The Thin Red Line (64 page)

When the orders came, they came not in the voice of the 1st Battalion Exec, but from the person of the Regimental Commander himself. That mottlefaced, whitehaired old drunkard with the huge paunch was taking on himself the responsibility of ordering both Battalions to go on, immediately. The Division Commander had already received permission from the General Commanding to change the division’s boundary on the right. The plan was for 3d Battalion to turn right from The Shrimp’s Head and attack toward the beach over a series of more or less connected, open hills. The objective was to reach the beach at the village of Bunabala (which high command had not expected to reach for weeks, or months) splitting the Japanese Army and cutting off the Japanese still holding out against the beach division. Band whistled silently. This was quite some objective, for one battalion—or even for two battalions. As if in answer, the Exec went on that, of course, they would be reinforced as soon as practicable by 2d Battalion and the other regiment.

1st Battalion on the other hand, the Exec said, and Band nodded because he thought he already knew, was to turn right also, but in a wider sweep, on the outside of 3d Battalion, to protect their flank. They were, uh, in an image, to run blocking interference for 3d Battalion who would be carrying the ball. But as they would have no series of connected open hills over which to maneuver, their situation would be somewhat different. They would find on the map a series of widely separated small hills some distance to the left of 3d Battalion’s route. These, which came out into the coconut groves just to the left Bunabala, were their objectives. They were to take them, leaving just enough men to hold each one, and move on—finally to Bunabala, where they would turn left to protect the rear of 3d Battalion fighting on the right. As soon as their water, rations and stretcherbearers reached them, they were to move out. As to future water, they would have to find that for themselves on the way. There were several creeks and some waterholes on the map adjacent to their route. They had water purifying pills, didn’t they? Band said that they did. Okay, that was all, and good luck, the Exec said excitedly. Band was about to switch over, thank him drily and sign off, when the Exec called him.

There was one other thing. “What? What, sir?” Band heard him say dimly, then: “The Regimental Commander says you may find yourself being cut off from your own lines. Certainly 1st and 3d Battalions will be cut off from each other. But within your Battalion your companies may even find themselves cut off from each other.” The Exec spoke slowly, as though the Regimental Commander was giving it to him sentence by sentence. “Therefore,” he said, “you are to consider yourselves operating as independent commands, except where communication is possible. Okay? Over.”

Band’s mouth was suddenly dry with excitement. “Roger,” he said calmly. “Over and out.” When he hung up the instrument, his eyes behind his spectacles were brighter than they had ever been. Independent commands! Operating as independent commands!

The Exec had said earlier that Col Spine would try to keep up with them as closely as was practicable, but Band knew what that meant. It meant Spine would be at least as far back as the front of 2d Battalion or the other regiment, as they moved up to consolidate.

L Company’s commander had received substantially the same dope, with one exception. Their Colonel commanding was going with them. Band and the L Company commander shook hands once again.

C-for-Charlie watched L Company take off. There was a nervous, strangely excited feeling in the air now. It was impossible to tell which battalion had drawn the easier assignment. The front slope of The Shrimp’s Head fell away gently to the right of their own axis of advance, thus creating The Shrimp’s long Face and little Beard which showed up so plainly in the aerial photos. The last elements of L Company crossed the Beard and disappeared into the jungle as C-for-Charlie watched.

Band called a council of his officers and all first-three-graders. Independent commands! He smiled his small smile. When they had all arrived, he told them, “It looks like maybe the whole thing has been blown wide open. Nobody—in our sector anyway—can find the Imperial Japanese Army. Our orders are to keep pushing ahead until we do find them, and then hit them to see how strong they are. If possible, we’re to aid 3d Battalion in the capture of Bunabala. This may be a breakthrough and we may be able to cut them off. Okay, men, let’s get it to movin. We got a lot of walkin to do.” He dismissed them and they started back to their units. He was pleased with his speech. He was pleased with squatting here and making such a speech, in this hot sweltering bright morning sunshine on a dusty mountain slope with the jungle all around below them on this island of Guadalcanal, far off in the tropical South Pacific sea. Independent commands! Band was absolutely certain that his company anyway, for one, was going to be there for the capture of Bunabala.

