The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [133]
He folded the paper and crammed it into his pocket. Croft was calling to them and they got out of their tents, and strolled toward the truck that was to take them to the section of road upon which they were working. The sun had been up for only an hour and the morning still had a fine clear youth. It was not yet hot. Gallagher thought vaguely of early summer mornings when he set out for work, and the pavements were still cool and fresh from the summer night. He had forgotten the newspaper and was humming to himself as he climbed on the truck.
In the mail room, a pyramidal tent with two field desks, the mail clerk was sorting some of the letters that had been misaddressed. There was a stack of twenty letters for Hennessey, tied together with a thin piece of twine, and they lay for several hours on a corner of the desk. At last the mail clerk noticed them. He prided himself on remembering the name of every man in the regiment, and he was annoyed now because he could not place Hennessey.
"Was Hennessey transferred from headquarters company?" he asked his assistant.
"I don't know, name's familiar." The assistant thought a moment and then said, "Wait a minute, I temember, he was knocked off the day we came in." The assistant was pleased that he had recalled it when the mail clerk had forgotten.
"That's right," the mail clerk said hastily. "He got it right on the beach, I was talking to Brown about it." He looked at the tied bundle of envelopes, sighed, and stamped on them, "Addressee Killed in Action." He was about to put the letters in one of the bags at his feet, when he noticed the return address. He skimmed through the envelopes and discovered it was the same on all of them. "Hey, look at this," he said to the assistant.
The return address on the letters was "Mom and Dad, 12 Riverdale Avenue, Tacuchet, Indiana." The assistant read it to himself, and thought for a moment of a rosy-cheeked man and woman with graying hair, the Mom and Pop of a thousand billboard ads for soft drinks and mouthwashes and toothpastes. "Gee, isn't that sad," he said.
"Yeah, it sure is."
"Makes you think," the assistant said.
After the midday meal, Gallagher was sitting in his tent when Croft called him. "What is it?" Gallagher asked.
"The chaplain wants to see you," Croft said.
"What about?"
"I don't know," Croft shrugged. "Why don't you go see him? We'll be gone when you get back, so you'll have perimeter guard for the afternoon."
Gallagher walked through the bivouac and stopped at the chaplain's tent. His heart was beating quickly, and he was trying to suppress the hope he was feeling. Before they had landed on Anopopei, he had asked the chaplain if he needed another assistant, and the chaplain had promised to consider him. To Gallagher it meant getting out of combat, and he had allowed himself to dream about the possibility several times.
"Good afternoon, Father Leary," he said. "I heard you wanted to see me." His voice was polite and uncomfortable, and he was perspiring from the effort of having to watch his profanity.
"Sit down, Gallagher." Father Leary was a tall slim middle-aged man with light hair, and a caressing voice.
"What is it, Father?"
"Go ahead and smoke, son." Father Leary lit a cigarette for him. "You get much mail from home, Gallagher?"
"My wife writes to me every day, almost, Father. She's gonna be having a baby any day now."
"Yes." Father Leary was silent; he fingered his lip, and then sat down abruptly. He put his hand on Gallagher's knee. "Son, I have some pretty bad news for you."
Gallagher felt a chill. "What is it, Father?"
"You know, son, there're a lot of things which are difficult to understand. You just have to believe that it's right, and that there's a good reason for it, that God understands and sees and does what is best, even if we don't understand right away."
Gallagher was ill