The Thin Red Line (30 page)

Startled, Fife cleared his throat, shocked into wondering whether he could still talk, after so long. It was the first time he had tried a word since leaving the ridge. It was also the first time he had ever heard this damn phone thing work. He pushed the button and cupped it to his mouth. “Yes?” he said cautiously.

“What do you mean, ‘yes’?” a calm cold voice said, and waited.

Fife hung suspended in a great empty black void, trying to think. What had he meant? “I mean this is Charlie Cat Seven,” he said, remembering the code jargon. “Over.”

“That’s better,” the calm voice said. “This is Seven Cat Ace.” That meant 1st Battalion, the HQ. “Colonel Tall here. I want Captain Stein. Over.”

“Yes, Sir,” Fife said. “He’s right here.” He reached up one arm to tug at the skirt of Stein’s green fatigue blouse. Stein looked down, staring, as if he had never seen Fife before. Or anybody else.

“Colonel Tall wants you.”

Stein lay down (glad to flatten himself, Fife noted with satisfaction) and took the phone. Despite the racketing din overhead, both he and Fife beside him could hear the Colonel clearly.

When he accepted the phone and pushed down the button, Bugger Stein was already casting about for his explanations. He had not expected to be called upon to recite so soon, and he had not prepared his lessons. What he could say would of course depend on Tall’s willingness to allow any explanation at all. He could not help being a guilty schoolboy about to be birched. “Charlie Cat Seven. Stein,” he said. “Over.” He released the button.

What he heard astounded him to speechlessness.

“Magnificent, Stein, magnificent.” Tall’s clear cold calm boyish voice came to him—came to both of them—rimed over with a crust of clear cold boyish enthusiasm. “The finest thing these old eyes have seen in a long time. In a month of Sundays.” Stein had a vivid mental picture of Tall’s closecropped, boyish, Anglo-Saxon head and unlined, Anglo-Saxon face. Tall was less than two years older than Stein. His clear, innocent, boyish eyes were the youngest Stein had seen in some time. “Beautifully conceived and beautifully executed. You’ll be mentioned in Battalion Orders, Stein. Your men came through for you beautifully. Over.”

Stein pressed the button, managed a weak “Yes, Sir. Over,” and released the button. He could not think of anything else to say.

“Best sacrificial commitment to develop a hidden position I have ever seen outside maneuvers. Young Whyte led beautifully. I’m mentioning him, too. I saw him go down in that first melee. Was he hurt very bad? But sending in your 2d too was brilliant. They might very well have carried both subsidiary ridges with luck. I don’t think they were hurt too bad. Blane led well too. His withdrawal was very old pro. How many of the emplacements did they locate? Did they knock out any? We ought to have those ridges cleaned out by noon. Over.”

Stein listened, rapt, staring into the eyes of Fife who listened also, staring back. For Fife the calm, pleasant, conversational tone of Col Tall was both maddening and terrifying. And for Stein it was like hearing a radio report on the fighting in Africa which he knew nothing about. Once in school his father had called him long distance to brag about a good report card which Stein had thought would be bad. Neither listener betrayed what he thought to the other, and the silence lengthened.

“Hello? Hello? Hello, Stein? Over?”

Stein pressed the button. “Yes, Sir. Here, Sir. Over.” Stein released the button.

“Thought you’d been hit,” Tall’s voice came back matter-of-factly. “I said, how many of the emplacements did they locate? And did they knock any of them out? Over.”

Stein pressed the button, staring into the wide eyes of Fife as if he might see Tall on the other side of them. “I don’t know. Over.” He released button.

“What do you mean you don’t know? How can you not know?” Tall’s cool, calm, conversational voice said. “Over.”

Stein was in a quandary. He could admit what both he and Fife knew, or perhaps Fife did not know, which was that he knew nothing about Whyte’s attack, had not ordered it, and until now had believed it bad. Or he could continue to accept credit for it and try to explain his ignorance of its results. He could not, of course, know that Tall would later change his opinion. With a delicacy of sensibility Stein had never expected to see at all in the army, and certainly not on the field under fire, Fife suddenly lowered his eyes and looked away, half turned his head. He was still listening, but at least he was pretending not to.

