The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [274]
Hearn scratched his chin. "The men couldn't do it," he said finally.
Croft tried one last gambit. "Lootenant, if we could make this patrol okay, it might tie up the campaign, you never can tell."
The final factor in the equation. It was becoming too complicated. For there was a nub of truth in that, Hearn realized. If the patrol did succeed, it would be one of those tiny plus contributions to the war, one of the intangibles he had talked about a long time ago to the General. "How do you measure if it's better that the war end sooner and so many men go home, or if they all stay over here and go to pot?"
If the campaign ended soon, it would be concretely good for the men in the division. It was with that line of thought that he had decided to give up the patrol, help the men in the platoon. It was too complex to work out at this instant. There was only the necessity of answering Croft, who squatted inflexibly beside him like a sullen piece of metal, bending only slightly.
"All right, we'll send out one man tonight through the pass; if he runs into anything, we turn back." Was that rationalization? Really, was he only fooling himself, looking for another excuse to continue with the patrol?
"You want to go, Lootenant?" Croft's voice mocked him slightly.
He couldn't go, however. If he was knocked off, that would suit Croft perfectly. "I don't think I'm suited for it," he said coldly.
Croft was reasoning the same way. If he himself went and was killed, the platoon would certainly turn back. "I think Martinez is about the best man for it."
Hearn nodded. "All right, send him out. In the morning we'll make a decision. And tell him to wake me when he gets back." Hearn looked at his watch. "I'm about due for guard now. Tell him to check with me before he sets out so I'll know it's him moving around."
Croft looked about the hollow and picked out Martinez's blankets in the moonlight. He stared at Hearn for an instant, and then strode over to Martinez and awakened him. The Lieutenant was climbing up the hill to relieve the guard.
Croft told Martinez what his mission would be, and then in a low voice he added, "If you see any Japs bivouacking, try to work around them and keep on going."
"Yeah, understand." Martinez was tying his shoes.
"Just take a trench knife."
"Okay, I be back in three hour maybe. Tell guard," Martinez whispered.
Croft held his shoulder for a second. Martinez was shivering very slightly. "Are you okay, boy?" he asked.
"Yeah, okay."
"Well, now listen," Croft said. "When you get back, don't say anything to anybody till you see me. If the Lootenant is up, you just say to him nothing happened, do you understand?" Croft's mouth was numb, and he felt the powerful anxiety of disobeying an order. More than that, there was something else, unexpressed as yet. He exhaled his breath painfully.
Martinez nodded, clenching and opening his fists to restore the sensitivity to his fingers. "I go now," he said, standing up.
"You're a good boy, Japbait." It was eerie, whispering in the darkness. The bodies lying about them seemed dead.
Martinez wrapped his rifle in his blanket to keep it dry, left it lying on his pack. "Okay, Sam." His voice quivered just slightly.
"Okay, Japbait." Croft watched him talk for a few seconds to Hearn, and then move out of the hollow, dip into the kunai grass and bear off to the left, parallel to the great cliffs of the mountain. Croft rubbed his forearm reflectively and went back to his blanket, lay down, knowing he would not sleep until Martinez had returned.
There it was before him again. You made a decision and backtracked on it and none of the problems was changed. Hearn shrugged wryly. If Martinez came back and reported no Japs in the pass, they would be moving forward in the morning. He scratched his armpit tenderly, staring down at the valley and the empty mournful hills about him. The wind soughed through the draws, drifted over the kunai grass, and whistled along the crests of the knolls, making a small murmur in its circuit like surf breaking a long distance away.
It was a mistake, and he had played a curious deception with himself. It had been more than yielding to Croft, he had yielded to himself again, made it so complicated that he could never untangle the rationalization from what was valid. Tricks and tricks, more ways than one to skin a cat, and he had allowed it, knew that he would go forward in the morning if Martinez brought back a report of no Jap activity.