It was essentially a new word to the company. It had cropped up in a few conversations long, long ago back down on the beach, before combat. The Marines had once sent an illfated expedition to try to capture it. Now Bunabala ran through the company from squad to squad like wildfire and, of course, was immediately changed by somebody to Boola Boola. It was, they knew, a village situated on the beach in the coconut groves. Up to today Boola Boola had been a distant mirage, a nonexistent-in-the-future town they would someday have to attack and take. Now it was, excitingly, their immediate objective.

Their stretcherbearers, rations and water arrived. Nobody carried packs now, but two cans of C ration could be carried in the hip pockets. Almost everybody, for the first time since leaving the rest bivouac, decided to drink down, give away, or pour out their remaining whiskey and refill the second canteen with water. Welsh was one of the few exceptions. He kept his two canteens of gin. Then, equipped as well as they could hope to be, they prepared to move out.

It was just at this point, while the final hitching and settling and stamping was going on, that Milly Beck the martinet and former squad sergeant, now an equally conscientious platoon leader, came to Band with a deeply frowning face and a request that his platoon be put in company reserve. “My boys’ve had it tougher than any of the other platoons, Lootenant. Including The Elephant’s Head. They’ve had more casualties, and are more under strength. They deserve a break now.”

“Did you ask Lieutenant Tomms about this?” Band said, adjusting his glasses to peer at him.

“Him?” Beck said in his stolid direct way. “No. What’s he know about any of it?”

“That’s true,” Band said. He did not like this kind of request. But Beck was scrupulously fair—in his dumb way—and what was more important, he was good at his job. Band thought in silence, pushing at the bridge of his glasses with his middle finger.

“It ain’t fair to leave my boys out there all the goddam time,” Beck added in the silence, as if that made it conclusive.

Afterward Band thought he might have acceded to the request if Beck had not spoken just then. Now, instead, he jerked his head up to stare at him. “Fair? What’s not fair? What’s fair got to do with it? No,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to deny your request, Sergeant. Your platoon is the best I’ve got. They’ve got more experience, they’re tougher, they know how to handle themselves better. They belong out in front.”

“Is that an order then, Sir?” Beck growled, staring at him.

“I’m afraid it is, Sergeant.”

“In other words, the more of us get killed gettin experience, the more of us
got
to get killed usin it.”

Band felt it was time to pull rank, but he did not do it bluntly or brutally. “As I said, fair has nothing to do with it,” he said crisply. “Unfortunately. In a war everything useful has to be used. And here it is me who decides what is most useful where.” He made his eyes steely behind his steel spectacles. “Any other questions, Sergeant Beck?”

“No, sir.” Beck growled it, furiously.

“Then that’s all.”

“Aye, aye, Sir!” Beck saluted, did an accurate aboutface, and marched away at attention at a solid 120 per. It was the only way left him of showing his disapproval. “My platoon!” he bawled. “Off and on!”

Poor man, Band thought, smiling his small smile. He was sorry. Still, he thought he had handled it pretty well. “Sergeant!” he called, on a sudden whim.

Beck swung around. He was only about fifteen feet away. Nobody else was near them. “I want to tell you something, Sergeant,” Band said, smiling behind his spectacles.

“Sir?”

“Do you know why C-for-Charlie is the Battalion’s lead company today in this attack? It’s because I volunteered us for it to the new Battalion Commander.”

“You what!” Beck cried in disbelief, and crouched almost as if to charge him.

Band raised his eyebrows, and waited. Beck was too old a hand not to know what that meant. “
Sir!
” he added chokingly.

“That’s right,” Band smiled. “And do you know why I did? It was because I felt C-for-Charlie with its superior combat experience would be more useful there. To Regiment, to the Division, to the attack. To everybody.” He continued to smile, hoping it would sink in.

Slowly, Beck drew himself up to attention, his eyes completely filmed over. “Is that all, Sir?” he said distantly, and with dignity.

“That’s all, Sergeant.”

For answer Beck saluted, aboutfaced and went on. “My platoon!” he bawled again. “Off and on!”

Sadly, Band watched him go.

