The Thin Red Line (50 page)

“No, Sir.”

“Doesn’t matter, really. I can fix that. Anyway, you probably will have it. Also I’m recommending you for the Silver Star. I will recommend it in such a way that it will definitely not be refused.”

Stein felt an instinctive, angry desire to protest the medal, and half-raised his hand. But then he let it drop. What the hell? What difference did it
really
make? And in Washington. Stein liked Washington.

Tall from behind his stern, set, expressionless face had noted the half-raised hand of protest. “You might as well have the Purple Heart, too,” he said.

“Why?”

Tall looked him over. “Well, for one thing,” Tall said expressionlessly, “I notice a pretty deep scratch on your left cheek from hitting those goddamned fucking rocks back there yesterday.” He raised his hand. “And if that’s not enough, I also note a couple of blood streaks from scratches on your hands, underneath all that goddam fucking mud.” He stared at Stein expressionlessly.

Stein suddenly wanted to weep. He didn’t know why, really. Perhaps it was because he could no longer even dislike Tall. Not even Tall.

And if you couldn’t dislike even Tall… “Aye, aye, Sir,” he said evenly, affecting boredom.

“I think it’s best if you go back right away, with the next batch of wounded and prisoners,” Tall said expressionlessly. “It’s no good for you to keep hanging around. The quieter we keep this thing the better it will be for all.”

“Aye, Sir,” Stein said, and saluted, and turned away. He suddenly saw himself in his imagination with tears in his eyes, stumbling, a broken man. But that was pretty cornball. And his eyes were quite dry. To go to Washington? He could not really say he minded that. God, what legends! The war had made it the biggest, roaringest, richest, most exciting boomtown in the nation. And all for paperwork. A group of stretcherbearers were preparing to make the descent down to where the jeeps were finally making their way forward on the short forward slope of Hill 209, and Stein headed for them.

He stared a long time at Hill 209’s short forward slope. That was where just yesterday they had moved forward into enemy territory, and now it was no longer dangerous. Men swarmed along it. So this was it. The long-awaited, soul-illuminating experience of combat. Stein could not find it any different from working for one of the great law offices, or
any
of the huge corporations. Or for government. Like the Soviets. A little more dangerous to life and limb, but no different in its effect upon the reward-haunted, ax-fearing spirits of the workers. When the stretcher party was ready, he went with them, helping with the stretchers over the rough places when it was necessary. What did Tall really think of him? Or did he think nothing at all?

The word got around quickly. In spite of Tall’s wish to keep it quiet, all of C-for-Charlie—and for that matter, the entire Battalion—knew that C Company’s commander had been relieved within fifteen minutes after Stein had left. In C-for-Charlie it made many of the men and noncoms very angry, but it was Acting Sergeant Witt who first thought of the idea of raising a deputation to go and protest. Many were in favor of the idea, but asked who would they protest to? To Brass Band, the new commander, or to Shorty Tall himself? It seemed a sort of slap in the face to protest to Band. On the other hand to protest to Shorty was inconceivable, since he would undoubtedly throw them all in the can for even daring to think of such a thing in the first place. In the end it all tapered away to nothing but bitter mumble. But if the others were willing to assuage their consciences this way, Witt who was very angry did not feel he could let it go at that.

Witt had already had one bad run-in today. When he had so wisely and delicately retired from proximity to the reunion of Tall and Stein, (he too had seen that there was no water), he had gone off a ways on the hillside to sit down by himself and rest. He was exhausted. And terribly dry. It was here, as he simply sat numbly staring emptily off down the hill, that Charlie Dale the ex second cook, who had come through with Gaff and the other volunteers in the B Company platoons, sought him out to complain.

The stocky Dale with his perpetually hunched shoulders and powerful long arms marched himself up stolidly, directly in front of the sitting Witt and stood himself there lumpishly to have his say. He had his rifle in his hands.

“I got somethin I want to tell you, Witt,” he growled.

Witt’s mind, such as it was at the moment, was far, far away. “Yeah?” he said somnambulantly. “What’s that?”

“You shouldn’t ought to talk to me like you did,” Dale growled authoritatively, “and I don’t want you to do it any more. That’s an order.”

“What?” Witt said, coming more awake at the tone of voice. “What? When?”

“Back there at the strongpoint this morning. You remember, Witt.”

“What did I say?”

