The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [91]
Hearn pondered his responses, and lost himself quickly in the dizzying heights of chess, where he held the entire position in one portion of his mind while investigating the numerous answers the General might make to each move, and the correspondingly more complex replies he himself could manage. Then he would relinquish that approach and try to discern the variations that might arise from moving another piece.
Yet it was hopeless. With almost frightening skill, Hearn felt himself being harassed, then threatened, then strangled by the advance of the General's pawns. Hearn had been on his college chess team, and at different periods in his life he had been tremendously interested in the game. He was a good enough player to realize how very good the General was, good enough to understand something of a man's nature by the style in which he played, and the General had been brilliant in his conception, and coldly efficient in extracting every possible advantage from the slight superiority he had had at the beginning. Hearn conceded on the twenty-fifth move after losing a knight and a pawn in exchange for two pawns, and sat back in his chair fatigued. The game had caught him, piqued his interest, and he felt a sullen desire to play again.
"You're not bad," the General said.
"I'm fair," Hearn muttered. Now that the.game was over, he was aware once more of the jungle sounds outside the tent.
The General was putting the pieces back in the box, seeming to cherish each one with his fingertips before placing it in its green plush container. "This is really my game, Robert. If I have a single passion, it's chess."
What did the General want of him? Hearn felt suddenly badgered; their discussion, this game, seemed to follow out of some inexorable want behind the well-groomed and unresponsive features of the General. An inexplicable mood caught Hearn, and his sense of oppression returned, magnified a little. The air in the tent seemed heavier somehow.
"Chess," Cummings stated, "is inexhaustible. What a concentration of life it is really."
Hearn's sullenness was increasing. "I don't think so," he said, listening to the accents of his own clear sharp voice with something like distaste. "The thing about chess that used to intrigue me, and ended by being just boring, is that there's nothing remotely like it in life."
"Just what do you think warfare is essentially?"
They were off again. Hearn wanted to avoid a discussion this time, he was weary of being maneuvered by the General. He felt stubborn. For an instant he felt like striking the General, seeing the gray hair suddenly messed, the General's mouth leaking blood. The impulse was powerful and momentary. When it left, he felt merely badgered again. "I don't know, but warfare certainly isn't chess. You might make a case for the Navy, where it's all maneuvering on open flat surfaces with different units of fire power, where it's all Force, Space and Time, but war is like a bloody football game. You start off with a play and it never quite works out as you figured it would."
"It's more complicated, but it comes to the same thing."
Hearn slapped his thigh with sudden exasperation. "By God, there're more pages to the book than you've read. You take a squad of men or a company of men -- what the hell do you know about what goes on in their heads? Sometimes I wonder how you can have the responsibility of sending them out on something. Doesn't it ever drive you crazy?"
"That's where you're always missing the boat, Robert. In the Army the idea of individual personality is just a hindrance. Sure, there are differences among men in any particular Army unit, but they invariably cancel each other out, and what you're left with is a value rating. Such and such a company is good or poor, effective or ineffective for such or such a mission. I work with grosser techniques, common denominator techniques."
"You're up so damn high