The Thin Red Line (29 page)

2d Platoon had just reached the two dead 1st Platoon scouts when mortar shells began to drop in onto the 1st Platoon twenty-five yards ahead. First two, then a single, then three together popped up in unbelievable mushrooms of dirt and stones. Chards and pieces whickered and whirred in the air. It was the impetus needed either to change the direction of the blind charge or to stop it completely. It did both. In the 2d Platoon S/Sgt Keck, watched by everyone now with Lt Blane down, threw out his arms holding his rifle at the balance, dug in his heels and bellowed in a voice like the combined voices of ten men for them to “Hit dirt! Hit dirt!” 2d Platoon needed no urging. Running men melted into the earth as if a strong wind had come up and blown them over like dried stalks.

In the 1st Platoon, less lucky, reaction varied. On the extreme right the line had reached the first beginning slope of the right-hand ridge, long hillock really, and a few men—perhaps a squad—turned and dove into the waisthigh grass there, defilading themselves from the hidden MGs above them as well as protecting them from the mortars. On the far left that end had much further to go, seventy yards more, to reach dead space under the lefthand ridge; but a group of men tried to make it. None of them reached it, however. They were hosed to earth and hiding by the machineguns above them, or bowled over stunned by the mortars, before they could defilade themselves from the MGs or get close enough to them to escape the mortars. Just to the left of the center was the attached machinegun squad from Culp’s platoon, allowed to join the charge by Whyte through forgetfulness or for some obscure tactical reason of his own, all five of whom, running together, were knocked down by the same mortar shell, gun and tripod and ammo boxes all going every which way and bouncing end over end, although not one of the five was wounded by it. These marked the furthest point of advance. On the extreme left five or six riflemen were able to take refuge in a brushy draw at the foot of Hill 209 which, a little further down, became the deep ravine where Fox and George had been trapped and hit yesterday. These men began to fire at the two grassy ridges although they could see no targets.

In the center of 1st Platoon’s line there were no defilades or draws to run to. The middle, before the mortars stopped them, had run itself right on down and out onto the dangerous low area, where they could not only be enfiladed by the ridges but could also be hit by MG plunging fire from Hill 210 itself. Here there was nothing to do but get down and hunt holes. Fortunately the TOT barrage had searched here as well as on the hillocks, and there were 105 and 155 holes available. Men jostled each other for them, shared them. The late Lt Whyte’s 19th Century charge was over. The mortar rounds continued to drop here and there across the area, searching flesh, searching bone.

Private John Bell of the 2d Platoon lay sprawled exactly as his body had skidded to a halt, without moving a muscle. He could not see because his eyes were shut, but he listened. On the little ridges the prolonged yammering of the MGs had stopped and now confined itself to short bursts at specific targets. Here and there wounded men bellowed, whined or whimpered. Bell’s face was turned left, his cheek pressed to the ground, and he tried not even to breathe too conspicuously for fear of calling attention to himself. Cautiously he opened his eyes, half afraid the movement of eyelids would be seen by a machinegunner a hundred yards away, and found himself staring into the open eyes of the 1st Platoon’s first scout lying dead five yards to Bell’s left. This was, or had been, a young Graeco-Turkish draftee named Kral. Kral was noted for two things, the ugliest bentnosed face in the regiment and the thickest glasses in C-for-Charlie. That with such a myopia he could be a scout was a joke of the company. But Kral had volunteered for it; he wanted to be where the action was, he said; in peace or in war. A hep kid from Jersey, he had nevertheless believed the four-color propaganda leaflets. He had not known that the profession of first scout of a rifle platoon was a thing of the past and belonged in the Indian Wars, not to the massed divisions, superior firepower, and tighter social control of today. First target, the term should be, not first scout, and now the big glasses still reposed on his face. They had not fallen off. But something about their angle, at least from where Bell lay, magnified the open eyes until they filled the entire lenses. Bell could not help staring fixedly at them, and they stared back with a vastly wise and tolerant amusement. The more Bell stared at them the more he felt them to be holes into the center of the universe and that he might fall in through them to go drifting down through starry space amongst galaxies and spiral nebulae and island universes. He remembered he used to think of his wife’s cunt like that, in a more pleasant way. Forcibly Bell shut his eyes. But he was afraid to move his head, and whenever he opened them again, there Kral’s eyes were, staring at him their droll and flaccid message of amiable good will, sucking at him dizzyingly. And wherever he looked they followed him, pleasantly but stubbornly. From above, invisible but there, the fiery sun heat of the tropic day heated his head inside his helmet, making his soul limp. Bell had never known such eviscerating, ballshrinking terror. Somewhere out of his sight another mortar shell exploded. But in general the day seemed to have become very quiet. His arm with his watch on it lay within his range of vision, he noticed. My God! Was it only 7:45? Defeatedly he let his eyes go back where they wanted: to Kral’s. HERE LIES FOUR-EYES KRAL, DIED FOR SOMETHING. When one of Kral’s huge eyes winked at him waggishly, he knew in desperation he had to do something, although he had been lying there only thirty seconds. Without moving, his cheek still pressed to earth, he yelled loudly.

