The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [105]
Goldstein picked up his letter and began to write again. "I don't know, honey, I get so sick at the whole thing at times I want to quit. It's a terrible thing to say, but I hate the soldiers I have been put with, they're a bunch of grobe jungen. Honestly, honey, it's hard to remember all the fine ideals. Sometimes even with the Jews in Europe I don't know why we're fighting. . ." He reread what he had written, and then crossed it out violently. But he sat there for a minute or two with a cold fear.
He was changing. He realized it suddenly. His confidence was gone, and he wasn't sure of himself. He hated all the men with whom he lived and worked and he could never remember a time in the past when he hadn't liked nearly everyone he knew. Goldstein held his head for a moment, and then laboriously began to write again. "I have an idea that is pretty good. Maybe we should try to do some work with the junk yards. There is lots of things they have there that need only a little welding to be able to work even if they don't look so good. . ."
Wilson was getting restless. He had been sitting in one place for several hours now, and his mood of contentment was beginning to lapse. His drinking sessions always followed a similar pattern: for the first few hours he would feel happy and benevolent, and the more he drank the more superior he felt to anyone who was not drinking. But after a time he would feel a need for some external excitement and he would become bored and a trifle sober. He would fidget, become a little agitated, and then abruptly he would leave the bar or the house where he was drinking, and wander away to accept whatever adventures might occur. Many times he would wake up the next day in the bed of a strange woman, or in the gutter, or on the sofa in the parlor of his small frame house. And rarely would he remember what had happened to him.
Now he emptied the last few drops of the third canteen and sighed noisily. His voice had become very thick. "What in the hell are we gonna do now, men?" he asked.
Croft swayed to his feet and laughed again. He had been chuckling to himself all afternoon. "I'm gonna sleep," he announced.
Wilson shook his head, and leaned forward, holding Croft's leg. "Sergeant -- Ah'm gonna call ya sergeant 'cause you're so goddam chicken -- sergeant, you got no call to be hittin' the sack 'cause it ain't even gonna be dark for an hour yet, maybe two."
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