The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [221]
He didn't answer Stanley, but still he was pleased.
"I kinda think I know human nature," Stanley said, "and I damn sure can tell you that I'd rather have you running this patrol than some looey they hand us on a platter."
Croft spat. Stanley was pretty sharp, he told himself. Of course he was a brown-nose, but if a man was all right outside of that, he wouldn't hold it against him. "Mebbe," he admitted.
"Now, you take this patrol, it's going to be a rough one. We need somebody who knows the score."
"What do you think of the patrol?" Croft asked softly. He ducked as some spray washed over them.
Stanley guessed that Croft would be pleased if he accepted the patrol without resentment. But he knew he would have to answer cautiously. If he was enthusiastic, Croft would distrust him, for none of the other men were eager. Stanley fingered his mustache, which was still thin and uneven despite the care he gave it. "I don't know, somebody's got to do it, and it might as well be us. To tell you the truth, Sam," he ventured, "this may sound like bullshit coming from me, but I ain't sorry we caught it. You get tired of hanging around, you want to do something."
Croft fingered his chin. "That's what you think, huh?"
"Well, I wouldn't tell it to everybody, but, yes, that's what I do think."
"Uh-huh." Half purposefully, Stanley had stroked one of Croft's basic passions. After a month of labor details and unimportant security patrols, Croft's senses had become raw waiting for activity. Any big patrol would have appealed to him. But this one. . . the conception of it was more impressive to him. Although he did not show it, he was impatient; the chore was to get through the hours on board this boat. All afternoon he had been debating possible routes, reviewing the terrain in his mind. There had been only an aerial map of the back country, but he had memorized that.
And once again he felt an unpleasant shock, reminded himself that the platoon and the patrol would not be directed by him.
"Yeah, it's all right," Croft said. "I'll tell you, that General Cummings is a smart man to have figgered it all out."
Stanley nodded. "All the guys bitch all the time about how they could do it better, but he's got a hard job."
"Reckon so," Croft said. He stared away for a moment, and then nudged Stanley. "Look." He was watching Wilson talk to Hearn, and he felt a trace of jealousy.
Unconsciously, Stanley copied Croft's speech. "Do you reckon old Wilson is sucking?"
Croft laughed quietly and coldly. "Goddam, I don't know, he's been dicking-off lately."
"I wonder if he's really sick," Stanley said doubtfully.
Croft shook his head. "You cain't trust Wilson any further'n you can throw him."
"That's the way I had him tabbed." Stanley felt good. Brown was always saying that nobody could get along with Croft, but he didn't know how to work it. Croft was okay, you just had to approach him on the right tack. It was all right when you could buddy with the noncoms over you.
Yet Stanley had been very tense all the while he had been talking to Croft. In his first weeks in the platoon he had acted similarly toward Brown, but now that tension was switched to Croft. Stanley never said anything to him without some purpose. It was an automatic process, however. He never thought consciously, It's a good idea to agree with Croft. At the moment he believed what he was saying; his mind worked more quickly, more effectively than his speech, so that sometimes Stanley was almost surprised at his own words. "Yeah, Wilson's an odd guy," he muttered.
"Uh-huh."
Yet for a moment Stanley was depressed. Perhaps he had started to buddy with Croft too late. What good was it