The Thin Red Line (40 page)

“I see.” Tall turned his head and squinted his blue eyes off at the grassy ridge in silence. The long line of MG bullets came sweeping back from Stein’s left, this time only fifteen yards below them. Tall did not move.

“They’ve seen you, Sir,” Stein said.

“Stein, we’re going over there,” Tall said, ignoring his remark, “all of us, and we’re taking everybody with us. Do you have any more formal complaints or demurrers?”

“No, sir,” Stein said lamely. “Not now. But I reiterate my request to take a patrol down into the jungle on the right. I’m convinced it’s open down there. There hasn’t been a shot fired from there all day. A Jap patrol could have enfiladed the hell out of us from there with very little trouble. I was anticipating it.” He pointed away down the hollow between the folds to where the tree tops of the jungle were just barely visible, while Tall followed his gaze.

“In any case,” Tall said, “it’s now too late in the day to send a patrol down there.”

“A patrol in force? A platoon? With an MG? They could make a perimeter defense if they didn’t get back before dark.”

“Do you want to lose a platoon? Anyway, you’re emptying your center. We don’t have A-for-Able in reserve, Stein. They’re off on your right rear fighting their own fight. B-for-Baker is our reserve, and they’re committed on your left.”

“I know that, Sir.”

“No, we’ll do it my way. We’ll take everybody over to the ledge. We may be able to take that ridge before nightfall.”

“I think that ridge is quite a way from being reduced, Sir,” Stein said earnestly, and adjusted his glasses, the four fingers on the frame above, the thumb below.

“I don’t think so. In any case, we can always make a perimeter defense for the night there. Rather than withdraw like yesterday.” The conference was over. Leisurely Tall stood up to his full height. Again the MG in the distance rattled, and a swishing line of bullets struck the ground a few feet from him as Stein ducked, the bullets seeming, at least to Stein, to go whining off all about Tall’s feet and between his legs. Tall gave the ridge one contemptuous amused look and started walking down the rearward slope still talking to Stein. “But first I want you to get a man down there to your 1st Platoon and move them by the flank over to the ridge. They are to take up position behind the ledge and extend the left flank from Beck’s left. As soon as a man reaches your 1st Platoon safely, I’ll sound power Baker to move out, and then we’ll move.”

“Yes, Sir,” Stein said. He was unable to keep his teeth from grinding, but his voice was level. Slowly, very slowly, because he was reluctant, he too stood up to his full height also, then followed Tall down the slope. But before he could give an order young Captain Gaff, who had been lying prone not far away, had already crawled up to them.

“I’ll go, Sir,” he said to Tall. “I’d like to. Very much.”

Tall gazed at him fondly. “All right, John. Go ahead.” With strong fatherly pride he watched the young captain move away. “Good man, my young Exec,” he said to Stein.

There was really no need for the glasses this time. 1st Platoon wasn’t all that far away. Standing upright, their heads just showing above the crest, Tall and Stein watched Gaff zigzag his way professionally down into the shellhole area on the main flat to the left of the grassy ridge. Stein had told him roughly where to find Skinny Culn, now platoon commander by attrition. In a few moments men began moving to the right in rushes, by twos and threes.

“All right,” Tall said. “Give me the sound power.” He spoke into it at length. “Okay,” he said. “Now
we’ll
go.”

Around them, as if sensing something or other was in the wind, the men began to stir.

Whatever else Stein could find to say about him, and Stein could find plenty, he nevertheless had to admit that with Tall’s arrival on the battlefield a change for the better had come over everything and everybody. Partly of course the change was due to Beck’s feat, whatever that was exactly. But it could not all be that, and Stein had to admit it. Tall had brought with him some quality that had not been here before, and it showed in the faces of the men. They were less in-drawn looking. Perhaps it was only the feeling that after all in the end not everybody would die. Some would live through it. And from there it was only a step to the normal reaction of ego:
I
will live through this. Others may get it, my friends right and left may die, but I will make it. Even Stein felt better, himself. Tall had arrived and taken control, and had taken it firmly and surely and with confidence. Those who lived would owe it to Tall, and those who died would say nothing. It was too bad about those ones; everybody would feel that; but after all once they were dead they did not really count anymore, did they? This was the simple truth, and Tall had brought it with him to them.