“Hey,
Keck!
” He waited. “Hey,
Keck!
We got to get out of here!”

“I know it,” came the muffled answer. Keck was obviously lying with his head turned the other way and had no intention of moving it.

“What’ll we do?”

“Well...” There was silence while Keck thought. It was interrupted by a high, quavery voice from a long way off.

“We know you there, Yank. Yank, we know you there.”

“Tojo eats shit!” Keck yelled. He was answered by an angry burst of machinegun fire. “Roozover’ eat shit!” the faraway voice screamed.

“You goddam right he does!” some frightened Republican called from Bell’s blind right side. When the firing stopped, Bell called again.

“What’ll we do, Keck?”

“Listen,” came the muffled answer. “All you guys listen. Pass it along so everybody knows.” He waited and there was a muffled chorus “Now get this. When I holler go, everybody up. Load and lock and have a nuther clip in yore hand. 1st and 3d Squads stay put, kneeling position, and fire covering fire. 2d and 4th Squads hightail it back over that little fold. 1st and 3d Squads fire two clips, then scoot. 2d and 4th fire covering fire from that fold. If you can’t see nothin, fire searching fire. Space yore shots. Them positions is somewhere about half way up them ridges. Everybody fire at the righthand ridge which is closer. You got that?”

He waited while everyone muffledly tried to assure themselves that everybody else knew.

“Everybody got it?” Keck called muffledly. There were no answers. “Then—GO!” he bellowed.

The slope came to life. Bell, in the 2d Squad, did not even bother with the brave man’s formality of looking about to see if the plan was working, but instead squirmed around and leaped up running, his legs already pistoning before the leap came down to earth. Safe beyond the little fold of ground, which by now had taken on characteristics of huge size, he whirled and began to fire cover, terribly afraid of being stitched across the chest like Lt Whyte who lay only a few yards away. Methodically he drilled his shots into the dun hillside which still hid the invisible, yammering MGs, one round to the right, one to the left, one to center, one to the left ... He could not believe that any of them might actually hit somebody. If one did, what a nowhere way to go: killed by accident; slain not as an individual but by sheer statistical probability, by the calculated chance of searching fire, even as he himself might be at any moment. Mathematics! Mathematics! Algebra! Geometry! When 1st and 3d Squads came diving and tumbling back over the tiny crest, Bell was content to throw himself prone, press his cheek to the earth, shut his eyes, and lie there. God, oh, God! Why am I
here?
Why am I
here?
After a moment’s thought, he decided he better change it to: why are
we
here. That way, no agency of retribution could exact payment from him for being selfish.

Apparently Keck’s plan had worked very well. 2d and 4th Squads, having the surprise, had gotten back untouched; and 1st and 3d Squads had had only two men hit. Bell had been looking right at one of them. Running hard with his head down, the man (a
boy
, named Kline) had jerked his head up suddenly, his eyes wide with start and fright, and cried out “Oh!”, his mouth a round pursed hole in his face, and had gone down. Sick at himself for it, Bell had felt laughter burbling up in his chest. He did not know whether Kline was killed or wounded. The MGs had stopped yammering. Now, in the comparative quiet and fifty yards to their front, 1st Platoon was down and invisible amongst their shell holes and sparse grass. Anguished, frightened cries of “Medic! Medic!” were beginning to be raised now here and there across the field, and 2d Platoon having escaped were slowly realizing that they were not after all very safe even here.

Back at the CP behind the first fold Stein was not alone in seeing the tumbling, pellmell return of the 2d Platoon to the third fold. Seeing that their Captain could safely stand up on his knees without being pumped full of holes or mangled, others were now doing it. He was setting them a pretty good example, Stein thought, still a little astonished by his own bravery. They were going to need medics up there, he decided, and called his two company aidmen to him.

“You two fellows better get on up there,” Stein yelled to them above the racket. “I expect they need you.” That sounded calm and good.