Stein pressed the button, which was a necessity, but which was beginning to madden him. “I’m back here,” he said sharply. “Behind the third fold.

“Do you want me to stand up? And wave? So you can see me?” he added with caustic anger. “Over.”

“No,” Tall’s voice said calmly, the irony lost on him. “I can see where you are. I want you to do something. I want you to get up there and see what the situation is, Stein. I want Hill 210 in my hands tonight. And to do that I have to have those two ridges by noon. Have you forgotten the corps commander is here observing today? He’s got Admiral Barr with him, flown in specially. The Admiral got up at dawn for this. I want you to come to life down there, Stein,” he said crisply. “Over and out.”

Stein continued to listen, gripping the phone and staring off furiously, though he knew nothing more was forthcoming. Finally he reached out and tapped Fife and gave it to him. Fife took it in silence. Stein rolled to his feet and ran crouching back down to where the mortars were periodically firing off rounds with their weird, other-world, lingering gonglike sound.

“Doing any good?” he bellowed in Culp’s ear.

“We’re getting bursts on both ridges,” Culp bellowed back in his amiable way. “I decided to put one tube onto the right ridge,” he said parenthetically, and then shrugged. “But I don’t know if we’re doin’ any damage. If they’re dug in—” He let it trail off and shrugged again.

“I’ve decided to move forward to the second fold,” Stein yelled. “Will that be too close for you?”

Culp strode three paces forward up the shallow slope and craned his neck to see over the crest, squinting. He came back. “No. It’s pretty close, but I think we can still hit. But we’re running pretty low on ammo. If we keep on firing at this rate—” Again he shrugged.

“Send everybody but your sergeants back for fresh ammo. All they can carry. Then follow us.”

“They don’t any of them like to carry them aprons,” Culp yelled. “They all say if they get hit with one of those things on them ...”

“God damn it, Bob! I can’t be bothered with a thing like that at a time like this! They knew what they were gonna have to carry!”

“I know it.” Culp shrugged. “Where do you want me?”

Stein thought. “On the right, I guess. If they locate you, they’ll try to hit you. I want you away from the reserve platoon. I’ll give you a few riflemen in case they try to send a patrol in on our flank. Anything that looks like more than a patrol, you let me know quick.”

“Don’t worry!” Culp said. He turned to his squads. Stein trotted off to the right, where he had seen Al Gore, Lt of his 3d Platoon, motioning at the same time for Sgt Welsh to come over to him. Welsh came, followed by Storm, for the orders conference. Even Welsh, Stein noticed parenthetically, even Welsh had that strained, intent, withdrawn look on his face—like a greasy patina of guilty wishful thinking.

While 3d Platoon and Stein’s Company HQ were trooping forward in two parallel single files in their move to the second fold, the 1st Platoon continued to lie in its shellholes. After the first crash and volley and thunder of mortars they all had expected to be dead in five minutes. Now, it seemed unbelievable but the Japanese did not seem to be able to see them very well. Now and then a bullet or a burst zipped by low overhead, followed in a second or so by the sound of its firing. Mortar rounds still sighed down on them, exploding with roaring mushrooms of terror and dirt. But in general the Japanese seemed to be waiting for something. 1st Platoon was willing to wait with them. Leaderless, pinned down, pressing its hands and sweating faces to the dirt, 1st Platoon was willing to wait forever and never move again. Many prayed and promised God they would go to church services every Sunday. But slowly, they began to realize that they could move around, could fire back, that death was not a foregone conclusion and inevitable for all.

The medics helped with this. The two company aidmen, given their orders by Stein, had moved up amongst 2d Platoon along the third fold, and had begun little sorties out onto the shallow slope after wounded. In all there were 15 wounded men, and 6 dead. The two aidmen did not bother with the dead, but slowly they retrieved for the stretcherbearers all of the wounded. With insouciance, sober, serious and bespectacled, the two of them moved up and down the slope, bandaging and salting, dragging and half-carrying. Mortar shells knocked them down, MG fire kicked up dirt around them, but nothing touched them. Both would be dead before the week was out (and replaced by types much less admired in C-for-Charlie), but for now they clumped untouchably on, two sobersides concerned with aiding the sobbing, near-helpless men it was their official duty to aid. Eventually enough 1st Platoon men raised their heads high enough to see them, and realized movement was possible—at least, as long as they did not all stand up in a body and wave and shout “Here we are!” Not one of them had as yet seen a single Japanese.

