Once an Eagle (84 page)

Ben nodded. “I've just been up there with him. One's a little leaky.”

“How big are they?”

“Thirty feet or so. You could get a dozen guys into each one of them.”

The two men looked at each other for a moment. Damon rubbed his jaw. “It's a long shot.”

“Yeah, it's a long shot.”

“If there were only a dozen of them …”

Ben sat down on the ammunition crate; with the cap's sodden visor shading his eyes he looked like a tough, dirty kid planning some piece of deviltry. “I've been thinking about it, Sam. I've had a thought. Suppose we rig lines on them, fore and aft. We rush the far bank, then detail people to stand by the lines. Meanwhile we haul the boats back empty from this side, load them up, and the guys on the far side haul them back. Then we keep doing it.” He raised one hand, fingers extended. “It's got a lot of advantages: it'll be twice as fast as paddling, nobody has to make the ride back to this side, and the lines will avoid any foul-ups in landing.”

Damon nodded. “But the tow-men will have to stand up there, on both banks …”

“I know. But if we can just get a toehold over there … Christ, I can
swim
the God damn thing!”

“Not with eighty pounds of gear you can't. Or anybody else.” Damon stared hard at the map board. “They'd be sitting ducks … unless we made a night crossing.”

Ben's face went slack with consternation. “A night crossing! Jesus, I don't know, Sam—they're pretty weary. I don't know if they're up to it.”

“They've got to be. It's the only way.” He could see it now, quite clearly: the four lakatois in the center, the two Japanese barges on the outside. Pin the far bank down with mortars and machine guns until the last possible second. Use Ben's lines idea until they'd ferried two companies over, then swing the boats around and rig a pontoon bridge with them for heavy weapons. It was possible: it was distinctly possible.

“Only thing—that first wave is going to be rough,” Ben was saying. “Japs at the Narrows are loaded for bear.”

“We won't cross there. We'll cross farther down, where it's wider. We'll give them a heavy preparation up there, too—maybe it'll siphon some of them off. Then I'll block left, and you and Stan Bowcher go for the water behind the Mission.”

Ben gazed at him silently for a moment. Then he said, “It's worth a try.”

Damon looked at his watch. Quarter to three. Too late for anything tonight. What they ought to do was tie it in with the assault on the strip. He took the receiver out of its box, cranked the field phone and said: “BULL MOOSE.”

“BULL MOOSE,” a voice answered, after a pause; he knew it was Albee, the General's aide.

“This is BOBCAT,” he said briskly. “I need to talk to the General.”

“Sir, he's asleep.”

“I imagine that's true, since it's three A.M.” He threw a baleful glance at Ben, who had blown out his sallow cheeks. “Would you wake him, please. This is urgent.”

“Very good, sir. I'll—just a moment, Colonel. Will you hold on?”

“Naturally.” Albee ought to be a laundry officer. Damon could see him standing in the silent tent, frowning with indecision, he could sense the working of the man's mind: it was three in the morning; the General never liked to be disturbed; was it really important? The line buzzed and crackled faintly. Could a Japanese patrol have tapped it? Almost impossible—it was constantly checked, and the Japs were not probing. Why should they? All they had to do was sit back with their hands on the triggers and let the stupid Yanks come to them …

“Sam?” a tart, thin voice said. “This is Dick. The General isn't feeling well, and I'd rather not wake him unless it's awfully crucial. Has anything come up?”

He shrugged at Ben, who was picking at his nails. “Yes, there has. We've found a way to do that Christopher thing, and it would be good if we could tie it in with the SHAMROCK assault. But we'll need a minimum of eighteen hours. Is there any possibility of postponing tomorrow's—today's—attack?”

“I'm sorry, Sam. The General left word about that expressly. No changes. Categorically no changes, no postponements. Koch's battalion's already staging, you know.”

“I know.”

“I'll go over and rout him out if you insist. But I can tell you now he'll never consent to scratching it.” Dickinson sounded apologetic and troubled. “He's determined that we get through there with this one.”

