The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [314]
They moved on again, but the rest period had been bad for them. They had lost the urgency, the tension, that had driven them forward when everything else was gone. Now after marching a few hundred yards they were almost as tired as they had been when they halted, and the heat of the sun made them dizzy and weak. Wilson began to moan quite steadily.
This tormented them. Their bodies felt powerless and clumsy; each time he groaned they winced with guilt and empathy, and the torments of his wound seemed to pass through the handles of the stretcher up into their arms. They bickered constantly for the first half mile while they still had wind to speak. Everything they did grated on everybody else, and they snapped at each other continually.
"Dammit, Goldstein, why don't you watch it?" Stanley would shout after a sudden jar.
"Watch it yourself."
"Why don't you men quit the fussin' and do some work?" Ridges would mutter.
"Aaah, blow it out," Stanley would shout.
And Brown would interfere. "Stanley, you're talkin' too damn much. Why'n't you do some goddam work?"
They struggled on, enraged at each other. Wilson began to babble again, and they listened to him dully. "Men, why don' you all lea' me, a man who cain't hold up his end ain't worth a goddam. Ah'm jus' holdin' you back. Jus' lea' me, men, that's all Ah ask. Ol' Wilson'll get along, y' don' have to worry about him. Jus' lea' me, men."
"Jus' lea' me, men."
It tickled in their shoulders, washed down to their fingertips, which seemed to loosen on the litter handles. "What the hell you talkin' about, Wilson?" Brown panted. Each of them was fighting his private battle.
Goldstein stumbled, and Wilson shouted at him. "Goldstein, you're a no-good bastard, you done that on purpose, Ah been watchin' ya, and you're no good." The name twisted in Wilson's head; he remembered the handle at his right foot being called Goldstein, and when the litter had dipped in that direction, he had bawled out the name. But now it clicked. "Goldstein's no fuggin good, a man who won't take a drink." He giggled weakly, a little blood welling stickily from the parched hollow of his throat. "Goddam, ol' Croft never knew Ah got a free bottle off him."
Goldstein shook his head angrily, moved forward sullenly, his eyes on the ground. They never forget, the goyim, they never forget, he kept repeating to himself. He felt leagued against all of them. What did this Wilson appreciate of what they were doing for him?
And Wilson lay back again, listening to the fast taut sounds of their sobbing. They were working for him. He understood it abruptly, held the idea for an instant and then lost it, but the emotion it stirred remained with him. "Man, Ah think a lot of you all for what you're doin', but you don't have to stick with ol' Wilson. Jus' lea' me, that's all." And when there was no answer he became fretful. "Goddammit, men, Ah said you can lea' me." He whined like a feverish child.
Goldstein wanted to drop the litter handle. He said we should stop, Goldstein said to himself. But immediately afterward he was moved by Wilson's speech. In the heat and the blunting exhaustion of the march he could not think clearly, and thoughts jerked through him like muscular reactions. We can't leave him, he told himself; he's a generous fellow, and then Goldstein thought of nothing at all but the increasing torment in his arm, the muscle pains that extended across his back down into his straining legs.
Wilson rubbed his tongue against the dry edge of his teeth. "Oh, men, Ah'm thirsty," he chanted. He twisted on the litter, holding up his head toward the leaden glaring sky, his throat poised on the edge of a delicious bliss. Any moment they would give him some water and the torture of his tongue and palate would be assuaged. "Men, gimme a drink," Wilson muttered. "Le's have some water."
They hardly heard him. He had been babbling for water all day, and they had