The Thin Red Line (71 page)

John Bell calculated that this time it took the average man more than six full days to lose the combat numbness—as against the two days required after The Dancing Elephant. In reality this campaign, though longer, was not nearly as tough in either fire power or casualties as The Dancing Elephant. Bell could only conclude that the thing was cumulative. Cumulative or not, as it left them the air raids began to scare them again. Actually, the air raids were not nearly as dangerous now; and they themselves were in a much better position now than they had ever had. North of the Matanikau here, they were more than two miles from the air field.

It didn’t make any difference. And anyway, the Japanese were executing more nuisance personnel raids now than they were attacks against the air strip, and were liable to drop their loads anywhere along the island.

Not one single man in C-for-Charlie had believed he would ever again be afraid of these puny air raids once he got back off the line, but when a man in a nearby company had his jaw taken off as he lay on his bunk by an unexploded dud antiaircraft shell, a number of men in C-for-Charlie rather shamefacedly began to dig themselves slit trenches outside their tents. To be killed in one of these silly, asinine air raids after all the combat they had lived through? It was an ironic flick of God which no one could face. Soon they would be back in the dull, mudhaunted, airraidfear-ridden routine of life they had lived before—B.C., as some wit said: Before Combat. A source of liquor simply had to be found. Then one morning at Reveille Pfc Nellie Coombs the sharpy card dealer fell down twice, dead drunk.

When the same thing happened two more days in a row, a group of vigilantes was formed among the noncoms to shadow him to his source. This proved to be an old cracker tin covered with a cheesecloth, sitting in a sunny place in the tongue of jungle near the bivouac and surrounded by buzzing millions of insects. Nellie, like many of the other oldtimer regulars, had served in both the Philippines and Hawaii before the war, when a private’s pay could afford only the homemade bootleg mess made by the natives out of fruit and called ‘swipe’. He had utilized this knowledge to steal some gallon cans of cherries and peaches and put it up with yeast, sugar and water to ferment in the sun. The scout shadowing him, who happened to be Sgt Beck, came back drunk to report that the stuff tasted awful but it certainly was potent. Wow! Why Nellie Coombs had decided to keep his treasure find completely to himself nobody knew. It was just his secretive way. But immediately raids were organized to steal tins of crackers and cans of fruit from the ration dumps, which were simply loaded with them. Finally a true source had been found! A source that would never run out. Balance had been achieved, and at last they could sit out again at night drinking, and laugh drunkenly at the air raids.

1st Lt Johnny Creo, of course, had no idea what had happened to his outfit, or where they were getting it. Nor did anyone tell him: the conspiracy was complete.

The word spread like wildfire. Companies all around C-for-Charlie began putting up their own crackertin mash, and passed the technique on to those around them. After all, there was no point in keeping it a secret since there was enough for all. One thing the American Army was
never
going to run out of was canned fruit. As often happened with humanity when in need of a great innovation or invention, it was found that several experimenters working at widely separated points had made the same discovery at almost exactly the same moment. From these centers the great news spread like wavelets on a pond until they overlapped and everybody knew. When two men somewhere became blind and partially paralyzed from some sort of lead poisoning caused by the crackertins, everybody switched to five and ten gallon wooden picklekegs and the courageous, experimental work went right on. It was found that if the picklekegs were left unscrubbed, the sour flavor left in the wood helped to cut the horrible sickly sweet taste of the fruit.

It was at just about this time—when C-for-Charlie was trying out its first series of picklekeg mashes—that Acting-P.F.C. Witt of Cannon Company showed up again. He was coming back around to ask for transfer back into his old outfit. He had just learned that Brass Band no longer commanded it. He got drunk with the boys that night on the new picklekeg swipe.

Naturally Johnny Creo wanted nothing to do with him. And Witt never did learn that it was Fullback Culp who saved the day for him and made his transfer possible. When Culp heard that Creo was not going to put through the request for transfer, he accosted the new Commander in his orderly tent and sent the clerks out, Weld with his broken nose still all taped up.

“Lissen, Johnny,” he said earnestly. “I been with this compny longer than you have, and I know them better than you do. If you ever have to lead this outfit in combat, you’ll wish to hell you had Witt with you!”

Creo compressed his thin lips beneath his longpicklenose. “I stood by and heard him
threaten
his own Company Commander!”

