The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [222]
Indeed, as they talked, Croft and Stanley were sensing a similarity between themselves, and it drew them together. Croft felt a mild affection for him. This Stanley kid ain't too bad, he told himself.
The deck under their feet shuddered as the boat slapped against a few waves. The sun was almost down, and the sky overhead was clouding over. It was the least bit chill, and they drew closer to light cigarettes.
Gallagher had worked his way up to the bow. He stood quiet beside them, his thin knotted body shivering a little. They listened to the water sloshing about the bottom of the boat. "One minute you're hot, and then you're cold," Gallagher muttered.
Stanley smiled at him. He felt it necessary to be tactful with Gallagher since his wife had died and it irked him. Basically, he had only contempt for Gallagher and annoyance, for Gallagher made him uncomfortable. "How're you feeling, boy?" Stanley said, however.
"All right." But Gallagher was depressed. The grayness of the sky made him mournful; he had been exceptionally sensitive to the moods of the weather since Mary's death, and often now he languished in a gentle melancholy close to easy tears. He felt little volition, and surprisingly little bitterness; the façade of anger remained, even erupted occasionally in a spate of profanity, but Red and Wilson and one or two of the others had recognized the change. "Yeah, I'm all right," he muttered again. Stanley's sympathy irritated him, for he sensed it to be false; Gallagher was more perceptive now.
He wondered why he had come up beside them, and thought of moving back to his cot, but it was warmer here. The bow lurched and bumped under his feet and he grunted. "How long are they gonna keep us here like goddam sardines?" he growled.
Croft and Stanley, after a pause, were talking about the patrol again, and Gallagher listened with resentment. "You know what the mother-fugger'll be like?" he blurted. "We'll be lucky to get out of there with our goddam heads on." He felt a quick remorse which was mixed with fear. I got to cut out that swearing, he told himself. In the past week and a half since the last letter had come, Gallagher had been making attempts to reform. His profanity was sinful, he believed, and he was afraid of more retribution.
The talk about the patrol frightened him, and his remorse at swearing added to this. Once again Gallagher saw himself lying dead in a field, and it loosed a nervous flush along his back which prickled painfully. He could see the dead Japanese soldier whom Croft had killed, still lying in the green draw.
Stanley ignored him. "What do you figure on doin' if we can't get through the pass?" It was important to know all these things, he told himself; he might end up in command of the platoon. You could never tell what kind of accidents there might be. Skillfully suspended, he conceived the accidents occurring in a vacuum, forcing his mind away from the idea of who might be killed.
"I'll give you a bit of advice," Croft said. The words felt strange in his mouth; he almost never gave advice. "In the Army, if you can't do somethin' one way you damn sure better do it another."
"Then what'll you do, go over the mountain?"
"I ain't in command. The Lieutenant is."
Stanley made a face. "Aaw." He felt young when he was with Croft, but he did not try to conceal it. Without reasoning why, he assumed Croft would like him better if he wasn't too cocky.
"But if the platoon was mine, that's the way I'd do it," Croft added.
Gallagher heard them dully, not quite listening. Their talk about the patrol offended him; always superstitious, his mind was charged with taboos, and he felt it