," Dalleson said.
"It was Paragon Red, negative report, that's all."
"Did you record it yet?"
"No, sir."
"Well, then do it, man." Dalleson yawned.
Hearn had recorded few reports in the Journal and he looked at the preceding one to check on the form. Then he copied it.
Dalleson walked toward him, and examined the Journal, fingering the spring clip on the beaverboard. "Let's do it more neatly next time."
He'd be damned if Dalleson would lecture him like a child. "I'll do my best, Major," he murmured sarcastically.
Dalleson ran his thick index finger under the notation. "What time is this report for?" he asked abruptly.
"0030 to 0130."
"Then whyinhell can't you put it down like that? Goddammit, man, you've got it for 2330 to 0030. Can't you even read? Don't you know what the hell time it is?"
He had even copied the time on the preceding report. "Sorry," Hearn muttered, furious with himself for the error.
"What else you gonna do with this report?"
"Damn if I know. This isn't the work I've been doing."