“Balls to that!” Culp snarled. “Sure. And I for one don’t blame him. You don’t understand these guys. Remember I been through more combat with them than you have, too. I was around there on The Elephant’s Head when Witt went in with that assault force. I tell you you’re makin a serious mistake if you don’t take him back. You’re denyin yourself one of the best potential platoon leaders you’ll ever get a chance at.”

“I don’t want that kind of man in my outfit,” Creo said thinly.

The Fullback hooted. “Next thing you’ll be tellin me you’re a liberal and you don’t want him in your outfit because he hates Negroes! This is war, man! War! I know you outrank me and can put me down for what I’m sayin. But I don’t care. You got to listen.” And listen he made him. He continued to argue with all the same force and outrageous vitality that he had once used on Jim Stein to argue the raid on the Marines for those Thompsonguns, and in the end he beat him down by sheer energy. Finally Creo agreed. It was almost the last act of any consequence Culp was to perform in C-for-Charlie. Two days later he blew most of his right hand off fishing.

It was not the first expedition to the Matanikau for fish to augment the eternal diet of Spam, dehydrated mashed potatoes, and canned fruit. Three times during the two weeks they had been back off the line they had done it, and each time Storm had created them such a massive fishfry that it made the more fragileminded weep for home. This time they took only three grenades with them because two were usually enough. It was strictly prohibited of course, which was why they always went just after dawn. Certain highranking officers had thoughtfully brought their fly and baitcasting rods with them to Guadalcanal. Culp and his boys were not after sport but the greatest volume of fish in the shortest possible time, and for this grenades were perfect. Somebody—Skinny Culn, it was—threw the first one. Three swimmers were already waiting nude on the bank, to make the collection before the current could carry them off. A minute after the underwater explosion maybe fifty fish were floating bellyupward on the slowly moving stream.

“Two ought to do it! I’ll throw the next one!” The Fullback cried excitedly. “Further upstream!” He walked a few yards that way. Then he pulled pin and threw. Everybody was laughing and talking excitedly. Half a second out of his hand the grenade exploded in mid air. Some lady defenseplant worker in sexy blue-jeans had been talking to her neighbor on the assemblyline about her new dress or new lover and mismeasured her fusecutting.

He was lucky he wasn’t killed. He was unconscious, of course. Two fingers were completely gone and two dangled by shreds of skin. In the rosy dawn light they got a tourniquet on the arm and tied the whole hand up in a bundle in somebody’s handkerchief so as not to tear off the two fingers. Then they got him started for the hospital in an improvised stretcher made of two buttoned up fatigue blouses with poles through the arms. Two swimmers stayed behind to gather the fish. On the way they commandeered a jeep. At the hospital the doctor told them that their prompt action might possibly save the two fingers. But they were all old hands at First Aid by now. It was the very least they could do for The Fullback. When he finally woke up, Culp grinned groggily. “I never felt a thing!” he said proudly. “Didn’t hurt at all!” His hand was already in a big wire frame that looked like a huge glove. Next day he was flown out to New Zealand.

Before he left The Fullback told Culn and Beck what he had done about Witt. “But you guys got to make him make Witt sergeant. He never will by himself. I was saving that till later.”

“He can’t,” Skinny Culn said. “Make or break anybody. I got a good friend at Regimental S-1 told me Charlie’s TO is froze on ranks till they make him permanent or give us a new permanent commander.”

“I see,” Culp said. “You get around, don’t you? Well, maybe it’ll work out then.” He sighed. “Well, maybe I’ll see you guys in some hospital or other, hunh?” he grinned. So The Fullback, that perennial collegeboy, was out too now. They would sorely miss his kindly, honest, insipid sanity.

It took three weeks for Witt’s transfer to go through. Then the tiny Kentuckian showed up toting his “A” and “B” bags and everything else he owned, grinning from ear to ear. He was immediately promoted to sergeant by the new Company Commander, Captain Bosche, who had saved a spot for him.

Bosche was not the only thing that had happened to them during those three weeks. Though perhaps in a way he was the most important. Certainly he left his personal mark on everything else that did happen to them. But at least as important as Bosche was the new training schedule. The new training schedule arrived even before Bosche did, and the essence of it was amphibious training.