The whole thing was evident in the way Tall handled the move forward. Striding up and down in front of the prone 3d Platoon, his little bamboo baton in his right hand, tapping it lightly against his shoulder as he frowned in concentration, he explained to them briefly what he planned to do, and why, and what their part in it must be. He did not exhort them. His attitude said quite plainly that he considered any exhortation to be cheating and trickery and he would not indulge in it; they deserved better than that; they must do what they must do, and do it without any chauvinistic pleading from him; there would be no jingoism. When the move was completed and both 1st and 3d Platoons were installed behind the ledge to the left and right of the 2d, only two men had been wounded and these lightly, and everybody knew they owed this to Colonel Tall. Even Stein felt the same way.

But having got them that far, it was evident that even Tall was not going to get them very much further. It was now after three-thirty. They had been out here since dawn, and most of them had not had any water since mid-morning. Several men had collapsed. Nerves frayed by being almost constantly under fire and without water, many more were hysterically close to collapse. Tall could see all this himself. But after taking the reports of Beck, Dale and Bell, he wanted to have, before dark, one more go at reducing the strongpoint on the right. The little assemblage of officers and noncoms around the Colonel now included those of B-for-Baker. When Charlie Co was making its move to the ledge, Baker on Tall’s telephoned orders had made its third attack of the day. Like the others it too had failed, and in the confusion half of Baker had overlapped Charlie’s 1st Platoon on the left and hung there. In returning the rest had tumbled in and stayed there also, so Tall had sent for their leaders, too.

“That strongpoint is obviously the key to the ridge,” he now said to the whole of them. “Se—uh—
Sergeant
Bell here is quite right.” He gave Bell a sharp look and went on, “From their knob there our little brown brothers can cover the whole of the flat rising ground in front of our ledge from our right clear over to Baker on the left. Why they left the ledge unguarded I have no idea. But we must exploit it before they see their error. If we can reduce that big bunker, I see no reason why we can’t take the whole ridge before nightfall. I’m asking for volunteers to go back there and knock it out.”

Stein, hearing for the first time this news about a further attack, was so horrified he could hardly believe his ears. Surely Tall must know how depleted and worn out they all were. But Stein’s impetus to argue with Tall had worn out, especially in front of over half the Battalion officers.

To John Bell, squatting with the others, it was all once again like some scene from a movie, a very bad, cliché, third rate war movie. It could hardly have anything to do with death. The Colonel still remained fully upright, still paced back and forth with his bamboo baton as he talked, but Bell noted that he carefully remained far enough back down the slope so that his head did not show above the ledge. Bell had also noted the hesitation and then italicized pronunciation when Tall applied the title Sergeant to himself. This was the first time Bell had ever met his Colonel, but there was no reason to assume Tall did not also know his story. Everybody else knew it. Perhaps it was this, more than anything else, which made him say what he said.

“Sir, I’ll be glad to go back again and lead the way for a party.” Was he mad? He was angry, he knew that, but was he insane as well? Ah, Marty!

Immediately, off to Bell’s right, another voice piped up. Hunchshouldered, grapplehanded, crackfaced, Acting Sergeant Dale was making his bid for future fame, future sinecures, future security from army kitchens. For whatever it was that drove him. Bell did not know.

“I’ll go, Colonel, Sir! I want to volunteer!” Charlie Dale stood up, made three formal paces forward, then squatted again. It was as if Dale, the liberated cook, did not believe his offer legal without the prescribed three paces forward. From his squat he glanced all around, his beady little eyes bright with something. To Bell the effect was distastefully ludicrous, laughable.

Almost before Dale had squatted, two other voices were added. Behind Bell, from among the privates and within the remnant of his own little patrol group, Pfc Doll and Private Witt came forward. Both sat down, much closer to Bell than to Dale who still squatted by himself. Bell felt impelled to wink at them.

Pfc Doll, who was still outraged over the success of Charlie Dale’s patrol as against their own, was startled by Bell’s wink. Why the fuck would anybody want to wink? From the moment he spoke and started to move forward Doll had felt his heart in his throat again, making his eyes swim dizzily. Moving his tongue in his mouth was like rubbing two damp pieces of blotting paper together. He had had no water for over four hours, and thirst had become so much a part of him that he could not remember ever having been without it. But this other was extra, this blotting paper in his mouth was the thirst of fear, and Doll recognized it. Was Bell ridiculing him? He essayed a small cold guarded smile at Bell.

