The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [333]
"Wha. . . ?"
"Yeah. We got their supply dump. We're slaughtering them. I saw that Toyaku Line myself yesterday. They had concrete machine-gun emplacements. Fire lanes. Every damn thing."
Polack swore. "The whole thing's over, huh?"
"Just about."
"And we broke our ass for nothin'."
The pilot grinned. "Higher strategy."
Polack climbed down after a while and told the men. It all seemed perfectly fitting to them. They laughed sourly, turned over in their bunks, and stared at the side bulkhead. But soon they realized that if the campaign was over they would be out of combat for a few months at least. It confused them, irritated them, they didn't know whether the news pleased them or not. The patrol should have been worth something. In their fatigue this conflict brought them close to hysteria and then shifted them over to mirth.
"Hey, you know," Wyman piped, "before we went I heard a rumor they're going to send the division to Australia to make MPs out of us."
"Yeah, MPs." They roared at this. "Wyman, they're sendin' us home."
"Recon's gonna be personal bodyguard for the General."
"MacArthur is gonna have us build him another house at Hollandia."
"We're gonna be Red Cross girls," Polack shouted.
"They're puttin' the division on permanent KP."
Everything mixed in them. The boat, which had been almost silent, quivered from the men's laughter. Their voices, hoarse, trembling with mirth and anger, carried for a long distance over the water. Each time one of them said anything, it provoked new spasms of laughter. Even Croft was brought into it.
"Hey, Sergeant, I'm gonna be a cook, I hate to leave ya."
"Aaah, get the hell out, you're a bunch of goddam women," Croft drawled.
And this seemed funniest of all. They held weakly onto the stanchions of their bunks. "Do I have to leave now, Sergeant? There's a lot of water," Polack bawled. It rushed through them in a succession of confused waves like water ripples spreading out from a stone only to be balked by other wavelets formed by another stone. Every time someone opened his mouth they roared again, wild hysterical laughter, close to tears. The boat shook from it.
It died down slowly, erupted again several times like fire licking out from under a blanket, and finally wore itself out. There was nothing left but their spent bodies and the mild pleasure they found in releasing the tension upon their cheek muscles, soothing the ache of laughter in their chests, wiping their freshened eyes. And it was replaced by the flat extensive depression which overlay everything.
Polack tried to revive it again by singing but only a few of them joined him.
"Roll me over
In the clover.
Roll me over,
Lay me down
And do it again.
Ha' past three
I had her on my knee.
Lay me down,
Roll me over,
Do it again.
Roll me over in the clover. . ."
Their voices piped out feebly, lost in the flat placid washes of the blue sea. Their boat chugged along, the motors almost smothering the sound.
"Ha' past four
I had her on the floor.
Lay me down,
Roll me over,
Do it again."
Croft got out of his bunk and peered over the side, staring moodily at the water. He had not been told the date on which the campaign had been won, and he made the error of assuming it was the day they had failed on the mountain. If they had been able to climb it, the campaign would have depended upon them. He did not even question this. It was a bitter certainty in his mind. His jaw muscles quivered as he spat over the side.
"Ha' past five
We began to jive. . ."
They sang as if they were playing chimes, Polack and Red and Minetta, gathered together at the stern. At every pause Polack would blow out his cheeks and go "Waah-waaaah," like a trumpet when it is fanned with a mute. Gradually it was catching the others. "Where's Wilson?" one of them shouted, and they all stopped for a moment. They had heard the news of his death but it hadn't registered. And suddenly he was dead. They understood it. The knowledge shocked them, loosed the familiar unreality of war and death, and the song wavered over a syllable or two. "I'm gonna miss that old sonofabitch," Polack said.