The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [98]
Gallagher smiled lopsidedly. "Don't ya see that fuggin Croft is blind now?"
Croft leaned down and grasped Gallagher by the collar. "I don' care drunk I am, none you men got a call to talk to me that way, none of you men." He pushed Gallagher back suddenly. "I'm rememberin' just what the hell you say. . ." His voice trailed off. "I'm rememberin', wait till tomorrow." He stopped and laughed again, and then walked a little uncertainly toward his tent.
Wilson rolled the empty canteen back and forth. He burped once. "What the hell we gonna do?" he asked again.
"Damn liquor go too fast," Martinez said. He was beginning to feel very gloomy at the thought of how much money he had spent.
Wilson leaned forward. "Listen, men, Ah got an idea. Y'know them Japs've got those rollin' whorehouses they bring right up to the lines."
"Where'd ya hear that?" Gallagher demanded.
"Ah heard it, that's for certain. Well, why don' we jus' sneak over tonight an' get in their tail line, and we can knock off a piece of that yellow stuff?"
Red spat. "What's the matter, ya want to see if their slits are horizontal?"
"That's Chinee," Wilson said.
Gallagher leaned forward truculently and said, "Wilson, you're a nigger-lover."
Wilson laughed. "Shi-i-i-it," he drawled. He had forgotten his scheme already.
Red was thinking once more of the bodies in the draw. He felt a curious fascination as he remembered how they had looked. A wash of fear penetrated through the whirling in his mind, and he looked over his shoulder again. "Why don't we go looking for souvenirs?" he shouted furiously.
"Where?"
"There ought to be some dead Japs around here," Red said. He resisted the impulse to look behind him.
Wilson giggled. "They is, they is," he said suddenly. "Down 'bout two-three hunnerd yards from that mess sergeant's still, they was a battle. Ah 'member we passed right by it, jus' right by it."
Martinez spoke up. "Night we go up to the river, and the Japs come. That night Japs come down almost to here."
"Tha's right," Wilson said. "Ah heard they had tanks down 'bout here."
"Well, let's go lookin' then," Red muttered. "We rate a couple of souvenirs."
Wilson stood up. "If they's one goddam thing Ah gotta do when Ah get likkered up it's to start roamin' round." He stretched his arms. "Well, men, let's git goin'."
The others looked at him dumbly. They had settled into a stupor and their conversation had been random and purposeless. They had talked without thinking of what they said, and now they were bewildered by Wilson's energy. "Come on, men," he repeated.
They obeyed him because they were passive and would have obeyed anybody who told them to do something. Wilson picked up his rifle, and the others, seeing him do this, slung theirs also.
"Where the hell do we go?" Gallagher asked.
"Jus' follow me, men," Wilson said. He let out a drunken whoop.
They tailed along behind him in a rough straggling file. Wilson led them through the bivouac area. His good spirits revived again. "Show me the way to go home," he sang.
Some soldiers stared at them, and Wilson halted. "Men," he said, "they's gonna be some goddam officers lookin' at us, so goddammit let's look like soldiers."
"Eyes right," Red bawled. He felt suddenly gleeful.
They began to move with exaggerated caution, and when Gallagher stumbled once the others turned on him. "Goddammit, Gallagher," Wilson reproved softly. He was walking jauntily, his legs just the least bit unsteady, and he began to whistle. They reached a gap in the barbed wire, and trudged through a chest-high field of kunai grass. Gallagher kept falling and cursing, and Wilson would turn around each time and hold his finger to his lips.
After a hundred yards the jungle encircled them again, and they weaved through the grass parallel to it until they found a trail. Far in the distance an artillery battery was firing, and Martinez shivered. He was sweating freely from the walk and he felt very depressed. "Where goddam battlefield?" he asked.
"Jus' at the end of the trail," Wilson said. He remembered the fourth canteen of whisky, which he had hidden, and he began to giggle again. "Jus' a little while," he told them. They stumbled along the trail for a hundred and fifty yards before it debouched into a narrow road. "This's Jap road," Wilson said.