The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [299]
To corroborate it, a man coughed in his sleep not five yards away. Martinez stiffened, almost jumped as though he had touched something hot. The flesh on his face became stretched and taut. He could not have uttered a sound at that moment.
Automatically he took a step backward, and heard someone else turning over in his blankets. He did not dare to move for fear of swiping a branch and arousing them. For at least a minute he was wholly paralyzed. He felt it impossible to turn back. He could not have explained it; his fear of retreating from the grove was great but it was not so intense as his terror at the thought of moving forward. And yet he could not go back. A part of his mind played with incredible rapidity the scene where he would tell Croft.
"Japbait no fuggin good."
But there was something wrong with moving ahead. He could not perceive it clearly, his head felt as if it were churning through oil, but there was a reason. He could not think it out. With loathing, with a suppressed hysteria of his flesh as if he were trodding barefoot over a field of bloated maggots, he extended his leg, and then the other one, pacing forward with separate violent demands on his mind. In a minute he advanced not more than ten feet, the perspiration smarting his eyes. He felt as if he could detect each droplet starting out of his pores, joining with the others to wash down the damp river bed of the lines in his face and body.
One thing he realized intuitively. The Japanese would have tramped out only two trails by now. One would be perpendicular to the pass, a yard or two behind the border of the grove, facing the valley. The other would lead through the grove to the other side, joining the first one in a T. He was on the head of the T now, and would have to progress along it until he reached the stem. He could never go through the brush; even the slight noises he made would be heard, and there was always the chance of blundering into something.
He crept along, on his hands and knees again. The seconds passed like individual units, almost as if he heard a clock ticking. He could have sobbed every time he heard a man mutter in his sleep. They were all around him! He seemed to exist in several parts now; there was the sore remote protest of his palms and kneecap, the choking swollen torment of his throat, and the unbearable awareness of his brain. He was very close to the final swooning relaxation a man feels when he is being beaten unconscious and no longer cares whether he can get up. Very far away he could hear the murmuring of the jungle in the night.
At a curve in the trail he halted, peered around, and almost screamed. A man was sitting at a machine gun about three feet away.
Martinez's head darted back. He lay on the ground waiting for the soldier to pivot the machine gun, fire at him. But nothing happened. He peered around again and realized the Jap had not seen him, was sitting at a slight angle to him. Behind the machine gunner was the stem of the T. He would have to get past him, and it was impossible.
Now, Martinez knew what had been wrong. Of course. They would have a guard posted along the trail. Why hadn't he thought of it? El juicio. With all his fright was another fear to be examined later; like the murderer remembering all the obvious things he had forgotten while he committed his crime, Martinez felt a dull dread leavened into his terror. What else, por Dios, what else? He peered again at the machine gunner, watching him with an absorbed fascination. If he desired he could reach out and touch him. The soldier was a young man, almost a boy, with blank young features, dull half-closed eyes, and a thin mouth. In the moonlight that sifted through the borders of the grove he looked half asleep.
Martinez had a sense of unreality. What was to keep him from touching him, from greeting him? They were men. The entire structure of the war wavered in his brain for a moment, almost tottered, and then was restored by a returning wash of fear. If he touched him he would be killed. But it seemed unbelievable.