The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [61]
Some artillery fired continuously for several minutes, and Brown listened to it tensely. The boys are really getting it now, he told himself, sure as hell, the Japs are attacking and recon's bound to be in the middle of it. We're a hard-luck platoon, there's no doubt about it, I just hope nobody gets hurt tonight. He stared into the darkness. I'm real lucky being left behind, he told himself, I'm sure glad I'm not in Martinez's shoes. It's going to be real rough tonight, and I don't want any part of it. I've had my share of the close ones, running across a field with a machine gun ticking after me or swimming in the water that time the Japs had the AA gun turned on us is enough for any man to have to take. I'm proud I'm a sergeant, but there are times when I wish I was just a buck private and all I had to do was bitch like Roth. I've got to look out for myself because no one else will, and I've sweated this war out long enough not to get hit now.
He fingered one of the jungle ulcers on his mouth. I just hope to hell none of the boys get hurt tonight, he said to himself.
The truck convoy ground sullenly through the mud. It was over an hour since recon had left its bivouac area, but it seemed much longer. There were twenty-five men packed inside the truck and, since there were seats for only twelve, over half the men sat on the floor in a tangle of rifles and packs and arms and legs. In the darkness everyone was sweating and the night seemed incomparably dense; the jungle on either side of the road exuded moisture continually.
No one had anything to say. When the men in the truck listened they could hear the front of the convoy grinding up a grade before them. Occasionally the truck to their rear would creep up close enough for the men to see its blackout lights like two tiny candles in a fog. A mist had settled over the jungle, and in the darkness the men felt disembodied.
Wyman was sitting on his pack, and when he closed his eyes and let the rumble of the truck shake through him he felt as if he were in a subway. The tension and excitement he had felt when Croft had come up and told them to pack their gear because they were moving forward had abated a little by now and Wyman was drifting along on a mood which vacillated between boredom and a passive stream of odd thoughts and recollections. He was thinking of a time when he had accompanied his mother on a bus trip from New York to Pittsburgh. It was just after his father died, and his mother was going to see her relatives for money. The trip had been fruitless and, coming back on a midnight bus, he and his mother had talked about what they would do and decided that he would have to go to work. He thought of it with a little wonder. At the time it had been the most important night of his life, and now he was going on another trip, a far more eventful one, and he had no idea what would happen. It made him feel very mature for a moment; these were things which had happened just a few years ago, insignificant things now. He was trying to imagine what combat would be like, and he decided it would be impossible to guess. He had always pictured it as something violent, going on for days without halt. And here he had been in the platoon for over a week and nothing had happened; everything had been peaceful and relaxed.
"Do you think we'll see much tonight, Red?" he asked softly.
"Ask the General," Red snorted. He liked Wyman, but he tried to be unfriendly to him because the youth reminded Red of Hennessey. Red had a deep loathing of the