The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [354]
Croft shouted at them to stop, but they paid no attention. He gave a last oath, swung impotently at a few of the hornets and then started down after them. In a last fragment of his ambition, he thought of regrouping them at the bottom.
The hornets pursued the men down the jungle wall and the rock ramp, goading them on in a last frenzy of effort. They fled with surprising agility, jumping down from rock to rock, ripping through the foliage that impeded them. They felt nothing but the savage fleck of the hornets, the muted jarring sensations of scrabbling from rock to rock. As they ran they flung away everything that slowed them. They tossed away their rifles, and some of them worked loose their packs and dropped them. Dimly they sensed that if they threw away enough possessions they would not be able to continue the patrol.
Polack was the last man ahead of Croft as the platoon poured into the amphitheater. He caught a quick glimpse of them, and the platoon was halting in confusion now that they had escaped the hornets. Polack threw a glance over his shoulder at Croft and burst among the men shouting, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR? HERE COME THE BUGS!" Without pausing he ran past them, let loose a scream, and the platoon followed him, bolted in a new panic. They scattered over the floor of the amphitheater, continued on in the same spasm of effort over the next ridge, and down below to the valley, to the slopes of the rise beyond. In fifteen minutes they had fled beyond the point where they had started that morning.
When Croft finally caught up with the platoon, gathered them together, he discovered there were only three rifles and five packs left. They were through. He knew they could never make the climb again. He was too weak himself. He accepted the knowledge passively, too fagged to feel any regret or pain. In a quiet tired voice he told them to rest before they turned back to the beach to meet the boat.
The return march was uneventful. The men were wretchedly tired, but it was downhill work on the mountain slopes. Without any incident, they jumped the gap in the ledge where Roth had been killed, and by midafternoon descended the last cliffs, and set out into the yellow hills. All afternoon as they marched they heard the artillery booming on the other side of the mountain range. That night they bivouacked about ten miles from the jungle, and by the next day they had reached the shore and joined the litter-bearers. Brown and Stanley had come out of the hills only a few hours ahead of the platoon.
Goldstein told Croft how they had lost Wilson, and was surprised when he made no comment. But Croft was bothered by something else. Deep inside himself, Croft was relieved that he had not been able to climb the mountain. For that afternoon at least, as the platoon waited on the beach for the boats that were due the next day, Croft was rested by the unadmitted knowledge that he had found a limit to his hunger.
14
The boat picked them up the next day and they started on the journey back. This time the landing craft had been equipped with eighteen bunks along the bulkheads and the men put their equipment in the empty ones and stretched out to sleep. They had been sleeping ever since they had come out of the jungle the preceding afternoon, and by now their bodies had stiffened and become painful. Some of them had missed a meal that morning but they were not hungry. The rigors of the patrol had left them depleted in many ways. They drowsed for hours on the return trip, awaking only to lie in their bunks and stare out at the sky above the open boat. The craft pitched and yawed, spray washed over the sides and the bow ramp, but they barely noticed. The sound of the motors was pleasant, reassuring. The events of the patrol had receded already, become a diffused wry compound of indistinct memories.
By afternoon most of them were awake. They were still terribly