The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [111]
Ridges had watched this with displeasure, his long dumpy face wrinkled in a scowl. "That ain't the right way to treat a bug," he said.
Wyman was absorbed in the convulsions of the insect, and the interruption irritated him. He felt a trace of shame. "What do you mean, Ridges? What the hell's so important about a bug?"
"Shoot," Ridges sighed, " ' tain't doin' you no harm. Jus' mindin' its own business."
Wyman turned to Goldstein. "The preacher's gettin' all excited over a bug." He laughed sarcastically, and then said, "Killin' one of Gawd's creatures, huh?"
Goldstein shrugged. "Every man has his own viewpoint," he said gently.
Ridges lowered his head stubbornly. "Not sayin' 'tain't hard to make fun of a man if he believes in the written Word."
"You eat meat, don't ya?" Wyman demanded. He was pleased to have the better arguments, for usually he felt inferior to most of the men in the squad. "Where the hell's it say you can eat meat but you can't kill a bug?"
"Meat ain't the same. Y' don' eat a bug."
Wyman poured a little dirt over the caterpillar and watched it struggle to free itself. "I don't see you caring if you kill a Jap or two," he said.
"They're heathen," Ridges said.
"Excuse me," Goldstein said, "but I don't think you're quite right. I was reading an article a few months ago which said there were over a hundred thousand Christians in Japan."
Ridges shook his head. "Well, Ah wouldn' want to be killing one of them," he said.
"But you'll have to," Wyman said. "Whyn't you admit you're wrong?"
"The Lord'll keep me from shooting a Christian," Ridges said stubbornly.
"Aaaaah."
"That's what Ah believe," Ridges said. Actually, he was quite upset. The writhing of the insect had recalled to him the way the bodies of the Japanese had looked the morning after they had tried to cross the river. They had seemed the same as the animals who had died on his father's farm. He had told himself that it was because they were heathen, but now after Goldstein's statement he was confused. One hundred thousand was a vast number to him; he assumed that was at least half the people in Japan, and now he was thinking that some of the dead men he had seen in the river must have been Christians. He brooded over it for a moment or two, and then understood. It was very simple to him.
"You believe man got a soul?" he asked Wyman.
"I don't know. What the hell is a soul?"
Ridges chuckled. "Shoot, you ain't so smart as you think y'are. The soul's what leaves a man after he dies -- that's what goes up t' heaven. That's why he looks so bad when you see him jus' lyin' in the river, it's because he ain't what he was before. That somethin' that's important, his soul, that's gone from him."
"Who the hell knows," Wyman said. He felt philosophical.
The insect was dying under the last handful of earth he had poured over it.
Wilson finished the last canteen of whisky by himself while he was on guard that night. It made him a little drunk again, and it revived his restlessness. He sat on the edge of his foxhole, and peered irritably through the barbed wire, shifting his position every few minutes. His head was lolling from side to side, and he found it difficult to keep his eyes open. There was a bush about fifteen yards beyond the barbed wire and it bothered him. It threw a shadow which extended into the jungle and made it impossible for him to see a certain section of the perimeter. The more he gazed at it, the more irritable he became. Goddam bush, he told himself, think you're gonna hide a Jap, don't ya? He shook his head. No goddam Jap's gonna sneak up on me.
He got out of the hole and walked a few steps away. His legs were unsteady, which annoyed him. He sat down in the hole