The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [269]
They moved apart slowly, sullenly. "Not a damn thing, Lootenant," Red said. To himself, he thought, I'll be fugged if I need a goddam looey to help me. He was feeling proud and relieved, and yet in another sense he was uneasy that the outcome was postponed.
"Who started all this?" Hearn was demanding.
Ridges spoke up, "He didn't have no call to kill that little ol' bird. He jus' stopped up and took it outen Roth's hand, and jus' killed it."
"Is that true?"
Croft was uncertain how to answer. Hearn's voice angered him. He spat to the side.
Hearn hesitated, staring at Croft. Then he grinned, slightly conscious of how much he was enjoying this moment. "All right, let's cut this out," he told them. "If you have to fight, don't fight with noncoms." Their eyes had turned bitter. For a moment Hearn sensed the impulses that had made Croft kill the bird. He turned to him, staring down into the emotionless glitter of Croft's eyes. "You happen to be wrong, Sergeant. Suppose you apologize to Roth." Someone tittered.
Croft looked at him in disbelief. He took several deep breaths. "Come on, Sergeant, apologize."
If Croft had been holding a rifle in his hand, he might have shot Hearn at this instant. That would have been automatic. But to deliberate, and then disobey him was in another category. He knew he had to comply. If he didn't, the platoon would fall apart. For two years he had molded it, for two years his discipline had not relaxed, and one breach like this might destroy everything he had done. It was the nearest thing to a moral code in him. Without looking at Hearn, he paced over to Roth and stared at him, the corner of his mouth twitching. "I'm sorry," he blurted, the unaccustomed words dropped leadenly from his tongue. He felt as if his flesh were crawling with vermin.
"All right, that chalks it off," Hearn said. He had some idea of how he had provoked Croft, and was amused by it faintly. Except that. . . Cummings had probably felt the same way when he had obeyed the order to pick up the cigarette butt. Abruptly, Hearn was disgusted with himself.
"Let's have all the platoon here, except the guards," he called out.
The rest of the men shuffled over. "We've decided to send Sergeant Brown and Corporal Stanley and Goldstein and Ridges back with Wilson. You want to make any changes, Sergeant?"
Croft stared at Valsen. He was unable to think; he worked at the idea as if wrestling with pillows. It would be better to get rid of Valsen now, and yet he couldn't. By coincidence, two of the other men who had opposed him were going on the litter detail. If he sent Red, the men would think he was afraid of him. This was such a new attitude for Croft, so contrary to all his thinking in the past that he was confused. All he knew was that someone must pay for his humiliation. "Naw, no changes," he blurted again. He was surprised at the difficulty with which he spoke.
"Well, then you men can start out right now," Hearn said. "The rest of us will. . ." He halted. What were they going to do? "We're going to stay here overnight. You can use the rest, I suppose. Tomorrow we'll find a way through the pass."
Brown spoke up. "Lootenant, couldn't I have another four men for, say, the first hour and a half march with Wilson? We can cover more ground that way, so by tomorrow when we start out again we'll be away from the Japs."
Hearn deliberated. "All right, but I want them back by dark." He looked around him, picked Polack and Minetta and Gallagher at random and then Wyman. "The rest of us will take up guard posts till they get back."
He drew Brown aside, talked to him for a few minutes. "You know the way to the trail we cut through the jungle?"
Brown nodded.
"All right, follow it through to the beach, and then wait there for us. It'll take you about two days, or maybe a little more. We should return in three or at most four days. If the boat comes