The Thin Red Line (49 page)

“Queen’s back!” he heard someone holler. “Big Queen’s here again! Old Queen’s back!” He would never tell. If Doll told, he would lie.

“Show me them Japs!” Queen bellowed.

Stein found his ‘old veteran’ 2d Platoon sturdily waiting exactly where he had left it, kneeling and leaning on their rifles. Letting them continue to wait, he held a short ‘Officers Call’. There were only himself and Band actually; but he had Beck commanding the Platoon, and Sergeants Welsh and Storm from the Hq. Storm kept flexing his hand.

“I been wounded!” he said grinning sillily. “I been wounded!”

“Okay,” Welsh sneered. “So you’ll get a Purple Heart.”

“You fucking A,” Storm said. “And don’t you forget to put me in.”

When he had them quiet, Stein explained his tactic to them. They would go over the crest in a sort of echelon of squads, bear left and then move straight on down. The MG would move further left to cover them. They were to search out any emplacements which had not been abandoned. They were under no circumstances to pause at, or have anything to do with the bivouac area. “This position’s busted wide open,” he said. “There’s nothing left to do but clean it up. But Colonel Tall and Baker Company are obviously being held up down there. We’re going to break it open for him from behind.” He paused. “Any questions?”

Nobody had any questions. They all nodded their heads that they understood. Then Storm suddenly said:

“Captain, when can I go to the rear?”

The other four all turned to look at him.

“I mean, you know, I been wounded,” Storm grinned. He raised his hand and flexed it for them. Nobody said anything.

“You mean you want to go right now?” Stein said.

“Sure!”

“Well, which way do you prefer to go? Do you want to go back down through the jungle by yourself? Or would you rather go straight on down the front of the hill?”

Storm didn’t answer this for a moment and appeared to be thinking. “I see what you mean,” he said finally. He raised his hand again and flexed it and looked at it. “I guess I better wait till we knock out those emplacements between us and Baker Company, hunh?”

Stein didn’t say anything, but grinned at him. Storm grinned back. “Ah jest hope Ah don’ git shot durin’ ’is lil ol’ operation,” he said putting on his best Texas accent. He looked at his hand again and flexed it. It still wasn’t bleeding and it didn’t hurt him but they could all hear it grate. “I sure hope it’s a big serious delicate medical operation to get that thing out of there,” he said.

“Okay. Everybody know what he’s supposed to do, now?” Stein said.

They all went back to their groups. Beck, imitating his predecessor Keck, had asked permission to take the first squad down himself. He led off while the machinegun changed its position, and slowly they spread out over the descending grassy hillside which yesterday from the valley had looked so high and so far away and so terrifyingly unattainable. Far below them they could see the ridge where they had spent last night.

All in all it was a much easier job than any of them had expected. The hillside was honeycombed with riflepits and MG emplacements, and it was obviously the Japanese commander’s intention to sell it very dearly. But now, having heard such great enemy firing in their rear, the Japanese began to come up out of their holes and surrender, sick, haggard, beaten-looking men, obviously terrified at the treatment they expected to receive at the hands of their enemy. Those who made the mistake of coming up with weapons in their hands were taken care of immediately by the machinegun or by the rifles of the platoon. The others, who came out empty-handed and hands up, were socked, punched, beaten, prodded, and hammered with riflebutts, but rarely—only in a few instances, say, six or seven—were they actually killed. But nobody liked them very well, that was the truth. Many of the holes were already silent and empty, abandoned by men who had rushed back to fight at the bivouac. If their silence seemed suspicious at all, these were bombed out with grenades without further ado. But only much further down the hill was there anything like a real fight. Led by Beck and Witt, a group attacked two large emplacements which were still firing at Colonel Tall’s men, who were trying to creep close enough to get at them. The MGs were silenced from behind. A few riflemen in pits nearby elected to shoot it out with rifles and died. B-for-Baker poured in through the gap, and the main fight was over and the mopping up began. Several Japanese committed suicide by holding grenades to their bellies, but not very many. 2d Platoon C-for-Charlie had suffered four casualties, of which one was dead.

