The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [220]
Valsen snorted. "You ain't got nothing a gallon of paregoric ain't gonna cure."
Wilson shook his head, his genial face reflective suddenly, a little worried, the expression at odds with his bland features. "Ah jus' hope that damn fool doctor is wrong and Ah don' have to have no op-per-ration."
"What's the matter with you?" Hearn asked.
"Aw, mah insides are jus' shot to hell, Lootenant. Ah got a lot of pus in 'em, an' that doctor said he'd have to cut it out." Wilson shook his head. "Ah just cain't figger it," he sighed. "Ah had a dose many a time but it don' take nothin' to get rid of the clap."
The boat slapped and pounded as it passed through a series of swells, and Wilson bit his mouth from a sudden pang.
Red lit a cigarette. "For Crisake if you believe a fuggin sawbones. . ." He stood up for a moment and spat over the side wall, watching his spittle sucked away instantly in the foam of the wake. "All a doctor ever has is a pill and a pat on the back, and you stick them in the Army and all they got left is the pill."
Hearn laughed. "Talking from experience, Valsen?"
But Red didn't answer, and Wilson after a moment sighed again. "Ah wish to hell they didn't send us out just today. If en we gotta do somethin' Ah don' give a damn, put me on a detail, send me out on this, it don' matter, but Ah jus' hate to be sick like this."
"Hell, you'll pull out of it," Hearn said easily.
"Ah hope so, Lootenant." Wilson nodded. "Ah'm no fug-off an' any of the men'll tell you Ah'd rather work than jus' lay around an' get all hot an' bothered, but lately with this misery it makes me feel like Ah ain't worth a good goddam, Ah jus' cain't seem to do what Ah use' to do." He shook one of his long broad fingers at Hearn, who watched the sunlight glint on the blond-red hairs at his wrist. "Maybe this las' week Ah been havin' to goof-off a little, an' Croft's been on my ass the whole time. It's a helluva note when a buddy you been with in the same platoon for two years figgers you're goofin'-off on him."
Red snorted. "Take it easy, Wilson, and I'll tell that goddam engineer to take it easy with this boat over the bumps." Their pilot was a man from an engineer company. "I'll tell him to set you down easy." Red's voice was sarcastic with a touch of disgust.
Hearn realized that Valsen hadn't said a word directly to him since he had begun talking to them. And why was Wilson telling him all this? As an alibi? But Hearn didn't think so. All the time Wilson had been talking his voice had been a little abstracted as though explaining something to himself. Wilson was unconscious of him, and Valsen seemed to resent him.
Well, then, the hell with it. He wouldn't force himself on them. He stretched, yawned a little, and said, "Take it easy, men."
"Yeah, Lootenant," Wilson murmured.
Red made no answer. His face, still sullen and irritable, stared coldly at him as Hearn climbed up again on the pilot hatch.
Croft had finished sharpening his trench knife, and while Hearn and Wilson were still talking, he worked his way forward to the shelter of the front ramp. Stanley, seeing an opportunity, joined him. It was almost comfortable talking there, for although the floor was wet, the bow was raised slightly. The spray that lashed into the boat was washed toward the stern, leaving no puddles.
Stanley was busy talking. "I think it was a goddam shame the way they stuck an officer in on us. There isn't anybody can handle the platoon better than you, and they shoulda commissioned you before sticking in some ninety-day wonder."
Croft shrugged. Hearn's transfer had been a shock to him, deeper than he cared to admit. He had been in command of the platoon for so long it was a little difficult for him to realize that he had a superior. Even in the day Hearn had been with them Croft had been forced to remind himself many times before giving an order that he was no longer in charge.
Hearn was his foe. Without even stating it to himself, the attitude was implicit in everything Croft did. Automatically he considered it Hearn's