The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [234]
And then he remembered Hearn, and shook his head. Croft was like a high-spirited horse, unused to the bit, reminded he was no longer free by an occasional harsh pressure on his jaws. He turned around and spoke to Red, who was behind him. "Pass this back. Tell them to snap it up."
The order passed through the column, and the men moved forward even more quickly. As they progressed farther away from the jungle their fear mounted, each hill behind them an added obstacle to their return. The platoon propelled itself with a nervous dread. They marched for three hours with only a few halts, lashed by the silence, forcing themselves onward in a tacit accord. At dusk, when they halted for their night's bivouac, the strongest men in the platoon were drained and overtired, and the weaker ones were close to collapse. Roth lay on the ground for half an hour without moving, his hands and legs twitching uncontrollably. Wyman lay hunched over, retching emptily. They had continued for the last two hours only through their fear of being left behind; their nerves had charged them temporarily with a spurious energy, and now that they had halted they felt too weak, their fingers were too numb, to undo the buckles on their packs and withdraw their blankets for the night.
None of the men talked. Grouped together in a rough circle against the coming night, those who could stomached their rations, drank their water, and spread out their bedding. They had bivouacked in a hollow near the crest of a hill, and before it was dark Hearn and Croft hiked through a small orbit from the bivouac to determine the best place to post a guard. Thirty yards above the men, at the top of the hill, they looked out at the terrain they would have to cross the next day. For the first time since they had entered the jungle, they were able to see Mount Anaka again. It was closer than they had ever seen it before, although the peak must have been twenty miles away. But past the valley beneath them, the yellow hills extended only a short distance before altering into darker tans and browns and the gray-blue of rock. In the evening a haze was spreading over the hills, obscuring the pass to the west of Mount Anaka through which they must travel. Even the mountain was growing indistinct. It was colored a deep lavender-blue, its mass dissolving, becoming transparent in the late twilight. Only the ridge-lines remained distinct. Above the peak a few delicate clouds perched tenebrously, their forms lost in mist.
Croft put up his field glasses and stared through them. The mountain looked like a rocky coast and the murky sky seemed to be an ocean shattering its foam upon the shore. The movement of the clouds across the peak seemed like mist spray. Through the glasses, the image became more and more intense, holding Croft in absorption. The mountain and the cloud and the sky were purer, more intense, in their gelid silent struggle than any ocean and any shore he had ever seen. The rocks gathered themselves in the darkness, huddled together against the fury of the water. The contest seemed an infinite distance away, and he felt a thrill of anticipation at the thought that by the following night they might be on the peak. Again, he felt a crude ecstasy. He could not have given the reason, but the mountain tormented him, beckoned him, held an answer to something he wanted. It was so pure, so austere.
He realized with anger and frustration that they would not climb the mountain. If the next day went without incident, they would advance through the pass by nightfall, and he would never have a chance to attempt the mountain. He was balked as he handed the glasses to the Lieutenant.
Hearn was very weary. He had survived the march without incident, had even felt capable of marching farther, but his body demanded rest. He was gloomy, and as he stared through the glasses the mountain troubled him, roused his awe and then his fear. It was too immense, too powerful. He suffered a faint sharp thrill as he watched the mist eddy about the peak. He imagined the ocean actually driving against a rockbound coast, and despite himself strained his ears as though he could hear the sound of such a titanic struggle.