“I see.” Well. It probably wouldn't accomplish anything to get Westy up: he'd come to the phone angry and befuddled—and a request like this would sound like the very reluctance and defeatism he believed he was combating. It wouldn't do any good. “Okay, Dick,” he answered. “You're probably right. Sorry I woke you up.” And to the switchboard man: “Break it down.”

Ben waded over to his cot and rolled in under the folded mosquito net, fully clothed. Lying on his back he unbuckled his web belt and slid it out from under his hips with a grunt. He looked utterly done in.

“Well,” he said sonorously, “ours not to reason why. Ours but to dry an eye.”

 

They came back
along the trail toward the field hospital, sliding and staggering in the muck, the stretcher bearers cursing, panting under their loads, the walking wounded wavering like pathetic drunks. One man was holding to the side of his face a sopping red rag, the blood running down through his fingers and over his wristwatch; his good eye rolled wildly at Damon as he passed. Another boy, helmetless, his face dark with strain as if from carrying too great a weight, clinging to his belly, his buddy helping him, half-carrying him, saying in a soft, fearful tone, “Take it easy, Danny, take it easy,” over and over. Another litter, its occupant belted to the frame, his arm snatching feebly at the air above his head; one leg ended at the knee in a thick knot of blood and gristle and blued slivers of bone. Someone had tourniqueted it crudely with a bayonet scabbard. After that an ambulance jeep, skidding and slewing in the black ooze, full to capacity, with a corpsman perched precariously at the top of the rack, holding a bottle of plasma high in one hand, the tube curving down to one of the recumbent bodies. Then two walking wounded, one boy gripping his arm close to his body as though holding some infinitely precious jewel, fearful of deprivation. A short, swarthy man, his head thrown back, teeth bared in pain, swinging along on one leg between two friends. Another stretcher figure, on its belly, one arm dragging loosely in the muck; the bandage had slipped with his bearers' exertions and in the center of his bared back a great red hole was visible with blood bubbling out thickly: a rich crimson soup. Behind them, up the trail, the great and little guns bumped and clattered like some beast whose fiery breath had singed them all, was still reaching out for them.

A two-man stretcher team staggered by; their patient, whose arm and shoulder were clothed in a scarlet sponge of rags and gauze, cried: “Jesus, oh Jesus, can't you put me down for a
minute,
let me rest?—just for a
minute
…” and the medics both sank to one knee, gasping for breath. One of his crowd; Damon recognized the rear bearer—a thin, beak-nosed man whose eyes shot out to his with quick murderous intensity, slid away. Damon knew that look: it was the look of a man so crazed with exhaustion and despair he no longer cared what he did, or why. Now there was a boy staggering badly, trembling and shaking his head, shouting now and then in a shrill, clear voice. Then another stretcher case with cratered head wounds from which Damon averted his eyes. Jesus. In the head. He dreaded that more than any other, more than belly or face or testicles. To stop one in your
brain
… Standing there at the junction of the two trails, weary and harassed, listening to Dickinson, watching this procession of boundless agony, hearing the groans, the pleas and imprecations, he thought: I shouldn't be here; I've got no business here. But still they came on, ragged or feverish or comatose, each of them dominated by one thought. He could feel the alarm grow inside him. Half the rifle companies were down to sixty, seventy, eighty effectives
now.
What would be left?

Dickinson was saying: “I've just had word from Pryce-Sealey at Timobele. He says they've got hold of a coastal transport.”

“What size?” he asked absently.

“Eleven tons. We should be able to load several companies, a full battalion perhaps.”

Damon watched the narrow, lined face, the cautious gray eyes. Eleven tons. One day to load, two more—or would it be three?—to creep up the coast at night under the Japanese bombers … and here, right here, was a prize package of disaster staring them full in the face. Eleven tons.

It began to rain again, the flat, washing roar advancing like surf through the forest—sweeping over them, drenching and pervasive, walling each man off in his own shabby world of fear and misery and anger. And still the wounded came past, lurching, falling to their knees and getting up again, their faces white against their beards; drifting, beaten shadows. Dickinson, whose back was to the procession, was still talking on in that brassy Maine accent about ammunition levels and tonnage tables and the possibility of the loan of two Bren gun carriers from the Aussies.