This time Beck put Dale’s squad in front as point. He saw no reason why Band’s being a chicken shit must make him one too. And this time there was grumbling in the platoon over being first again. Wherever Beck heard it, he cursed them roundly and furiously. He was brooking no argument in his platoon. First Dale’s squad disappeared into the leaves, then the other three. Then came 3d Platoon, followed by the Company Hq, then 1st Platoon, then Weapons. As they disappeared one by one, Baker Company moved around to the front of the hill to form up and follow them.

While C-for-Charlie, ignored by Baker who were worried only about themselves and quite glad of their number two spot, was cautiously beginning its first 1000 yard jungle trek, at least two of its partisans were doing everything in their power to catch up with it. Mess Sergeant Storm and Acting-P.F.C. Witt, unknown to each other, and for different reasons, were both doing their best to find the company.

If C-for-Charlie was not thinking of Witt, and had not thought about him since the night he had run drunk off the side of the mountain, Witt had nevertheless been thinking about them all the time. There was true anguish in his implacable Kentucky heart when he learned they had been moved from reserve up into the attack this morning and he knew he could not be with them because of his vow. At the time he learned it, he was back on Hill 209 carrying watercans and rationboxes. Cannon Company—still thought of as an outfit of bums, misfits and deadbeats, and still without their cannons—had been pressed into service as supply porters this time, instead of as stretcherbearers, and were carrying supplies between Hill 209 and Hill 214, The Elephant’s Forelegs. It was because of this that Witt had not heard about Colonel Tall’s promotion. It was not until noon, when he returned from another pack trip to Hill 214 and overheard some Regimental Hq clerks talking about Tall’s raise in salary, that he found out. He immediately got his rifle and some bandoliers and sneaked off, heading for Hill 214 along the jeep road. He had only been made Acting-P.F.C. two days ago—Acting because all ranks were Acting in Cannon Company, which had never yet been given an official TO—and now he was sure to lose his rating. On the other hand, he had been an Acting-Sergeant in C-for-Charlie for two days. Laughing happily over all of this, he traversed the brand new jungle road between Hill 214 and The Sea Slug, and found Maynard Storm and his entire kitchen all set up on the open ridge, at just about the same time that C-for-Charlie was capturing its first undefended hill off in the midst of the jungle sea.

Storm was having his own troubles. Back at the hospital, when he had sworn to remain a mess sergeant and stay the hell off the front lines, he had also sworn to feed his pore, bleeding outfit at least one hot meal a day if it was at all humanly possible. To this end, back at the empty bivouac where MacTae the supply sergeant was the only other person of authority left and who certainly didn’t mind, Storm had commandeered both company jeeps, loaded them with his cooks, stoves and supplies and had taken off at dawn to feed C-for-Charlie, only to find them already gone when he arrived at The Elephant’s Head. They were, he was informed, on The Sea Slug digging in as Regimental reserve. Patiently doubling back and taking the other road he arrived at The Sea Slug (after considerable argument with the Provost Marshal’s MPs guarding the new jungle section) only to find them gone again. 2d Battalion was already moving into their holes. And here he was stumped. He could not go any farther. Even jeeps could not move to The Shrimp’s Tail until the Engineers made a road, and all supplies were being carried by native porters. Even when there was a road, he was told, other transport would have priority, like ammo, cold rations, water. Modern war, after first wounding him, had finally caught up with Storm in his work. Modern war didn’t give a damn whether Storm fed his company hot food or not. Modern war couldn’t care less about a solitary company mess, trying to get far enough forward to give its outfit hot food and fucking up the highway priorities, and nobody was going to help him. And it had become an obsession with Storm to feed his outfit at least one hot meal a day. Only in that way could he relieve himself of the guilts he felt for not being with them. And now all he could do was sit here with one thumb up his ass and the other in his mouth like some baby. A lesser man would have broken and wept. Storm cursed with tears in his eyes.

On the other hand, Storm’s cooks were all glad. None of them had liked this crazy idea anyway. It was too dangerously near the firing. He had forced them to come here and try this goofy scheme over their collective objections. They didn’t even have any KPs to do the dirty work. And now they watched their near tearful leader maliciously and whispered among themselves that maybe now he would let them go home to the bivouac. Finally one of them got up nerve enough to go and ask him this. Storm delivered him such a left hook in the side of the head that it knocked him down and his head rang for two hours. While he worked. Because Storm had immediately put them all to work.