The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [54]
Or, obversely, he might kill a man himself. It would be a question of throwing up his rifle, pressing the trigger, and a particular envelope of lusts and anxieties and perhaps some goodness would be quite dead. All as easy as stepping on an insect, perhaps easier. That was the thing, that was what caused this mood. Everything was completely out of whack, none of the joints fitted. The men had been singing in the motor pool, and there had been something nice about it, something childish and brave. And they were here on this road, a point moving along a line in the vast neutral spaces of the jungle. And somewhere else a battle might be going on. The artillery, the small-arms fire they had been hearing constantly, might be nothing, something scattered along the front, or it might be all concentrated now in the minuscule inferno of combat. None of it matched. The night had broken them into all the isolated units that actually they were.
He became conscious again of Dalleson's huge bulk against his own large body, and he stiffened a little. After a moment or two he fished a cigarette out of the breast pocket of his shirt and fumbled for a match.
"Better not smoke," Dalleson grunted. "The jeep lights are on."
"Yeah," Dalleson grunted and was silent again. He shifted his seat slightly in the cramped rear of the jeep, and was annoyed at Hearn for taking up so much room, for smoking. Dalleson was nervous. He wasn't worried in the least about an ambush. If it came, he would meet it coolly and acquit himself well. What bothered him was what they were going to do when they got to the 151st Artillery. He had the anxiety of a dull student who was going to enter an examination he dreaded. As the G-3, in charge of operations and training, Dalleson was supposed to know the situation as well as the General, if not better, and without his maps and papers Dalleson felt lost. The General might depend on him for a decision, and that would be fatal. He twisted again in the seat, sniffed gloomily at Hearn's cigarette smoke, and then bent forward and spoke in what he thought was a low voice, although it brayed out loudly, startlingly.
"I hope everything's okay when we get to the one-five-one, sir," Dalleson shouted.
"Yes," the General said, listening to the spinning humming sounds of the tires as the jeep splashed through the mud. Dalleson's bellow had grated on him. They had been driving for ten minutes with the headlights on, and his sense of danger had abated. He was worried again. If the line wasn't in, they would have to go riding through the mud for another half hour at least, and then there still might not be communications. The Japs might be breaking through at this moment.
There had to be communications. Without them. . . without them, it would be as though he were in the middle of a game of chess and someone had blindfolded him. He could guess what his opponent's next move would be and answer it, but it would be more difficult to predict the next move, and the next, and he might be making responses which were wasted, if not fatal. The jeep sloughed around a curve, and as it came out of the turn its headlights shone on the startled eyes of a soldier behind a machine gun in an emplacement by the side of the road. The jeep pulled up to him.
"What the hell do you guys mean coming down the road with your lights on?" he shouted. He saw the General and blinked. "Sorry, sir."
"It's all right, son. You're right, it's bad business, breaking one of my own orders." The General smiled, and the soldier grinned back. The jeep turned off the road into the lane which led to the bivouac of headquarters battery. Everything