It was Doll who saw the first ones. Sensing the movement around him as men began to stir and call softly to each other, Doll took his bruised confidence in hand and raised his head until his eyes showed above the slight depression into which he had sprawled. He happened to come up looking at the rear of the little lefthand ridge, just where it joined the rocky rim slope up to Hill 210. He saw three figures carrying what could only be a machinegun still attached to its tripod start across the slope back toward Hill 210, running bent over at the waist in the same identical way he himself had run up here. Doll was astounded and did not believe it. They were about two hundred yards away, and the two men behind ran together carrying the gun, while the man in front simply ran, carrying nothing. Doll slid his rifle up, raised the sight four clicks and, lying with only his left arm and shoulder outside his little hole, sighted on the man in front, leading him a little, and squeezed off a shot. The rifle bucked his shoulder and the man went down. The two men behind jumped sideways together, like a pair of skittish, delicately coordinated horses, and ran on. They did not drop the gun, and they did not lose a stride or even get out of step. Doll fired again and missed. He realized his mistake now: if he had hit one of the men with the MG, they’d have had to drop it and leave it or else stop to pick it up. Before he could fire a third time they were in among the rocks on the rim, beyond which the steep precipice fell to the river. Doll could see their backs or heads from time to time as they went on, but never long enough to shoot. The other man remained where he had fallen on the slope.

So Doll had killed his first Japanese. For that matter, his first human being of any kind. Doll had hunted quite a lot, and he could remember his first deer. But this was an experience which required extra tasting. Like getting screwed the first time, it was too complex to be classed solely as pride of accomplishment. Shooting well, at anything, was always a pleasure. And Doll hated the Japanese, dirty little yellow Jap bastards, and would gladly have killed personally every one of them alive if the US Army and Navy would only arrange him a safe opportunity and supply him the ammo. But beyond these two pleasures there was another. It had to do with guilt. Doll felt guilty. He couldn’t help it. He had killed a human being, a man. He had done the most horrible thing a human could do, worse than rape even. And nobody in the whole damned world could say anything to him about it. That was where the pleasure came. Nobody could do anything to him for it. He had gotten by with murder. He watched the figure on the slope. He would like to know just where he had hit him (he had aimed for the chest), and whether he died right away, or if he was lying there still alive, dying slowly. Doll felt an impulse to grin a silly grin and to giggle. He felt stupid and cruel and mean and vastly superior. It certainly had helped his confidence anyway, that was for sure.

Just then a mortar shell sighed down for a half-second and ten yards away exploded a fountain of terror and dirt, and Doll discovered his confidence hadn’t been helped so much after all. Before he could think he had jerked himself and his rifle down onto the floor of his little depression and curled up there, fear running like heavy threads of quicksilver through all his arteries and veins as if they were glass thermometers. After a moment he wanted to raise back up and look again but found that he couldn’t. What if just as he put up his head another one exploded and a piece of it took him square between the eyes, or knifed into his face, or ripped through his helmet and split his skull? The prospect was too much. After a while, after his breathing had quieted, he again put his head up to the eye level. This time there were four Japanese preparing to leave the grassy ridge for the uphill road to Hill 210. They came into sight from somewhere on the ridge already running. Two carried the gun, another carried handled boxes, the fourth had nothing. Doll pulled his rifle up into position and aimed for the gun-carriers. As the party crossed the open space, he fired four times and missed each time. They disappeared into the rocks.

Doll was so furious he could have bitten a piece out of his own arm. While cursing himself, he remembered he had now fired six rounds. He released the clip and replaced it with a fresh one, sliding the two unused rounds into his pants pocket, then settled down to wait for more Japanese. Only then did he realize that what he was watching might have more implication and importance than whether he got himself another Jap.

But what to do? He remembered Big Queen had been running near him when they hit the dirt.

“Hey, Queen!”

After a moment, there was a muffled answer. “Yeah?”

“Did you see them Japs leavin that left ridge?”