The mopping up proved to be a pretty big operation in itself. There were still many unreduced emplacements scattered across the hillside, and many Japanese preferred to die rather than be captured. Some were too sick even to surrender, and simply sat by their guns firing them until they were killed. But first before all this could be taken care of, there had to be the reunion.

Stein was standing with Band, Beck and Welsh when Colonel Tall came striding along behind the Baker Company platoons, bamboo baton in hand, and smiling happily like a politician who has just received the confirmation of his election. Acting Sergeant Witt, who had been standing not far off, backed away and then disappeared.

A 2d Platoon man standing not far from Stein on the scorching hot sunburnt hillside a few minutes before had suddenly gargled like some sort of deathrattle and fallen flat on his face in a dead faint. He was not the first, nor was he the last. Someone had rolled him over and loosened his shirt and belt, and placed his sweat-and-snot-stained GI handkerchief over his face for protection. He still lay there and at the moment when Colonel Tall came up Stein was thinking about water. His own mouth was so parched he could hardly swallow, and he had already seen that there could be no water for them amongst the men with Tall, because nobody was carrying any cans. Water was what he wanted to know about most, but when Tall shook hands with him and made his congratulations, he waited politely until the amenities were over. Afterwards, he would often wonder why he had? Perhaps it was simply because he just was not that type of man?—not very forceful, really? He did notice that when Tall shook his hand, the Colonel’s smiling face underwent a peculiar subtle change which could no longer be called truly pleasant. John Gaff, who was coming along right behind the Colonel, looked at him strangely too, when he grinned and shook hands.

“Well, Stein, we did it, son! We did it!” Tall said, and slapped him on the back—rather sadly, Stein thought. He did not remember the Colonel ever having called him ‘son’ before.

There was further handshaking with Band and the sergeants. When the chortling was over he asked about the water.

“I’m sorry about that, Stein!” the Colonel smiled. “But there wasn’t a damn thing I could do. I had four cans for you—half of the eight cans my boys brought me. But the men were so excited, so wrought up, so thirsty, so…” He spread his hands. “They spilled about half of it, I guess. To get half a cup apiece.” Tall did not look guilty, simply resigned to life.

There was heavy firing still going on all around them. But they were all of them used to that by now.

“But you said you’d have all the water for us we could drink when we got here,” Stein said, much too mildly, he thought, once the words were out.

“And we will!” Tall smiled. “If you’ll look down there, you’ll see them coming. When I saw what was happening, I sent James back to harangue the Regimental Commander, the Division Commander, the Commanding General—any and everybody he could get his hands on, and the more stars the better.”

Stein turned automatically to look. Far below toiling along the valley, where he and his men had lain in such fear and terror yesterday, he could just make out a long snakelike line working slowly toward them. If he looked at it directly, it disappeared; he had to glance at it from the corner of his eye.

“That’s the result,” Tall said cheerfully from behind him. “And they’ll have rations as well as water, Stein! Now I think we ought to see about getting a line organized along the crest. And get this mopping up operation organized a little better. What do you think about the possibilities of a counterattack, Stein?”

The last sentence was noticeably sharper and Stein turned back quickly, in time to catch again on Tall’s face that same odd look: smiling, but underneath not smiling at all. Gaff only looked unhappy.

“We found no signs of any enemy at all, Sir,” he said, then forced himself to add for accuracy: “except one four-man heavy MG which we reduced.” He tried very hard to make his voice completely factual, and not give any double entendre sound to it. No triumph. But then his ego got the better of him. “What about the wounded, Sir? You didn’t bring any medics with you?”

“Stretcher parties should be along with the rations,” Tall said; in his steely voice. “You don’t have any company medics?”

“One, Sir. The other’s dead.”

“We had three with us,” Tall said. “But they’ve been kept busy with our own casualties. I suspect that we’ve sustained more casualties than
you
have today.” He peered at Stein.

“Shall we have a look at that crest line, Sir?” Stein said.

“I’ll let you do that,” Tall said. “I’ll see to this mopping up exercise.”

“Yes, Sir,” Stein said, and saluted. “Beck! Welsh!” He left George Band with the other officers.

