The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [229]
"Ain't no other way to do it far as I see," Croft said. Hearn was right, which annoyed him slightly. He rubbed his chin. "It's gonna take a lot more time than you figure, Lootenant."
"Perhaps." Croft made him the least bit uneasy. He knew a lot, that was obvious, but you would have to ask him before he supplied any answers. Damn Southerner. He was like Clellan. Hearn flicked the map with his fingers. Already, he could feel the sand warming under his feet. "It's only two miles through the jungle."
Croft nodded dourly. "You can't trust an aerial map. That little ol' stream might take us where we want to go, but you can't depend on it." He spat into the sand. "Only damn thing to do is start out, and see jus' what happens."
"That's right," Hearn said, making his voice sharp. "Let's get started."
Croft looked at the men. "Okay, troopers, let's get goin'."
The men slung their packs again and wiggled their arms to settle the burden and ease the bite of the pack straps across their shoulders. In a minute or two they formed a straggling column and began to shuffle through the sand. When they reached the mouth of the stream, Hearn halted them. "Give them an idea of what we're doin'," he said to Croft.
Croft shrugged, then spoke for a minute. "We're gonna head up this here river far as we can go, and you might just as well expect to get your asses wet. So if y'got any bitching to do, you might as well do it now." He hitched his pack a little higher on his shoulders. "They ain't supposed to be any Japs down this far, but that don' mean you're to walk like a bunch of goddam sheep looking at the ground. Let's try to keep our eyes open." He stared at them, examining each of their faces in turn, deriving a mild pleasure from the way most of them dropped their eyes. He paused for a moment, licking his tongue as if wondering whether there was something more to say. "Anything y'want to tell them, Lootenant?"
Hearn fingered his carbine strap. "Yes, as a matter of fact there is." He squinted into the sun. "Men," he said casually, "I don't know any of you, and you don't know me. Maybe you don't want to know me." A few men snickered, and he grinned suddenly at them. "Anyway, I'm your baby, I've landed in your lap, and you've got me for better or worse. Personally, I think we're going to get along. I'll try to be fair, but you've got to remember that along about the time your tails are dragging and I give an order to move on, you're going to hate my guts. Okay, fine, but just don't forget that I'll be as bushed as any of you, and I'll be hating myself more." They laughed, and for a moment he had the orator's knowledge that they belonged to him. The satisfaction was strong, almost surprising in its force. Bill Hearn's son, sure enough, he thought. "All right, let's set out."
Croft led the way, annoyed at Hearn's speech. It was wrong; a platoon leader didn't buddy. Hearn was going to screw them up with that kind of talk. Croft always despised a platoon leader who made efforts to have his men like him; he considered it womanish and impractical. Goddam platoon'll go to hell, he told himself.
The river seemed deep in its middle, but along the banks a band of shallow water, perhaps fifteen yards wide, pebbled and rippled over the stones. The platoon set out in a single column of fourteen men. Overhead the jungle soon met in an archway, and by the time they passed the first bend in the stream it had become a tunnel whose walls were composed of foliage and whose roadbed was covered with slime. The sunlight filtered through a vast intricate web of leaves and fronds and vines and trees, until it absorbed the color of the jungle and became at last a green shimmering wash of velvet. The light