The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [63]
The trucks started again, and moved jerkily in low gear for a few hundred yards before they stopped. Gallagher swore.
"What's the matter, boy, you in any hurry?" Wilson asked softly.
"We might as well get where we're goin'."
They remained sitting there for a few minutes, and then began to move again. A battery they had passed on the road was firing, and another one a few miles ahead also had gone into action. The shells whispered overhead, perhaps a mile above them, and the men listened dully. A machine gun began to fire far away, and the sound carried to them in separate bursts, deep and empty, like a man beating a carpet. Martinez took off his helmet and kneaded his skull, feeling as though a hammer were pounding him. A Japanese gun answered fire with a high penetrating shriek. A flare went up near the horizon and cast enough light for them to see one another. Their faces looked white and then blue as though they were staring at each other across a dark and smoky room. "We're gettin' close," someone said. After the flare had died, it was possible to see a pale haze against the horizon, and Toglio said, "Something's burning."
"Sounds like a big fight going on," Wyman suggested to Red.
"Naw, they're just feeling each other out," Red told him. "There'll be a helluva lot more noise if something starts tonight." The machine guns sputtered and then became silent. A few mortar shells were landing somewhere with a flat thudding sound, and another machine gun, much farther away, fired again. Then there was silence, and the trucks continued down the black muddy road.
After a few minutes they halted again, and somebody in the rear of the truck tried to light a cigarette. "Put the goddam thing out," Croft snapped.
The soldier was in another platoon and he swore at Croft. "Who the hell are you? I'm tired of just waiting around."
"Put that goddam thing out," Croft said again, and after a pause, the soldier snuffed it. Croft was feeling irritable and nervous. He had no fear but he was impatient and overalert.
Red debated whether to light a cigarette. He and Croft had hardly spoken to each other since their quarrel on the beach, and he was tempted to defy him. Actually he knew he wouldn't, and he tried to decide whether the real reason was that it was a bad idea to show a light or because he was afraid of Croft. Fug it, I'll stand up to that sonofabitch when the time comes, Red told himself, but I'll damn sure be right when I do.
They had begun to move once more. After a few minutes they heard a few low voices on the road, and their truck turned off and wallowed through a muddy lane. It was very narrow and a branch from a tree swept along the top of the truck. "Watch it!" someone shouted, and they all flattened themselves. Red pulled some leaves out of his shirt and pricked his finger on a thorn. He wiped the blood on the back of his pants and began searching for his pack, which he had thrown off when he first got into the truck. His legs were stiff and he tried to flex them.
"Don't dismount till you're told," Croft said.
The trucks came to a halt, and they listened to the few men circling around them in the darkness. Everything was terribly quiet. They sat there, speaking in whispers. An officer rapped on the tail gate and said, "All right, men, dismount and stick together." They began to jump out of the truck, moving slowly and uncertainly. It was a five-foot drop into darkness and they didn't know what the ground was like beneath them. "Drop the tail gate," someone said, and the officer snapped, "All right, men, let's keep it quiet."
When they had all got out, they stood about waiting. The trucks were already backing away for another trip. "Are there any officers here?"