The blow fell late that afternoon. Stein could not honestly say he had not anticipated it. C-for-Charlie’s 1st and 3d Platoons, having effectively cleaned out the bivouac area and captured a number of heavy mortars as well as two 70 mm field guns, were placed into a line along the crest they had captured and which covered the dangerous Elephant’s Trunk. B-for-Baker plus Charlie’s 2d Platoon, organized by Colonel Tall, had continued with the mopping up. Once they had finished, and it took them the best part of the day, 2d Platoon went into reserve behind the 1st and 3d. Baker Company moved into the crest line on the right of Charlie with one of its own platoons as its reserve. Notable in the midst of all this activity was the arrival of the water, and rations, which suspended everything for a half hour. It was when all this had been accomplished, and the fierce sun heat was beginning to abate and prelude the first signs of evening, that Colonel Tall called Stein off to himself in the former Japanese bivouac area back down behind the crest.

“I’m relieving you of your command, Stein,” he said without preamble. His face, that face, that young-old Anglo-Saxon face, so much younger looking and so much handsomer than Stein’s, was set in stern lines.

Stein could feel his heart suddenly beating in his ears, but he did not say anything. He thought about how he had handled that move up The Trunk today. But of course a lot of that
had
been luck.

“George Band will take over for you,” Tall said when Stein didn’t answer. “I’ve already told him. So you won’t have to.” He waited.

“Yes, Sir,” Stein said.

“It’s a hard thing to do,” Tall said, “and a difficult decision to make. But I just don’t think you’ll ever make a good combat officer. I’ve thought it over carefully.”

“Because of what happened yesterday morning?” Stein said.

“In part,” Tall said. “In part. But it’s really something else. I don’t think you’re tough enough. I think you’re too soft. Too softhearted. Not tough-fibered enough. I think you let your emotions govern you too much. I think your emotions control you. As I said, I’ve thought it over carefully.”

For no reason Stein found himself thinking of young Fife, his clerk who got hit yesterday, and of his run-ins with him, and how he himself used to think of Fife. He had said to the G-l that he thought Fife too neurotic, too emotional to make a good infantry line officer. Perhaps that was the way Tall thought of him? That was strange. But what would his father the ex-World War I Major say to this? He still did not say anything, and suddenly the schoolboy feeling came over him again, the sense of guilt and of being dressed down. He could not shake it. It was almost laughable.

“In a war people have to get killed,” Tall said. “There just isn’t any way around it, Stein. And a good officer has to accept it, and then calculate the loss in lives against the potential gain. I don’t think you can do that.”

“I don’t
like
to see my men get killed!” Stein heard himself saying hotly in defense.

“Of course not. No good officer does. But he has to be able to face it,” Tall said. “And sometimes he has to be able to
order
it.”

Stein didn’t answer.

“In any case,” Tall said sternfaced, “it’s my decision to make, and I’ve already made it.”

Stein was studying his own reactions. There was, he found, a quite strong desire to describe for the Colonel the actions he had accomplished today: the long march, the taking of The Trunk, how he had come to Tall’s aid and broken open a way in for him—and then to point out that yesterday, as if Tall didn’t know it, was the first time he had ever really been under real fire, point out that today he had been much less concerned about seeing his men killed. Perhaps that was what Tall wanted him to say, in order to allow him to keep him? Or perhaps Tall didn’t want, did not intend to keep him in any case? But Stein didn’t say it. Instead, he grinned suddenly and said something else. He could feel it was a pretty stiff grin. “In a way, it’s almost a compliment then, isn’t it, Colonel, sort of?”

Tall stared at him exactly as though he had not heard what he said, or that if he had it did not apply to anything at all, and went on with what he obviously had already prepared to say. Stein did not feel like saying it again. Anyway, he was not sure—in fact, he did not
believe
—that what he had just said was true. He believed, with Tall, the opposite. It was no compliment.

“There’s no point in making a scandal,” Tall went on. “I don’t want it in the records of the Battalion while I commanded it, and there’s no point in your having it put down against you on your records. This has nothing to do with cowardice or inefficiency. I’m going to let you apply for reassignment to the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in Washington for reasons of ill health. You’re a lawyer. Have you had malaria yet?”