The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [306]
Well, what the hell could he do but send a platoon up to occupy that empty bivouac? If they were able to do it without difficulty, he would start worrying then about what to do next. A fragile breeze stirred against his face and he thought with longing of the beach and the pleasantly chill ocean water, the palm trees silhouetted against the shore. Somewhere in the jungle miles away from him something was happening to the Japanese. Maybe their G-3 was sitting on the can now too. The Major grinned.
But something was wrong with them. The Jap corpses lately looked skinnier. All these islands were supposed to be blockaded, not getting any supplies, but of course you could never depend on the Navy to tell the truth on that. The Major was weary. Why did he have to make these decisions? He lost track of the minutes listening to the rapt absorptive buzzing of the flies under the latrine boards. One or two whipped against his naked flanks and he grunted with displeasure. They damn sure needed a new latrine.
He lifted himself, did a makeshift job with the sodden paper which had become drenched in the night's rain. There ought to be some better way of making a cover for it than to use a No. 10 tin can. The Major tried to think of some other way to keep the paper dry. What a lazy day it was.
He got up and stopped off at officers' mess to get a can of iced beer. "How're you doin', Major?" one of the cooks asked.
"Awright." He rubbed his chin. Something was bothering him. "Oh, yeah, listen, O'Brien, I been gettin' the GIs again. You keeping your pots clean?"
"You ought to know, Major."
He grunted again, looked about under the tent at the empty wooden tables, the benches flanking them. The gray metal officers' dishes were already laid out. "You oughtn't to make the setting too early," the Major said. "It just lets the flies horse around on them."
"All right, sir."
"Okay, do something about it." He waited until O'Brien started collecting the plates, and then walked across the bivouac to the operations tent. He saw a few enlisted men lying in their pup tents, and it irritated him. He was wondering which platoon they were in when he remembered the report. He moved toward the operations tent, picked up the phone, and ordered Windmill to send a platoon fully equipped up to the deserted Jap bivouac. "And lay some wire right with them. I want a report in half an hour."
"They won't get there till then."
"That's all right. The moment they occupy it, you let me know."
Time dragged by under the heated canvas. The Major was desperately uneasy, hoping secretly that the platoon had to turn back. But still if they were able to move in, what then? He called up the commander of the reserve battalion from the 460th and told him to alert a company for movement within an hour.
"I'll have to take them off the road."
"Take them off," the Major growled. He swore quietly. If it all came to nothing, the work of a company of men would be lost on the road for a half day. And yet there was nothing else he could do. Because if the platoon could occupy the center of the Toyaku Line he would have to exploit it. The Major was working on axioms now.
Windmill phoned him forty-five minutes later and told him that the platoon had advanced without incident and was holding the Japanese ground. Dalleson picked his nose with his thick forefinger, trying to see across the jungle through the foliage heated by the intense morning sun.
"Okay, move up the rest of your company except for a squad, and you can leave the kitchen behind. You got rations?"
"Yes. But what about my rear and flanks? We're going to be stuck a thousand yards ahead of Charley and Fox."
"I'm taking care of that. You just move up, you can get them all there in an hour."
After he had hung up, the Major groaned to himself. Now everything would have to be moved around. The reserve company he had alerted from the 460th would have to fill in the flanks and rear of the salient and would be spread thin. Why had the Japs left? Was it a trap?
The Major remembered a heavy artillery barrage the night before on that empty Jap position. It was possible the CO of that Jap company had pulled out without letting anybody know. There were cases where the Japs did that which he had heard about, but it seemed a little unbelievable.