“You called me a jerk when I tossed that grenade down that one hole and that Jap tossed it back out. That’s no way to talk to me. I’m a noncom now, and it ain’t dignified. In any case,” he said, a phrase he had picked up from listening to Gaff and Stein, and then repeated it with relish. “In any case, I’m orderin you not to do it no more.”

Witt looked as if he had been stung by a mad bee. Not angry. Mad. “Arngh, come off it, Charlie,” he snarled. “I knew you when you was a lousy second cook. And a not very good one at that. I ain’t takin any orders from you. You can shove them acting stripes up your ass.”

“You called me a jerk.”

“Well, you are a jerk!” Witt shouted, scrambling to his feet. “A jerk! A jerk! A jerk! And what’s more, you’re stupid! You should of known better than to—And anyway, I’m an acting sergeant too myself! Stein made me this morning! Now, peel off!” He was still furious about Tall’s having made such an ass of him this morning, and now here this ass was trying to give him stupid orders. “Jerk!” he shouted again insanely.

Dale appeared perplexed by the information that his enemy was now also an acting sergeant. “I’m not a jerk,” he said calmly. “And you wasn’t no acting sergeant when you done it. And anyway, I was made before you so I still outrank you. And I ain’t scared of you.” Then his voice softened as he thought of a new thing. “Besides, it just don’t look good in front of the men, Witt,” he said as if they were two Majors bellying up to the Officers’ Club bar.

“Men, my ass! Men, my ass!” Witt shouted. He bent and picked up his rifle and held it in both hands across the front of him the way a man holds a two-ended weapon. The bayonet wasn’t on it. “Charlie Dale, I never hit nobody without I warn them first. That’s my policy. Well, I’m warning you. Get away from me and stay away. If you ever say another word to me, I’ll belt your fucking head in. And I can whip your ass!”

“I think I can whip you,” Dale said in his phlegmatic way.

“Then have a
go!
Have a
go!
”

“No, there’s too much work to do around here right now. The mopping up’s just starting. I don’t want to miss that.”

“Anything you want!” Witt yelled. “Knives, bayonets, fists, riflebutts, shooting!”

“Fists’ll do,” Dale said narrowly. “I don’t want to kill you—”

“You couldn’t!”

“—and I know you been a boxer,” Dale went on calmly. “And all that shit. I can still whip you.”

“Yeah?” Witt advanced on him raising his riflebutt as if to stroke him in the side of the head with it, but Dale backed off. He raised his own rifle, which was bayoneted, into fighting position.

“Maybe I couldn’t whip you,” Dale decided. “But you’ll know you been in a fight, buddy.”

“Come on! Come on!” Witt cried. “Talk! Talk! Talk!”

“There’s too much serious work to do,” Dale said, “right now. I’ll try you later, buddy.” He turned and walked away.

“Any time!” Witt had yelled after him, and then sat back down, his rifle across his knees. He was trembling with a cold rage. Whip him! There wasn’t a man his size in the Regiment who could whip him. And he doubted there was anybody in the Regiment who could whip him at bayonet fighting. As for shooting, he had been high gun in every Regiment he served with for the past six years. Don’t look good in front of the men. Jesus!

Now, he had decided, he had two people in the Battalion to hate: its Commander and Charlie Dale.

Witt had not, what with all the mopping up fighting of the afternoon, retained his mood of supreme, disgusted fury; but it had come back over him soon enough as soon as the news of Stein’s disgrace had reached him and he tried to organize a protest. These guys were all slobs, that was the truth. And this Battalion was going to hell on a sled. Band! For Company Commander? Witt believed he knew how to recognize a Company Commander, and Brass Band was no Company Commander. For that matter, neither had Stein been one. He had only just become one in the last two days, and look what happened! Now they were kicking him out. As the possibility of an organized protest slowly dwindled away into grumbling, just as slowly Witt gradually realized what he was going to do. He just didn’t want to be in this shitty battalion any more. Not without Stein. A cold, implacable Kentuckyness came over him, pulling his sharp chin down into his thin neck and setting his narrow shoulders stolidly. He reported himself to the new Company Commander at the CP shortly before dusk.

That goddamned Welsh was there, of course. Brass Band was sitting six feet away from him, eating the last of a can of C ration meat-and-beans.

“Private Witt requests permission to speak to the Company Commander,” Witt said to the Sergeant. Band looked up from his meat-and-beans with those eager, screwball eyes of his. But he didn’t say anything. And Witt did not let his eyes waver from the Sergeant.

