The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [180]
The doctor, however, glanced at his leg for a moment, replaced the dressing and told him, "You'll be able to leave by tomorrow."
The information gave Minetta a pang. "You think so, sir?" he managed to say eagerly. He shifted his position on the cot, feigning some difficulty, and added, "Yeah, I'd like to get back to my buddies."
"Well, you just take it easy," the doctor said, "and we'll see tomorrow morning." He jotted down something in his notebook, and went on to the next cot. The sonofabitch, Minetta told himself, I can hardly walk. As if to prove it, his leg began to ache a trifle, and he thought with bitterness, They don't care if you live or die here. All they want is to get you back where you can stop a bullet. He became sullen, and drowsed through the afternoon. They didn't even take stitches, he said once to himself.
It began to rain toward evening, and he felt comfortable and secure beneath the tent. Boy, am I glad I don't have to be on guard tonight, he told himself. He listened to the downpour on the tent, and thought with pleasurable pity of the men in the platoon who would be awakened in their damp blankets to sit shivering in the muddy machine-gun hole while the rain penetrated their clothing. "Not for me," he said.
But then he remembered what the doctor had said. It would be raining again tomorrow; it rained every day. He would be back working on the road or the beach, standing guard at night, perhaps going out on a patrol soon where he might be killed instead of wounded. He thought of how he had been caught on the beach, and he felt an acute surprise. It didn't seem possible that something as small as a bullet could have hurt him. The sounds of the firing, the emotions he had felt were returning to him, and he shuddered a little. It seemed unreal, the way a man's face may sometimes seem unreal if he gazes at it too long in the mirror. Minetta drew his blanket over his shoulder. They ain't getting me back tomorrow, he assured himself.
In the morning, before the doctor came, Minetta took off his bandages and examined his wound. It was almost healed; the lips of the cut had come together and were filled with new pink flesh. They would certainly discharge him today. Minetta looked about him. The other men were occupied or sleeping, and with a quick motion he ripped open the gash again. It began to bleed, and he wrapped up the bandages with trembling fingers, feeling a guilty glee. Under the blanket he would rub his wound every few minutes to start the bleeding again. He felt a nervous impatience, waiting for the doctor to come. His thigh felt warm and sticky under the bandages, and Minetta turned to the man in the next cot. "My leg's bleeding," he said. "Those wounds are funny things."
"Yeah."
When the doctor examined him, Minetta was silent. "I see your wound's opened."
"Yes, sir."
The doctor looked at the bandage. "You haven't been touching it, have you?" he asked.
"I don't think so, doc. Just started bleeding." He's on to me, Minetta decided. "Naw, it's okay, I'll be able to get back to my platoon today, won't I?" he pleaded.
"You better wait another day, son. It shouldn't have opened that way." The doctor began dressing it again. "Let the bandage alone, this time," he said.
"Yeah, why, sure, sir." He watched the doctor move on. Minetta was depressed. It's the last time I can pull that gag, he told himself.
He was restless all day, trying to think of some way he could remain in the hospital. He became dejected every time he realized that he would have to go back to the platoon. He thought of the endless days ahead with the work and the combat and the unending repetition. I ain't even got a buddy in the platoon. You can't trust Polack. He thought of Brown and Stanley, whom he hated, Croft, of whom he was afraid. They got a goddam clique, he told himself. He thought of the war, which would stretch on forever. After this island there's gonna be another one and then another one. . . Aaah, there's no future in the whole goddam thing. He slept a little and awoke even more miserable.