The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [318]
"Aaah, fug you, Brown." Stanley was furious. Brown had taken this detail because he was afraid of continuing with the patrol, and he had brought him into it. What they had gone through was far worse than anything the rest of the platoon would meet. If he had stayed with them he would have done better, and Croft might have noticed him. "You think you're okay, don't you?" he asked Brown. "Listen, I know why you took this goddam litter."
"Why?" Brown listened with a numb stricken anticipation.
"It's because you were too fuggin yellow to keep up with the patrol. A sergeant taking a litter detail, Jesus."
Brown heard him almost with satisfaction. This was the worst thing he could imagine, it was the moment he had been dreading for so long, and it did not seem so horrible. "Stanley, you're just as yellow as I am, we're in the same goddam boat." He searched for something with which to hurt him, and came up with it. "You're worrying too much about your wife, Stanley."
"Aaah, shut your. . ." But it had caught him. In his weakness he was convinced now that his wife was unfaithful, and he passed through a cruel montage of her infidelities in an interval of a few seconds. It loosed a whole web of insecurities, and he felt like weeping. It was unfair that he should be left so much alone.
Brown pushed his palms against the ground, lifted himself dully. "Come on, let's get going." He felt dizzy on his feet, and his hands had the spongy powerless sensation of a man awakening in the morning, unable to grasp anything.
They all got up very slowly, fastened their belts, knelt beside the litter and started forward again. After they had gone a hundred yards, Stanley knew he was not going to continue. He had always resented Wilson mildly because Wilson had more combat than he, but now he did not think of Wilson at all. He just knew that he was going to quit; he had gone through too much, and what did it count for?
They set Wilson down for a short rest and Stanley reeled away and then fell to the ground. He closed his eyes deliberately, pretending he had fainted. The others gathered about him, looked at him without feeling.
"Shoot, le's jus' put him up on top of Wilson," Ridges said, "an' anyone else we jus' put on top o' that. I'll take y' all back." He guffawed wearily. Stanley had mocked him so often that he felt a mild revenge now. But immediately he was ashamed. Pride goeth before a fall, he told himself soberly. He listened to Stanley's rapt sobbing with a distant amusement. It reminded him of a mule which had collapsed once after plowing in a summer sun, and he felt the same mixture of amusement and pity.
"What the hell we gonna do?" Brown panted.
Wilson looked up abruptly. He seemed quite conscious for the moment, and his broad fleshy face looked incredibly tired and gaunt. "Jus' lea' me, men," he said weakly. "Ol' Wilson is through."
Brown and Goldstein were enticed. "We can't leave ya," Brown said.
"Jus' stop, men, and the hell with it."
"I dunno," Brown said.
Goldstein shook his head abruptly. "We have to carry him back," he said. He could not have explained why, but he had remembered abruptly the moment when the gun slid down the embankment.
Brown stared again at Stanley. "We can't go on and leave him here."
Ridges was disgusted. "If y' start a job, then y' finish it. We ain't gonna set here on account of one man."
Goldstein saw the solution abruptly. "Brown, why don't you stay with Stanley?" Goldstein was very tired, not too far from prostration himself, but it was impossible for him to quit. Brown was almost as sick as Stanley. It was the only answer, and yet Goldstein resented it. I always have to be nicer than the next fellow, he thought.
"How'll you know the way back?" Brown asked. He had to be honest now, face all the objections. In his defeat it was very important for him to maintain a last tatter of dignity.
"Ah know the way," Ridges grunted.
"Well, then, I'll stay," Brown said. "Somebody's gotta take care of Stanley." He shook him for a moment, but Stanley's moaning continued. "He's