Welsh stared at him grimly. Then he turned his head. “Sir, Private Witt requests permission to speak to the Company Commander,” he snarled.

“Okay,” Band said, and smiled his eager smile. He took a last bite of his meat-and-beans, threw away the can, licked off his spoon and put it in his pocket. He was wearing no helmet. Witt, like everybody else in the two companies, knew that Band had had his helmet shot off his head by a Japanese coming up out of a hole, during the mopping up work. The bullet had gone in the left side at about the temple making a small, neat hole, and had come out the back making a large, jagged hole. Band who had not been knocked down had spun and shot the Jap. The battered helmet now lay beside him on the ground. Witt marched over to him and saluted.

“Sit down, Witt, sit down. Make yourself com
-fort
-able,” he said in a jocular, cavalier way. “But you’re not ‘Private’ Witt anymore; you’re ‘Acting Sergeant’ Witt. I heard Captain Stein when he made you this morning.” He bent and picked up the helmet. “Have you seen my helmet, Witt?”

“No, Sir,” Witt said truthfully.

Band pulled the dented fiber liner out of it and displayed it. Then he stuck his finger through the bigger hole and waggled it at Witt. “That’s something, isn’t it, hunh?”

“Yes, Sir,” Witt said.

Band threw the helmet aside, after putting back in the liner. “I never knew these things ever really protected anybody,” he said. “I’m going to keep this, the shell anyway, and take it home with me when I get another.”

Witt suddenly thought of John Bell who had had the same thing happen to him at the strongpoint, and for a moment was intensely sorry to be leaving him, and the others. They were a good bunch, that assault group. Except for Charlie Dale.

“But I said sit down, Witt, sit down,” Band smiled.

“I prefer to stand, Sir,” Witt said.

“Oh?” Band’s eager smile disappeared. “All right, Witt. What was it you wanted, Witt?”

“Sir, I want to tell the Company Commander that I am returning to my old outfit, Cannon Company of this Regiment,” Witt said. “The reason I wanted to tell the Company Commander was so that if the Company Commander noticed I wasn’t around, he would know why.”

“Well that isn’t necessary, Witt. I think we can arrange to have you transferred,” Band said amiably. He laughed. “Don’t worry about being AWOL. You’ve been a pretty valuable man the last couple of days, you know.”

“Yes, Sir,” Witt said.

“You know, we’re short of noncoms. Tomorrow I intend to make all the temporary ranks permanent.”

A bribe. Witt could smell Welsh watching with supreme disgust. “Yes, Sir,” he said.

Band’s eyes suddenly narrowed above his still smiling mouth. “You still want to go.” He sighed. “All right, Witt. I guess there’s really no way I can stop you officially. And anyway I wouldn’t want a man in my command who didn’t want to serve under me.”

“It’s not that, Sir,” Witt lied. Because it was. At least partly. “It’s that I don’t want to serve in a battalion”—he deliberately did not mention Colonel Tall—“that does to guys what this battalion did to Captain Stein,”

“Okay, Witt.” Then he smiled that smile again. “But I feel that’s not up to us to judge. Every army is bigger than any single man in it.”

Preachin’s. “Yes, Sir,” Witt said.

“That’s all, Witt,” Band said. Witt saluted, Band returned it, and Witt turned away.

“Oh, Witt!” Band said softly. Witt turned back. “Perhaps you’d like a letter to present to your Company Commander in Cannon Company attesting to where you’ve been the past two days. If you would, I’d be glad to write one for you.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Witt said impassively.

“Sergeant,” Band said, “write me a letter saying To Whom It May Concern that Witt has been with this organization the past two days in the thick of the fighting and has been recommended for decorations.”

“I ain’t got no typewriter,” Welsh said disgustedly.

“Don’t argue with me, Sergeant!” Band shouted. “Write the letter! Take this sheet of paper and write the letter!”

“Aye, Sir,” Welsh said. He took the sheet Band handed him from the inherited musette of Stein. “Weld!” The middleaged little draftee came running. “Take this paper and go over to that stump and write me a letter. I want it printed. You got a pen?” he barked.

“Yes, Sir!”

“You know what to put in the letter?”

“Yes, Sir!” Weld said. “Yes, Sir!”

“Okay. Move! And don’t call me Sir, fuckface. You fucking draftee.”