The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [312]
His body was so small. The rage was pathetic, but its pitifulness was unfair. If he had been stronger, he could have done something. And even so, as he churned along the trail behind the men there was something different in him, something more impressive. For these few minutes he was not afraid of the men. His body wavering, his head lolling on his shoulders, he fought clear of his exhaustion, straggled along oblivious of his body, alone in the new rage of his person.
Croft, at the point, was worried. He had not taken part when Roth had collapsed. For once he had been irresolute. The labor of leading the platoon for so many months, the tensions of the three days with Hearn, had been having their effect. He was tired, his senses rasped by everything that went wrong; all the sullenness of the men, their fatigue, their reluctance to go on had been causing attrition. The decision he had made after Martinez's reconnaissance had drained him. When Roth fell down the last time Croft had turned to go back to him and then had paused. At that moment he had been too weary to do anything. If Gallagher had not struck him, Croft might have interfered, but for once he was content to wait. All his lapses and minor failures seemed important to him. He was remembering with disgust his paralysis on the river when the Japanese had called to him; he was thinking of the combat since then, all the minor blank spots that had occurred before he could act. For once he was uncertain. The mountain still taunted him, still drew him forward, but it was with an automatic leaden response of his legs. He knew he had miscalculated the strength of the platoon, his own energy. There was only an hour or two until dark and they would never reach the peak before then.
The ledge they were on was becoming narrower. A hundred feet above them he could see the top of the ridge, rocky and jagged, almost impossible to traverse. Farther ahead the ledge rose upward and crossed the ridge and beyond should be the mountain peak. It could not be more than a thousand feet above them. He wanted to have the summit in view before they halted for the night.
But the ledge was becoming dangerous. The rain clouds had settled over them like bloated balloons, and they traveled forward in what was almost a fog. The rain was colder here. It chilled them and their feet slid upon the damp rock. After a few more minutes the rain obscured the ridge above them, and they inched along the ledge cautiously, their faces to the rock wall.
The ledge was no more than a foot wide now. The platoon worked along it very slowly, taking a purchase on the weeds and small bushes that grew out of the vertical cracks in the wall. Each step was painful, frightening, but the farther they inched out along the ledge the more terrifying became the idea of turning back. They hoped that at any moment the ledge would widen again, for they could not conceive of returning over a few of the places they had already crossed. This passage was dangerous enough to rouse them temporarily from their fatigue, and they moved alertly, strung out over forty yards. Once or twice they would look down, but it was too frightening. Even in the fog they could see a sheer drop of at least a hundred feet and it roused another kind of faintness. They would become conscious of the walls, which were of a soft gray slimy rock that seemed to breathe like the skin of a seal. It had an odious fleshlike sensation which roused panic, made them want to hasten.
The ledge narrowed to nine inches. Croft kept peering ahead in the mist, trying to determine if it would become wider. This was the first place on the mountain that demanded some skill. Until now it has been essentially a very high hill, but here he wished for a rope or a mountain pick. He continued along it, his arms and legs spread-eagled, hugging the rock, his fingers searching for crevices to latch upon.
He came to a gap in the ledge about four feet wide. There was nothing between, no bushes, no roots to which they could cling. The platform disappeared and then continued on the other side. In the gap there was only the sheer drop of the ridge wall. It would have been a simple jump, merely a long step on level ground, but here it meant leaping sideways, taking off with the left foot and landing with the right, having to gain his balance while he teetered on the ledge.