The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [202]
Maybe I should turn.
But on the boat going back he thinks of other things, reads with quiet satisfaction in the newspaper he has brought on board that Leeway Chemical is opening negotiations with Sallevoisseux Frères.
Man, I'll be glad to get back from frog-land and the wops, one of the officers who has been on the mission says to him.
Yes.
That Italy's a backward country even if they say Musso did a lot for it. You can still keep it. The Catholic countries are the ones who are always backward.
I suppose so.
He thinks clearly for a few minutes. The thing that happened in the Rome alley is a danger sign, and he will have to be very careful from now on. It must never come out again. The Church business is understandable in its light, a highly impractical move at this juncture. I'll be a colonel soon. I can't risk it turning.
Cummings sighs. I've learned a lot.
Yeah, me too.
Cummings looks at the water. Slowly his eyes raise, include the horizon. Lieutenant colonel. . . colonel. . . brigadier. . . major general. . . lieutenant general. . . general?
If there's a war soon it'll help.
But afterward. The politicos were even more important. After the war. . .
He must not commit himself politically yet. There would be too many turns. It might be Stalin, it might be Hitler. But the eventual line to power in America would always be anticommunism.
He must keep his eyes open, Cummings decided.
Chorus:
WHAT IS A MILLION-DOLLAR WOUND?
The latrine, early morning. It is a six-holer off in the bushes at one end of the bivouac, and is without a tarpaulin. At either end is a stick with a roll of paper on it, and a tin can covering it.
GALLAGHER: Some fuggin mornings like this I wish I'd catch a bullet.
WILSON: Only goddam trouble with that is you can't pick the spot.
STANLEY: You know if you could, the Army wouldn't be keeping me long.
GALLAGHER: Aaah, there ain't a goddam place you can get a million-dollar wound that it don't hurt.
STANLEY: Sometimes I think I'd lose a leg, and call it quits.
WILSON: Only trouble with losing a goddam leg is you're h'isted on to a woman, and there's her husban' in the door, and how in the hell you gonna run? (Laughter)
MARTINEZ: Lose arm maybe.
STANLEY: Jeez, that's way worse, I don't think I'd even take that. I mean how the hell can you get a job without an arm or, Jesus, without both arms?
GALLAGHER: Aaah, the fuggin government'll support ya.
WILSON: But then you cain't jack-off if you got a mind to.
GALLAGHER: (Disgustedly) Haw.
MARTINEZ: Get wound, okay, means should get killed, only wounded. Goddam nigger luck.
STANLEY: Yeah, that's what they say. (Pause.) The million-dollar wound for somebody like Ridges would be to lose his head. (Laughter)
GALLAGHER: For that Roth and Goldstein, you could shoot 'em the nuts and they wouldn't even know the difference.
STANLEY: Oh, Jesus, don't even talk about that. I get the shivers.
GALLAGHER: The Aarmy got the fuggin percentages on their side, you can't even get a wound and get out where it's worth it.
STANLEY: I'd take a foot anytime. I'd sign the papers for it now.
MARTINEZ: Me too. Not so hard. Toglio, elbow shot up, he get out.
WILSON: Goddam, ain't that somethin! Ah tell you, men, Ah don' even 'member what that chickenshit Toglio looks like any more, But Ah'll never forget he got out on a busted elbow.
(They continue talking)
PART THREE
Plant and Phantom
"Even the wisest among you is only a disharmony and hybrid of plant and phantom. But do I bid you become phantoms or plants?"
-- Nietzsche
1
Recon set out on the patrol the next afternoon. They boarded their assault boat several hours before dusk, and in a short time their landing craft rounded the peninsula and wallowed out toward the western tip of Anopopei. The swell was heavy. Although their pilot held them always within a mile of shore, the boat rolled and pitched, continually shipping water which sprayed over the forward ramp and sloshed along the deck. The boat was small, identical to the one in which they had landed on invasion day, and it was poorly equipped to circuit half the island. The men huddled on their cots, covered themselves with their ponchos, and prepared for a miserable trip.