The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [205]
In any case he would discover his own motives later. Now he knew intuitively that it was better for himself. He had liked most of the men in the platoon, quickly and instinctively, and quite astonishing to himself, he had wanted them to like him. He had even made efforts, given little hints that he was a good guy, employing the tricks he had unconsciously absorbed from certain officers, his own father. There was a particular kind of buddying you could get away with when you dealt with Americans; it was close but not dangerously so, and you never let it get out of hand. That was a technique you could perform and still be a bastard essentially, but he wanted to go a little further than that.
What was at the core of it? To prove Cummings was wrong? Hearn wondered for a moment, then let it go. To hell with the introspection. It never paid to think until you knew a lot, and he had been in the platoon for too short a time to decide anything.
Directly beneath him, lying on adjacent cots, Red and Wilson were talking. On an impulse, he climbed down into the troop well.
He nodded to Wilson. "How're your GIs coming along?" he asked. About an hour ago, amid the laughter of the men, Wilson had climbed up on the side wall of the boat, and squatted over the edge.
"Aw, they ain't too bad, Lootenant," Wilson sighed. "Ah jus' hope to hell Ah git over 'em by tomorrow."
Valsen snorted. "You ain't got nothing a gallon of paregoric ain't gonna cure."
Wilson shook his head, his genial face reflective suddenly, a little worried, the expression at odds with his bland features. "Ah jus' hope that damn fool doctor is wrong and Ah don' have to have no op-per-ration."
"What's the matter with you?" Hearn asked.
"Aw, mah insides are jus' shot to hell, Lootenant. Ah got a lot of pus in 'em, an' that doctor said he'd have to cut it out." Wilson shook his head. "Ah just cain't figger it," he sighed. "Ah had a dose many a time but it don' take nothin' to get rid of the clap."
The boat slapped and pounded as it passed through a series of swells, and Wilson bit his mouth from a sudden pang.
Red lit a cigarette. "For Crisake if you believe a fuggin sawbones. . ." He stood up for a moment and spat over the side wall, watching his spittle sucked away instantly in the foam of the wake. "All a doctor ever has is a pill and a pat on the back, and you stick them in the Army and all they got left is the pill."
Hearn laughed. "Talking from experience, Valsen?"
But Red didn't answer, and Wilson after a moment sighed again. "Ah wish to hell they didn't send us out just today. If en we gotta do somethin' Ah don' give a damn, put me on a detail, send me out on this, it don' matter, but Ah jus' hate to be sick like this."
"Hell, you'll pull out of it," Hearn said easily.
"Ah hope so, Lootenant." Wilson nodded. "Ah'm no fug-off an' any of the men'll tell you Ah'd rather work than jus' lay around an' get all hot an' bothered, but lately with this misery it makes me feel like Ah ain't worth a good goddam, Ah jus' cain't seem to do what Ah use' to do." He shook one of his long broad fingers at Hearn, who watched the sunlight glint on the blond-red hairs at his wrist. "Maybe this las' week Ah been havin' to goof-off a little, an' Croft's been on my ass the whole time. It's a helluva note when a buddy you been with in the same platoon for two years figgers you're goofin'-off on him."
Red snorted. "Take it easy, Wilson, and I'll tell that goddam engineer to take it easy with this boat over the bumps." Their pilot was a man from an engineer company. "I'll tell him to set you down easy." Red's voice was sarcastic with a touch of disgust.
Hearn realized that Valsen hadn't said a word directly to him since he had begun talking to them. And why was Wilson telling him all this? As an alibi? But Hearn didn't think so. All the time Wilson had been talking his voice had been a little abstracted as though explaining something to himself. Wilson was unconscious of him, and Valsen seemed to resent him.
Well, then, the hell with it. He wouldn't force himself on them. He stretched, yawned a little, and said, "Take it easy, men."