The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [270]
"Okay, sir."
Brown assembled the litter-bearers, had Wilson placed on the stretcher, and began to move off.
There were only five men left in the hollow, the Lieutenant and Croft, Red and Roth and Martinez. They settled down, each alone on a knoll bordering their hollow, searching the valleys and hill-lines about them. They watched the litter-bearers progressing over the hills to the south, alternating their two teams every few minutes. In half an hour they were out of sight, and nothing remained but the hills, the mute mountain walls, and the late afternoon sky washing already into the golden hues of sunset. To the west, perhaps a mile away, there were Japanese bivouacked in the pass, and in front of them, high up, out of sight, was the top ridgeline of Mount Anaka. Each of them brooded, alone with his thoughts.
By nightfall, Brown and Stanley, Ridges and Goldstein were left with Wilson. The extra litter-bearers had turned back an hour before dark, and Brown, after progressing a half mile farther, had decided to halt for the night. They settled in a tiny grove just below the saddle of two small hills, spread out their blankets in a circle around Wilson, and lay talking drowsily. Darkness came, and in the wood it was very dark. Agreeably tired, it was pleasant to curl into their bedding.
The night wind was cool, rustling the leaves in the trees. It suggested rain, and the men mused idly of summer nights when they had sat on their porches at sundown, watching the rain clouds gather, feeling at ease because they were under cover. The idea set off a long stream of wistful recollections, of summer and the sounds of dance music on Saturday nights, the rapt air and the smell of foliage. It made them feel rich and mellow. They thought of things they had forgotten for months: the excitement of driving a car on a country road, the headlights painting a golden cylinder through the leaves; the tenderness and heat of love on a breathless night. They burrowed more deeply into their blankets.
Wilson was becoming conscious again. He floated upward from one cloud of pain to another, groaning and mumbling unintelligibly. His belly ached terribly, and he made feeble efforts to draw his knees up to his chest. It felt as if someone were binding his ankles, and he wrenched himself into wakefulness, the sweat pocking his face.
"Leggo of them, leggo of them, y' goddam sonofabitch, lea' my legs alone."
He swore very loudly, and the men started from their reveries. Brown leaned over him, daubing the moistened end of his handkerchief over Wilson's lips. "Take it easy, Wilson," he said softly. "You got to keep quiet, boy, or you'll be stirrin' up the Japs."
"Leggo, goddammit!" Wilson bawled. The shout exhausted him and he fell back on the stretcher. Dimly he felt himself bleeding again, and he drifted along the impressions it aroused, uncertain if he was swimming or if he had wet his pants. "Went and pissed in them," he mumbled, waiting for the hand to slap him. "Woodrow Wilson, you're a little ol' slob," some woman's voice was saying. He giggled, shying away from the blow. "Aw, Mommy, didn't mean to." He yelled the words, pleading, twitching on the stretcher as if avoiding a cuff.
"Wilson, you got to keep quiet." Brown massaged his temples. "Just relax, boy, we're gonna take care of ya."
"Yeah. . . yeah." Wilson dribbled a little blood out of his mouth and lay motionless, feeling it dry on his chin. "Rainin?"
"Naw. Listen, boy, you got to keep quiet on account of the Japs."
"Uh-huh." But the words corroded his stupor, and left him afraid. He was sinking again in the tall grass of the field, waiting for the Japanese to find him, and he began to blubber softly without realizing it, as if his weeping came from an excreta of his nerves. Ah gotta hold on. Only he could feel the blood pulsing out of his belly, trickling, searching for new stream beds along the muscular ravines of his groin to end at last in a pool between his