The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [288]
I'm playing with words. All that he had written seemed meaningless, a conceit. He was filled with a powerful spasm of distaste for what he had written, and slowly with a heavy pressure of his pencil he drew a line through each of his sentences. In the middle of the page his pencil broke, and he flung it down and strode outside the tent, breathing a little quickly.
It had all been too pat, too simple. There was order but he could not reduce it to the form of a single curve. Things eluded him.
He stared about the silent bivouac, looked up at the stars of the Pacific sky, heard the rustle of the coconut trees. Alone, he felt his senses expanding again, lost the intimate knowledge of the size of his body. A deep boundless ambition leaped in him again, and if his habits had not been so deep he might have lifted his arms to the sky. Not since he had been a young man had he hungered so for knowledge. It was all there if only he could grasp it. To mold. . . mold the curve.
An artillery piece fired, shattering the loom of the night.
Cummings listened to its echoes and shuddered.
7
In the twilight the cliffs of Mount Anaka were glowing with reds and golds, reflecting back into the hills and fields at the base. In their bivouac what was left of the platoon was settling for the night. The four extra men who had gone along with Brown's detail for the first hour had returned now and were adjusting their blankets. Gallagher was on guard in the knoll that overlooked the hollow; the rest of the men were eating their ration or clumping a few yards into the grass to relieve themselves.
Wyman was brushing his teeth very carefully, sprinkling a few drops of water from his canteen onto the bristles and then massaging his gums thoughtfully.
"Hey, Wyman," Polack called, "turn on the radio for me, will ya?"
"Naah, I'm tired of listening to it," Minetta said.
Wyman flushed. "Listen, you guys, I'm still civilized," he piped. "If I want to brush my teeth I can."
"Not even his best friends will tell him," Minetta wisecracked.
"Aaah, go fug yourself, I'm sick of ya."
Croft stirred in his blankets, propped himself on an elbow. "Listen, you men, you can just shut up. You want to stir up a whole pack of Japs?"
What answer could there be? "Awright," one of them muttered.
Roth had heard them. Squatting in the grass, he peered over his shoulder fearfully. Behind him was nothing but the vast darkening sweep of the hills. He had to hurry up. The paper was in the ration carton, but even as he fumbled for it a new spasm caught him, and he grunted, held his thighs as the process worked its way through him.
"Jesus," he heard one of the men whisper, "who the hell's crapping, an elephant?"
To Roth's nausea and weakness was added embarrassment. He picked up the pad of tissues, finished, and drew up his pants. He was so weak. He lay down on his poncho and pulled a blanket over him. Why did this have to start now? he asked himself. For the first two days his bowels had been tight and heavy, but that was preferable to this. It's the nervous reaction from the bird, he told himself. Diarrhea is caused by nerves as much as by food. As if to prove his statement, his belly knotted, passed through a few moments of anguish. I'm going to have to go again during the night, he told himself. But it would be impossible. If he started moving in the darkness, the man on guard might shoot him. He would have to do it right next to his blankets. Roth's eyes teared with frustration and annoyance. It was unfair. He felt a deep bitterness at the Army for not having taken into account such situations. Ohhh. He held his breath, yoked his sphincter, while the perspiration ran into his eyes. There was an instant of panic when he was certain he would soil himself. These riffraff in the platoon had an expression, "to keep a tight ass-hole." What did they know of it? It's the only way they judge anybody, he told himself.
"When the shit hits the fan that's when you keep a. . ." This