The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [312]
They carted Wilson as if they were wrestling with a stone, struggling forward with agony for fifty yards or a hundred or even two hundred, with the hasty scrambling motions of laborers moving a piano, and then they would set him down, and remain swaying on their feet, their shoulders heaving for the air they could not find under the leaden arch of the sky. In a minute, afraid to rest, feeling anchored to him, they would pick up the litter and labor forward for another short increment over the endless green and yellow hills. On the upslopes they would bog down, remain holding him for seconds, their legs incapable of climbing any farther, and then they would strain upward again, advance a few more feet, and stand watching each other.
And in the places where they went downhill their thighs would quiver with the effort it took to brake themselves from dropping into a full run, and the muscles in their calves and around their shins would knot painfully, tempting them to stumble and lie motionless in the grass without moving for the rest of the day.
Wilson was conscious and in pain. Every time they jolted him he would groan, and he was continually thrashing about on the litter, disturbing the balance and making them stumble. From time to time he would curse at them, and they writhed under it. His screams and shouts flicked through the layers of heat that played over them, goaded them on for a few additional yards.
"Goddammit, you men, Ah been watchin' ya, why in the hell cain't you treat a wounded man proper, jus' shakin' me up an' knockin' all the pus around inside, Stanley, you been doin' it jus' to give me the misery, Ah think it's a pretty low mean old thing jus' treatin' a buddy like this. . ." His voice would become thin, querulous. Every now and then he would scream from a sudden bump.
"Goddammit. Lea' me alone, men." From pain, from the heat, he would blubber like a child. "Ah wouldn' do to you like you been doin' to me." He would lie back, his mouth open, his breath stirring in the arid cave of his throat like steam vibrating out of the spout of a kettle. "Aw, men, take it easy, sonofabitch, men, take it easy."
"We're doin' what we can," Brown would croak.
"You men are actin' pretty piss-poor. Wilson ain't gonna forget. Goddammit, men."
And they would labor for another hundred yards, set him down, and gaze stupidly at each other.
Wilson's wound was throbbing painfully. The muscles in his stomach were sore and exhausted from fighting against the pain, and a dry fever had settled in his body. Under the sun all his limbs had become leaden and aching, his chest and throat congested, completely dry. Each jolt of the stretcher shocked him like a blow. He felt the exhaustion of having fought against a man much bigger, much stronger than himself for many hours. He teetered often on the edge of unconsciousness, but always he would be jarred back into his pain by a sudden wrench of the litter. It brought him close to weeping. For minutes at a time he would lie stiff on the stretcher waiting for the next jolt, his teeth clenched in preparation. And when it came, the blow would travel through all the slumbering agonies of his wound, rasping his inflamed nerves. The pain would seem motivated by the litter-bearers and he hated them with the same rage that a man feels for a moment at a piece of furniture when he has barked his leg against it. "You sonofabitch, Brown."
"Shut up, Wilson." Brown shambled forward, almost reeling, his fingers slowly separating on the litter handle. When he would feel the stretcher about to rip out of his hand, he would shout, "Drop him," and kneel beside Wilson trying to regain