Witt on the other hand, sitting relaxed to the left of Doll and a little nearer to Bell, grinned and winked back. Witt was at ease. He had made up his mind, when he first volunteered himself back into the old company this morning, to go through with it all the way. And that was what he intended to do. When Witt made up his mind, it was made up, and that was that. As far as he was concerned this volunteer mission was only another little chore to be got through and done by a few men of talent like himself. He had enough confidence in himself as a soldier to be pretty sure he could take care of himself in any situation requiring skill; and as for accidents or bad luck, if one of those caught him, well, it caught him, and that was that. But he didn’t believe one would, and in the meantime he was sure he could help out, perhaps save a lot of his old buddies—some of whom, like that punk kid Fife, had not even wanted him to come back in the outfit. But Witt wanted to help, or save as many of them as he could, even Fife if it had happened like that.

Then, besides all of this, Witt had acquired considerable respect and admiration for Bell earlier, on the patrol when Bell pulled his stunt of exposing himself like he had. Witt, who had been a corporal three times and a sergeant twice during his career, could appreciate intelligence and courage in a man. And, despite the fact that he was chary of his personal endorsements, he now liked Bell. Witt felt that, like himself, Bell had the qualities of real leadership. Together they might do a lot, help, or save, a lot of guys. He liked Bell exofficer or not. So he grinned and winked back his feeling of kinship, before turning his attention back to Tall, whom Colonel or not he did not like.

The Colonel had had no chance to speak, his volunteers had been coming so thick and fast. He now had four. And before he could say anything to the four, he acquired three more in rapid succession. A rather elderly, Calvinistic-looking 2d Lieutenant, who might well have been a Chaplain but was not, presented himself from amongst the B Company officers. A B Company sergeant followed him. Then Tall’s own Exec, young Captain Gaff, put in his two cents and offered his services.

“I’d like to lead the party, Colonel,” he said.

Tall held up his hand. “That’s enough, that’s enough. Seven is plenty. In the terrain you’ll be working more men would only hinder you, I think. I know many more of you would like to go, but you’ll have to wait for another opportunity.”

Captain Stein, hearing this, peered at this Commander closely through his glasses, and was amazed to see that Tall was in deadly earnest and not joking at all. He was not even being ironic.

Turning to Gaff, Tall said, “All right, John. It’s your baby. You’ll be in command. Now ...”

Professionally, he laid out their operation for them. Succinctly, efficiently, missing no smallest detail or advantage, he planned their tactics. It was impossible not to admire both his ability and his command of it. Stein for one, and he was sure he was not alone, was forced to admit that here in Tall was a talent and an authority which he himself just simply did not possess.

“Almost certainly you will find the bunker guarded by smaller MG posts around it. But I think it is better to ignore these and go for the strongpoint itself if you possibly can. The little posts will fall of themselves if the big one is taken; remember that.

“That’s all, gentlemen,” Tall said with a sudden smile. “Noncoms return to your positions, but I want the officers to remain. Synchronize watches with me, John. Give Dog Co—oh—twelve minutes before you radio your first call. It should take you that long to get there.”

As the little assault party crawled off to the right along the ledge, Colonel Tall was already on the sound power phone to contact Battalion. Captain Stein, squatting with the officers who had been told to stay and looking over at his own waterless exhausted men behind the ledge, could not help wondering just how far uphill they would be able to attack, even if the strongpoint fell? Thirty yards maybe? before they collapsed? The assault party disappeared around the corner of the hillside. Stein turned his attention back to Tall and the little group of company officers, of whom only six remained now out of ten. And as the assault party approached the spot where Bell earlier had exposed himself, Colonel Tall was already explaining to his officers his auxiliary plan, should the assault on the bunker fail. If that happened, Tall wanted to effect a surprise night attack. Of course that would mean setting up a perimeter defense first, so they should be prepared. Because Tall had no intention of withdrawing tonight as 2d Battalion had done yesterday. He himself would stay with the Battalion. In the meantime of course there was always the chance, the off chance, that the assault party would succeed.