The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [247]
And here was Wilson. Properly, it would take six men to carry him back to the beach. Croft felt like swearing.
"All right, let's drag him through the grass until we get to the ledge and then we can carry him." He grasped Wilson by the shirt, and began tugging him along the ground, Red and Gallagher helping. They reached the ledge in less than a minute, and passed Wilson over it. On the other side of the shelf they set him down, and Croft began to fashion an emergency stretcher. He removed his shirt, buttoned it, and slipped his rifle through one sleeve, and Wilson's rifle through the other. The barrels protruded at the waist, and the stocks projected through the cuffs of the sleeves. With his belt he bound Wilson's wrists together, and wrapped him in a blanket from his discarded pack.
When the stretcher was completed it was about three feet long, the length of the shirt. They put it under Wilson's back, slid his bound arms over Ridges's neck, and Ridges then grasped the rifle stocks at the rear. Red and Goldstein each supported one of the muzzles at Wilson's thigh, and Gallagher stood at the front, holding Wilson's ankles. Croft guarded them.
"Let's get out of here," Gallagher muttered. "The damn place is spooky."
They listened uneasily to the silence, staring at the rock precipices.
They looked at Wilson, watched the slow pulse of his bleeding. His face had become blanched, almost white. He looked unfamiliar. They could not believe it was Wilson. It was just an unconscious wounded man.
Red had a vague sadness for a moment. He liked Wilson, and Wilson had been full of hell, but he couldn't feel very much. He was too tired, and he wanted to get out of this place. "We oughta put a goddam compress on him."
"Yeah."
They set Wilson down again. Red opened his first-aid packet, and took out the flat cardboard box that held the bandage. He peeled it open with stiff fingers, set the aseptic surface against Wilson's wound, and bound it about him lightly. "Should I give him wound tablets?"
"Not with a belly wound," Croft said.
"Think he's gonna last?" Ridges asked hoarsely.
Croft shrugged. "He's a big ox."
"You can't kill ol' Wilson," Red muttered. Gallagher looked away. "Come on, let's get going."
They started out, progressing slowly and carefully over the hills back to the hollow where they had left the rest of the platoon. It was hard labor, and they took frequent rests, alternating the guard for the litter-bearers.
Wilson gained consciousness slowly, muttering incoherently for minutes at a time. He seemed awake for almost a minute, but he recognized none of them.
"Doko koko cola," he muttered several times, giggling feebly.
They stopped, wiped the blood from his mouth, and then set out again. It took them more than an hour to reach the platoon, and they were very tired when they got there. They laid Wilson down, slipped him off the stretcher, and flopped on the ground to rest. The other men gathered about them nervously, asking questions, mildly jubilant that Wilson had been found, but they were too weary to talk much. Croft began to swear. "Goddam it, you men, stop standing around with your finger in your ass." They looked at him in bewilderment.
"Minetta and Polack and Wyman and. . . Roth, git over there in that grove, and cut two poles about six feet long, and about two inches in diameter, and bring back a couple of struts about eighteen inches wide?"
"What for?" Minetta asked.
"What the hell do you think it's for? For a stretcher. Now git goin', you men."
Muttering, they picked up a couple of machetes, and filed out of the hollow to the grove. In a minute or so, the platoon could hear them hacking away at the trees. Croft spat disgustedly. "Them men are enough to frost your nuts." There was a restless titter. Wilson, unconscious now, lay in the center of the hollow, very still. Despite themselves, they all kept looking at him.
Hearn had joined Croft, and after talking for a moment or two, they called Brown and Stanley and Martinez over to them. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, and the sun was still hot. Croft, afraid of becoming sunburned, pulled the rifles out of his shirt sleeves, flapped it a few times, and put it on. He grimaced at the bloodstains on it, and then began to talk. "The Lootenant thinks that all the noncoms ought to talk this over now." He mentioned this flatly as if to convey that the idea had not come from him. "We're gonna send some men back with Wilson, an' I think we ought to figure out who we don't want."