The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [197]
"Did you give those papers to Hobart?" he asked Hearn.
"Yes."
"What the hell you been doing since then?"
Hearn grinned and lit a cigarette. "Nothing in particular, Major." There was a subdued titter from a few of the clerks in the tent.
Dalleson stood up, surprised to find himself suddenly in a rage, "I don't want any of your goddam lip, Hearn." This made it worse. It was bad to reprimand an officer in front of enlisted men. "Go over and help Leach."
For several seconds Hearn stood motionless, and then he nodded, sauntered carelessly over to Leach's desk, and sat down beside him. Dalleson had trouble in getting back to work. In the weeks that had elapsed since the division had stalled on the line, Dalleson had expressed his concern by driving his men. He would worry frequently that his subordinates were slacking off and the work was becoming sloppy. To correct that, he was after his clerks all the time to make them retype papers in which there was one error or even one erasure, and he consistently bullied his junior officers to produce more work. It was basically a superstition. Dalleson believed that if he could make his own small unit function perfectly the rest of the division would follow his example. Part of the discomfort Hearn had caused him until now had come from Dalleson's conviction that Hearn cared very little about the work. It was a dangerous business. "One man can louse up an outfit," was one of Dalleson's axioms, and Hearn was a threat. It was the first time he could ever remember a subordinate telling him that he had been doing nothing. When that started happening. . . Dalleson fretted through the rest of the afternoon, outlined the march order very uncertainly, and an hour before evening chow had finished enough of the battle plan to present it to the General.
He went over to Cummings's tent, gave it to him, and stood by uncomfortably, waiting for comments. Cummings studied it carefully, looking up from time to time to voice a criticism. "I see you've got four different withdrawal orders, and four assembly areas."
"Yes, sir."
"I don't think that'll be necessary, Major. We'll pick one assembly point back of Second Battalion, and whichever outfit we use for the invasion will go there. It won't be more than a five-mile march at the very most, no matter which one we take."
"Yes, sir." Dalleson busied himself scribbling notes on a little pad.
"I think you'd better allow 108 minutes instead of 104 for the trip with the LCMs."
"Yes, sir."
And so on. Cummings gave his objections, and Dalleson continued to mark them in his note-pad. Cummings watched him with a little contempt. Dalleson's got a mind like a switchboard, he told himself. If your plug will fit one of his mental holes, he can furnish the necessary answer, but otherwise he's lost.
Cummings sighed, lit a cigarette. "We've got to co-ordinate the staff work on this more thoroughly. Will you tell Hobart and Conn I'll want them with you in the morning first thing?"
"Yes, sir," Dalleson rumbled.
The General scratched his upper lip. That would have been Hearn's job if he were still orderly. Cummings had been doing without an aide. He exhaled his cigarette. "By the way, Major," Cummings asked. "How's Hearn getting along with you?" Cummings yawned casually, but he was tense. With Hearn out of his daily view, certain regrets, certain urges, were tempting him once more. But he repressed them. What a touchy business that thing with Hearn could have been, Cummings thought. Hearn couldn't come back. That was out.
Dalleson knitted his heavy forehead. "Hearn's all right, sir. He's got too goddam much lip, but I can knock that out of him."
Thinking about it now, Cummings was a little disappointed. In the few times he had caught a glimpse of Hearn in officers' mess, his face