“Ah, there he is,” the Chief of Staff said with sudden relief. They stepped across to the north trail, where weeks ago some wag from Chicago had placed a sign that read: 47TH AND STATE. The rain faded, then let up abruptly, and the jeep came out of the jungle gloom, rocking and sliding. General Westerfeldt got out, followed by Haley, his raunchy garrison cap cocked back on his head, and Hodl, who was staring dully at the ground. As Damon and Dickinson came up Haley was saying, “If the Gap opens up tomorrow we can run everything we've got. Angels can't do more.”

Westerfeldt turned to Hodl. “How do we stand right now?”

The G-4 said tonelessly, “My inventories show two days' supplies.”

“Two
days
…” Westy stared at him as if the Major had struck him in the face. “Hal,” he turned to Haley, “you've got to get through tomorrow—you've
got to
…”

“If it can be done, we'll be there. With cap and bells.” He threw them all his glittering Air Force smile, tossed out one hand. “What the hell, fellers—things are never as rough as they seem. Love'll find a way.”

How the hell would you know, you slaphappy fly-boy? Damon wanted to shout at him. He hated Haley with all his heart: too much rank too fast, coupled with that delightful insouciance only flying above the blood and mud and swamp stink at nine thousand feet can give you … But the General said nothing. His eyes rolled white at Haley, his mouth worked once, but no sound came. Then Haley was in the jeep and skidding and swooping along past the stretchers, the wavering, pitiful processional.

Damon said quickly: “General, I'd like to outline a plan for your consideration.”

“What? All right—come on back with me. Dick, what have you heard from Koch?—how's he going?”

“The situation's relatively unchanged since fourteen hundred, sir.—I just got word from TOPGALLANT,” he went on earnestly. “They say they definitely can give us those two carriers. If we could use them conjointly with the Third Battalion of the Four sixty-eighth at the east end of the strip …”

Westerfeldt nodded absently. His eyes had encountered the column of wounded; watching them he rubbed his lips with his hand. His shoulders sagged, his forty-five hung halfway down his trouser leg; the barrel end of the holster was filthy with mud. “Yes, yes, I guess so. We'll have to see…”

It began to rain again, less heavily. Near them a blond boy was sitting on a log, his hands wrapped around his knees; at every cannon or mortar explosion he flinched; his eyes were closed, his mouth was drawn down in anguish and he was weeping, rocking back and forth and weeping. “Ah, no,” he moaned softly, rocking, “no, no, no—it's not my fault, ah they can't, they can't …”

Westerfeldt stopped, his eyes transfixed on the boy. “What's the matter with him?” he demanded suddenly. He went up to the log. “Now look here, soldier …”

The blond boy's eyes opened, full of fear. “Ah, no, no, no,” he repeated, wagging his head. “I tried, I swear to God—but it wasn't my fault …”

Westerfeldt shouted: “Look, soldier: you stand up when an officer speaks to you!”

The boy sprang to his feet with astonishing alacrity. “—Shut up!” he screamed all at once. “Shut your face, you rotten bloody butcher. Kill us all—what you care … nobody! And I tried and tried … ” Tears were running crookedly through the mud and stubble on his face; pale, clownish streaks. There were deep blue hollows under his eyes. “You hear me?” he cried wildly. “Fuck you to hell!…” He tensed, as though to make a lunge at the General, then before either Damon or the Chief of Staff could intervene he collapsed on the log again, sobbing. “Ah I couldn't help it, ah God, it
wasn't—my—fault!
…”

Westerfeldt was staring down at him, his face white and sweating, his eyes vacant. “Now, son,” he muttered. “Now, son—”

Dickinson had bent over and seized the boy by the arm. “Soldier, you return to your unit. You hear me? You go back to your unit!”

“Never mind, Dick …” The General had started off again. Damon caught up with him near the operations tent, and Westerfeldt turned to him with a tense, distraught expression. “What was it—what was I—”

“General,” Damon repeated, “I've a plan I'd like to outline for you, if I may. A plan for crossing the Watubu.”

Westerfeldt stared at him, mopping at his face. “Can't be forded.”

“I know that, sir—”

“There are no boats, no boats anywhere, Sam, I tried to get some from Corps, I've been trying the Aussies—”