The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [345]
They lay like this until evening, too weak to move, absorbing a faint pleasure from resting, feeling the sun upon them. They did not talk. Their resentment had turned toward each other and they felt the dull sour hatred of men who have shared a humiliating failure together. The hours passed and they drowsed, became conscious again, fell asleep once more, woke with the nausea that comes from slumbering in the sunlight.
Goldstein sat up at last, and fumbled for his canteen. Very slowly, as though learning the motions for the first time, he unscrewed the cap and tilted it to his mouth. He had not realized how thirsty he was. The first taste of the water in his mouth was ecstatic. He made himself swallow slowly, setting the canteen down after each gulp. When it was half empty he noticed Ridges watching him. Somehow it was obvious that Ridges had no water left.
Ridges could walk up to the stream, and fill his canteen but Goldstein knew what that meant. He was so weak. The thought of standing up, of walking even a hundred yards, was a torment he could not bear to face. And Ridges must feel the same way.
Goldstein was annoyed. Why hadn't Ridges been more thoughtful, saved his water? He felt stubborn and tilted the canteen to his mouth again. But the drink tasted suddenly brackish. Goldstein was conscious of how warm it had become. He forced himself to take one more drink.
Then, feeling an unutterable sense of shame, he handed it to Ridges.
"Here, you want a drink?"
"Yeah." Ridges drank thirstily. When he had almost emptied the canteen he looked at Goldstein.
"No, finish it."
"We're gonna have to rustle in the jungle for food tomorrow," Ridges said.
"I know."
Ridges smiled weakly. "We'll git along."
13
When Roth missed the leap, the platoon was shattered. For ten minutes they huddled together on the shelf, too stricken, too terrified, to move on. An incommunicable horror affected them all. They stood upright, frozen to the wall, their fingers clenched into the fissures of the rock, their legs powerless. Once or twice Croft tried to rouse them, but they shied away from the commands, petrified by his voice as though they were dogs terrified by a master's boot. Wyman was sobbing in nervous exhaustion, quietly, thinly, a small steady wailing, and into it fitted their own voices, a grunt or a small moan or a hysterical curse, random things, disconnected, so that the men who uttered them were hardly aware that they had spoken.
Their will recovered enough for them to continue, but they moved at a frantically slow pace, refusing to step forward for seconds at a time before some minor obstacle, clinging to the wall ferociously wherever the ledge became narrow again. After half an hour Croft finally brought them out, and the ledge widened and crossed the ridge. Beyond was nothing but another deep valley, another precipitous slope. He led them down to the bottom, and started up the next ascent, but they did not follow him. One by one they sprawled down on the ground, looked at him with blank staring eyes.
It was almost dark, and he knew he could not drive them any more; they were too exhausted, too frightened, and another accident might occur. He called a halt, giving approval to what was already a fact, and sat down in their midst.
On the next morning there would be the slope, a few gullies to traverse, and then the main ridge of the mountain to be crossed. They could do it in two or three hours if. . . if he could stir them again. At that moment he doubted himself seriously.
The platoon slept poorly. It was very difficult to find level ground, and of course they were overtired, their limbs too tense. Most of them dreamed and muttered in their sleep. To cap it all, Croft gave them each an hour of guard, and some of them awoke too early and waited nervously