The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [336]
But the platoon wouldn't understand. They would jeer him, take relief from their own weakness in abusing him. His heart was filled with bitterness. "I'm coming," he shouted suddenly. This was the way they wanted it.
He felt his left leg pushing him out, and he lurched forward awkwardly, his exhausted body propelling him too feebly. For an instant he saw Gallagher's face staring in surprise at him, and then he slipped past Gallagher's hand, scrabbled at the rock, and then at nothing.
In his fall Roth heard himself bellow with anger, and was amazed that he could make so great a noise. Through his numbness, through his disbelief, he had a thought before he crashed into the rocks far below. He wanted to live. A little man, tumbling through space.
Early the next morning, Goldstein and Ridges set out again with the litter. The morning was cool and they were traveling at last over level ground, but it made little difference. Within an hour they had plummeted quickly into the same level of stupor as the day before. Once more they toiled forward a few feet, set Wilson down, and then strained forward. All about them were the gentle foothills rolling backward toward the mountain in the north. The country spread out in an endless peaceful vista of pale yellow, like sand dunes mounting into the horizon. Nothing disturbed the silence. They trudged forward, panting and grunting, bent under their burden. The sky had the pale effortless blue of morning, and far toward the south beyond the jungle a string of puffball clouds tugged after one another.
This morning their torpor had taken a new form. Wilson's fever had become worse, and he moaned for water continually, pleading and begging, screaming, abusing them. They could not bear it. It seemed as if hearing were the only sense left to them, and that was partial; they did not notice the humming of the insects or the hoarse sobbing sounds they made when they drew a breath. They could hear only Wilson, and his moans for water grated on them, burred stridently through their resistance.
"Men, y' jus' gotta gimme water." A pinkish spittle had dried at the corners of Wilson's mouth, and his eyes moved uncomfortably, erratically. From time to time he would thrash about on the litter, but without any real strength. He seemed smaller somehow; the flesh over his large frame had settled. For minutes at a time he would blink vacantly at the sky, sniffing delicately at the odors about him. Without realizing it he was smelling himself. Forty hours had elapsed since he was wounded, and in that period he had soiled himself frequently, bled and sweated, had even absorbed the dank moist odors of the damp ground they had slept on the night before. He moved his mouth in a weak elaborate grimace of disgust. "Men, y' stink."
They heard him without much feeling, gasping again for breath. As they had got used to living in the jungle and being wet all the time, as they had forgotten what it was like to live in dry clothing, so they had forgotten now how it felt to draw an effortless breath. They did not think about it; certainly they did not think of when their journey would end. It had become all existence.
That morning Goldstein had roused himself long enough to contrive an aid. Their stiffened fingers had been slowing them most of all. They were unable to hold onto the litter for more than a few seconds before its weight would slowly force their hands open. Goldstein had cut the straps from their pack, tied them together and yoked the line over his shoulders onto the handles of the stretcher. When he could grasp them no longer with his fingers he would transfer the weight to the strap, and plow forward until his hands were able to hold them again. Ridges followed his example soon afterward, and they plodded onward in their harness, the burden of the litter swaying slowly between them.
"Water, goddammit, y' fuggin. . ."
"No water," Goldstein gasped.
"Y' goddam Jewboy." Wilson began to cough again. His legs ached. The air that played over his face had the flushed heated quality