“Yes, sir,” one of them said. That was the scholarly, bespectacled one, the senior. They looked at each other seriously.

“I’ll try to get stretcherbearers to the low between here and the second fold, to help you,” Stein shouted. “See if you can’t drag them back that far.” He stood up on his knees again to peer forward, at where now and then single mortar shells geysered here and there beyond the third fold. “Go by rushes if you think you have to,” he added inconclusively. They disappeared.

“I need a runner.” Stein bawled, looking toward the line of his men who had had both the sense and the courage to climb to their knees in order to see. All of them heard him, because the whole little line rolled their eyes to look at him or turned toward him their heads. But not a single figure moved to come forward or answered him. Stein stared back at them, disbelieving. He was aware he had misjudged them completely, and he felt like a damned fool. He had expected to be swamped by volunteers. A sinking terror took hold of him: if he could be that wrong about this, what else might he not be wrong about? His enthusiasm had betrayed him. To save face he looked away, trying to pretend he had not expected anything. But it wasn’t soon enough and he knew they knew. Not quite sure what to do next, he was saved the trouble of deciding: a wraithlike, ghostly figure appeared at his elbow.

“I’ll go, Sir.”

It was Charlie Dale the second cook, scowling with intensity, his face dark and excited.

Stein told him what he wanted about the stretcherbearers, and then watched him go trotting off bent over at the waist toward the slope of Hill 209 which he would have to climb. Stein had no idea where he had been, or where he had come from so suddenly. He could not remember seeing him all day today until now. Certainly he had not been one of the line of kneeling standees. Stein looked back at them, somewhat restored. Dale. He must remember that.

There were now twelve men standing on their knees along the little fold of ground, trying to see what was going on up front. Young Corporal Fife was not, however, one of these. Fife was one of the ones who stayed flattened out, and he was as absolutely flattened as he could get. While Stein stood above him on his knees observing, Fife lay with his knees drawn up and his ear to the soundpower phone Stein had given him care of, and he did not care if he never stood up or ever saw anything. Earlier, when Stein had first done it with his stupid pleased pride shining all over his face, Fife had forced himself to stand straight up on his knees for several seconds, in order that no one might tag him with the title of coward. But he felt that was enough. Anyway, his curiosity was not at all piqued. All he had seen, when he did get up, was the top two feet of a dirt mushroom from a mortar shell landing beyond the third fold. What the fuck was so great about that? Suddenly a spasm of utter hopelessness shook Fife. Helplessness, that was what he felt; complete helplessness. He was as helpless as if agents of his government had bound him hand and foot and delivered him here and then gone back to wherever it was good agents went. Maybe a Washington cocktail bar, with lots of cunts all around. And here he lay, as bound and tied by his own mental processes and social indoctrination as if they were ropes, simply because while he could admit to himself privately that he was a coward, he did not have the guts to admit it publicly. It was agonizing. He was reacting exactly as the smarter minds of his society had anticipated he would react. They were ahead of him all down the line. And he was powerless to change. It was frustrating, maddening, like a brick wall all around him that he could neither bust through nor leap over and at the same time—making it even worse—there was his knowledge that there was really no wall at all. If early this morning he had been full of self-sacrifice, he now no longer was. He did not want to be here. He did not want to be here at all. He wanted to be over there where the generals were standing up on the ridge in complete safety, watching. Sweating with fear and an unbelievable tension of double-mindedness, Fife looked over at them and if looks of hatred could kill they would all have fallen down dead and the campaign would be over until they shipped in some new ones. If only he could go crazy. Then he would not be responsible. Why couldn’t he go crazy? But he couldn’t. The un-stone of the stone wall immediately rose up around him denying him exit. He could only lie here and be stretched apart on this rack of double-mindedness. Off to the right, some yards beyond the last man of the reserve platoon, Fife’s eyes recorded for him the images of Sergeants Welsh and Storm crouched behind a small rock outcrop. As he watched, Storm raised his arm and pointed. Welsh snaked his rifle onto the top of the rock and checking the stock, fired off five shots. Both peered. Then they looked at each other and shrugged. It was an easily understood little pantomime. Fife fell into an intense rage. Cowboys and Indians! Cowboys and Indians! Everybody’s playing cowboys and Indians! Just as if these weren’t real bullets, and you couldn’t really get killed. Fife’s head burned with a fury so intense that it threatened to blow all his mental fuses right out through his ears in two bursts of black smoke. His rage was broken off short, snapped off at the hilt as it were, by the buzzing whistle of the soundpower phone in his ear.