There had been rumors that they were going to Australia for training and regroupment like the 1st Marine Division had. Even the most hopeful knew better that first day they were carried out in the Channel in landing craft and brought back in to practice a landing. They were not going anywhere except north, to New Georgia. When this became clear, there was a marked increase in the amount of swipe consumed by the company.

The training continued without letup, and when Bosche arrived he at once made it even tougher. Rifle ranges had been built on the island, and they worked at them day after day, firing and firing, sweating under the hot sun without shade. There were practice marches every two or three days. The mortar and MG sections—under their new lieutenant replacing Culp—were given enormous practice firings, and with
live
ammo. No expense was being spared. Only the nights—of sitting out in the moonlight drinking the horrible tasting swipe and talking, the thinking about women—remained unchanged.

When Bosche first arrived to take over from Johnny Creo, he immediately made a speech about the swipe.

He was a tough little guy, maybe thirtyfive, tightly packed into his tailormade khakis. He wore a tight little belly that appeared at least as hard as the flat abdominals of most athletes. His brass belt buckle shone like a star. On his left breast was sewn a whole flock of ribbons amongst which were immediately noticeable a Silver Star and a Purple Heart with cluster. He had been wounded twice. He had seen action at Pearl Harbor. He was not a West Pointer. He had, instead, learned his soldiering the hard way, which was by experience. He was coming to them from one of the regiments of the Americal Division. This was his first command as a full-fledged captain.

“I’ve certainly seen as much, probably more, combat than you guys have. I don’t like war. But we’ve got it and it’s here. On the other hand, I can’t say I dislike
everything
about it.

“Now I know you men are making and drinking this goddam swipe. That’s okay by me. Any man in an outfit of mine can get as drunk as he wants to every night, as long as he’s ready—and in shape—to make Reveille and carry out any assignment he is given. If he can’t do that, he’s gonna have trouble, and from me. Personal.”

He paused here and looked them over where they stood clustered around the jeep he had clambered up on.

“I don’t much like this word team. It’s creepin into everything. It’s not a Regiment any more, it’s a Regimental Combat Team. Okay. I don’t much like it, but I’ll use it when I have to. So we’re a team.”

With this admission he paused once more, this time for dramatic emphasis.

“But I prefer to think of myself as a family man. And that’s what we all are here, whether we like it or not. A family. I’m the father, and,”—he paused again—“I guess that makes Sergeant Welsh here the mother.” There was some laughter. “And whether you guys like it or not, that makes all of you the children in this family. Now a family can only have one head, and that’s the father. Me. Father is the head, and mother runs it. That’s the way it’s gonna be here. If any of you guys want to see me about anything, anything at all, you’ll find I’m available. On the other hand, I’m gonna be busy makin a living for this family, so if it’s not important, maybe mother can handle it. That’s all, except for one more thing.

“We’re into training now, as all of you know. You all know what
kind
of training it is, too. Well, I’m going to make this training just as tough on everybody as I possibly can. Including me. No matter how tough I make it, it can’t be as tough as combat. As you all well know. So, expect it. And that’s all.

“—Except for one more thing.

“I want you to know that as long as you guys back
me
up, I’ll back
you
up. All the way, and with any-body. With any outfit, and any army. Japanese, American, or what have you. You can count on that.” He paused again. “And now that’s really all.” The tough little guy had not smiled once, even at his own jokes.

Everybody liked him. Even Welsh seemed to like him. Or, if not like, at least respect him. Which from Welsh was quite a lot. Anyway, he had to be better than Glory Hunter Band or Johnny Creo. And so this was the man who was going to take them up to New Georgia. Only John Bell, standing somewhere way at the back, had any suspicions, and Bell was not at all sure that these did not come more from himself than from Captain Bosche. After all, what could you ask of a man? Certainly no more than Bosche had offered. And if he lived up to and carried out his promises, you could ask nothing more. But Bell suffered a sudden impulse to laugh out loud insanely and call out at the top of his voice: “
Yes, but what does it all MEAN?
” He was able to restrain it. Bell had had seventeen letters from his wife in the last three weeks, all of them loving, but he could not escape a feeling that she had maybe written them all at once in a great burst of energy on the same day, sealed, stamped and addressed them, and stacked them on her desk where she would not forget to mail one every couple of days. He had done that once with his parents, when he was in college. Anyway, Bosche’s speech was certainly better than the one they had to hear a couple of days later.