The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [337]
Certain things were SOP. The Japanese had set up many small hospitals in the last weeks of the campaign, and in retreating they had killed many of their wounded. The Americans who came in would finish off whatever wounded men were left, smashing their heads with rifle butts or shooting them point-blank.
But there were other, more distinctive, ways. One patrol out at dawn discovered four Japanese soldiers lying in stupor across a trail, their ponchos covering them. The lead man halted, picked up some pebbles and flipped them into the air. The pebbles landed on the first sleeping soldier with a light pattering sound like hail. He awakened slowly, stretched under the poncho, yawned, groaned a little, cleared his throat, and stretched with the busy stupid sounds of a man rousing himself in the morning. Then he poked his head out from under the poncho. The lead man waited until the Jap saw him and then, as he was about to scream, the American sent a burst of tommy-gun slugs through him. He followed this by ripping his gun down the middle of the trail, stitching holes neatly through the ponchos. Only one Jap was left still alive, and his leg protruded from the poncho, twitching aimlessly with the last unconscious shudders of a dying animal. Another soldier walked up, nuzzled the body under the poncho with the muzzle of his gun, located the wounded man's head, and pulled the trigger.
There were other variations.
Occasionally they would take prisoners, but if this was late in the day and the patrol was hurrying to get back before dark, it was better if the prisoners did not slow them. One squad picked up three prisoners late in the afternoon, and was delayed grievously by them. One prisoner was so sick he could hardly walk, and another, a big sullen man, was looking for a way to escape. The third had gigantically swollen testicles which were so painful that he had cut away his trousers from his groin the way a man with a bunion slits the toe off an old shoe. He walked pathetically, hobbling along and groaning as he held his testes.
The platoon leader looked at his watch at last and sighed. "We're going to have to dump them," he said.
The sullen Jap seemed to know what he meant, for he stepped off the trail and waited with his back turned. The shot caught him behind the ear.
Another soldier came up behind the prisoner with the swollen genitals and gave him a shove which sprawled him on the ground. He gave a single scream of pain before he was killed.
The third one was half in coma and had no idea of what happened.
Two weeks later Major Dalleson sat in the newly finished operations and training shack and ruminated pleasurably about the past, present, and future. Now that the campaign was over, the division's headquarters had moved back almost to a cool pleasant grove not far from the sea. At night the breezes made sleep quite enjoyable.
The training program was going to begin the next day, and this was the part of military life that the Major found most congenial. Everything had been got ready. The troops had set up their permanent bivouacs in squad tents, the walks through the bivouac had been graveled and every company had finished building racks over each man's cot to hold his equipment neatly. The parade ground was finished and the Major was proud of it, for he had supervised it personally. It had been a considerable feat to clear three hundred yards of jungle and level the ground in only ten days.
Tomorrow there would be the first parade and inspection, and the Major anticipated it eagerly. He obtained a simple childish joy from seeing the troops march past in clean uniforms, in picking a file at random and inspecting their rifles. Before they moved on to the Philippines he was determined to get the division marching decently again.
His days were quite busy. There were any number of details to be carried out and the training schedule gave him a lot of difficulties. Without the proper facilities it was going to be troublesome to give all the courses he wanted. There would be rifle marksmanship, of course, and the care, nomenclature, and operation of the machine gun. There could be a class in special weapons, and one in compass and map reading, another in military discipline. And of course he was going to keep them busy with inspections and parades. But still there were many other things they should have. In any case, he could always fill the gap with hikes.