The Thin Red Line (73 page)

Then Stormy Storm got himself evacuated, and the lid was off. Storm was unique in that he was the first man any of them knew who got evacuated for a plain physical disability rather than for some disease like malaria or jaundice. His physical disability was his wounded hand. Having nothing else to utilize, and being one of those who obviously were never going to get sick with anything and would therefore have to stay and watch his friends leave him one by one, Storm decided to try with his bad hand again since they were loosening everything up so. To his astonishment, and everybody else’s, he was examined by exactly the same doctor who had sent him back to duty during The Dancing Elephant, and was this time evacuated. The doctor did not even remember him. When Storm made the hand grate for him and told his story, he clucked his tongue and said someone had been seriously wrong in sending him back. What Storm really needed was an operation, and he was sending him to New Zealand because his hand would be in a cast for several months. The people there might even send him Stateside. But he should never have been sent back to duty. Storm, naturally, did not tell him who had done it. Almost everybody in the company came by to say goodby to him in the hospital where he was smoking cigars, eating well and enjoying himself since he was not at all sick.

And with Storm’s success, just about everybody tried to get into the act. In one month and two weeks after Carni was evacuated for malaria, over 35% of the old C-for-Charlie—the men who had ridden back in the trucks from Boola Boola—had managed to get themselves evacuated for one thing or another. Many many more had tried and failed, and a few who knew they had no chance had not tried at all. And one man had been offered evacuation and had refused it.

Who else could it be but The Welshman, Mad Eddie Welsh the First Sergeant? His malaria, unlike John Bell’s malaria which had leveled off as a medium bad case, had gone on getting worse like Carni’s malaria had. When he was found in a dead faint one day slumped across his desk with indelible pencil still in hand, he was carried up to Division hospital and ordered evacuated. He came to to find himself in a small section reserved for first three graders, in a bunk right next to that of Storm. The colored ticket for evacuation was already attached to his bed foot.

“Aha, you fink bastard!” he bellowed. “So it was you who got me hauled up here!” His crazy eyes glinted with an insane feverishness. Storm could not tell whether it was the fever of the malaria, or simply Welsh’s personality.

“Knock off, First Sarn’t,” Storm, who was smoking a cigar, said cautiously. “I’m a patient here like you, and I’m bein shipped out like you.”

“You’ll never get away with it!” Welsh roared. “You’ll never beat
me
out of my job, Storm! I’m too smart! Anyway, while you’re okay in the kitchen, you got no head for Administration! I know you!”

Storm, knowing him, simply could not believe he was delirious. From down the aisle the frail young 2d Lt doctor who ran the ward came running with a wardboy.

“Now you just take it easy, Sergeant,” he said. “You’ve got a temperature of a hundred and five and two tenths.”

“You’re in cahoots with him!” Welsh hollered.

For answer the Lt shoved him back on his pillow and put a thermometer in his mouth, at which point Welsh bit the thermometer in two, threw it on the floor, leaped out of bed and ran out the tent flap and back to his company. He did not die, as the Lt predicted he would; and he continued to recommend to everybody, smiling his sly, mad smile, that they try their damnedest to get themselves evacuated while there was still time.

Into the midst of all this activity, like some ghost from another world, Buck Sgt Big Queen suddenly returned. True to his word, he had stowed away on a ship coming to Guadalcanal. Due to some quirk, he had not been sent to Ephate or New Zealand, but to a hospital in New Caledonia, which meant that if he
was
sent back to duty he would not be sent to his old outfit but to some new Division in New Guinea. On the other hand, the doctors there—because the bullet had taken a large bone chip out of his upper arm and left that arm slightly impaired—had offered to send him back to the States to become a combat instructor for draftees. Queen had refused to accept either alternative and finally had gone AWOL and stowed away on a boat heading here and aboard which, when he told his story, he was treated like a prince the rest of the voyage. But now, seeing what he had come back to, he was stunned. This was not his old outfit: Culn gone, and an
Officer?
Charlie Dale, an
ex-cook!
the Platoon Sgt of 1st Platoon? Jimmy Fox gone? Jenks dead? Stein relieved? Pvt John Bell a Platoon Sgt, too! Fife the clerk a combat squad leader? Pfc Don Doll a Platoon Guide? Queen, who because of his absence was still only a Buck Sgt squad leader, could not accept it. It was too much for him. After two days of drinking swipe and reminiscing, he reported back to the hospital complaining about his crippled arm and was at once shipped out to New Zealand.

Nobody seemed to know just why the doctors were doing all this. They had been so tough while the campaign was going on. Now, though, men who came back said the doctors smiled at them, asked them what was wrong with them, and even helped them describe and elaborate their symptoms if they had trouble talking. Apparently none of this was Division policy, which was as tough as ever. Apparently the doctors themselves had decided the veterans of the campaign had suffered enough, and had taken it upon themselves to help oldtimers get evacuated if it was at all medically possible. Almost without exception no green replacements were ever evacuated; only oldtimers.

Fife, when it came his turn to try and utilize this marvelous loophole, did not really expect much to come of it. In fact, it was MacTae who talked him into going. Fife had had a bad ankle ever since a high school football accident had torn some ligaments which made the ankle susceptible to going out of place on him. He had learned to anticipate in such a way as to take most of his weight off it before it went all the way out. Also, on most marches and during the campaign, he kept it taped up with a basketweave bandage he had learned from the old family doctor who had treated it originally. But he rarely thought about it. All of this had become as much a part of his normal life as his bad teeth, or bad eyes. Then one day, walking to noon chow with MacTae who happened to be passing, it had gone out on him again from stepping wrong on a halfdried mud rut. He had leaped to take the weight off it, but only partially succeeded. The pain was exquisite.

“Why, you’re white as a sheet!” MacTae said. “What the hell happened to you there?”

Fife shrugged and explained. It didn’t hurt after the first minute if he was careful to set his foot down absolutely straight.

MacTae looked excited. “Well, have you been up to the docs with it? You haven’t? Really? Why, you’re out of your everlovin mind! You can get evacuated on that!”

“You really think so?” Fife had never considered it.

“Sure!” MacTae said excitedly. “I know guys who got shipped out on a lot less than that.”

“But what if they turn me down?”

“So what of you got to lose? You won’t be any
worse
off than you are now, will you?”

“That’s true.”

“Man, if I had somethin like that, I’d be up there like a shot! Trouble with me, I’m so sickeningly healthy I ain’t
never
gonna get myself shipped out!”

“You really think so?”

“I wouldn’t hesitate a second!”

Largely because of MacTae’s enthusiasm, Fife went. He was still as unsure of himself about most things as he used to be, now that he had rediscovered his cowardice. But there were other things about him which had changed. Fistfighting, for instance. The old Fife had abhorred fistfights, largely because he was afraid of losing. The new Fife adored them, and had had six or eight more fights since his beating up of Corporal Weld. He no longer cared deeply whether he won or lost, as he used to. Every bump he gave, and every bump he took, caused in him an immense sense of release from something or other. And he was not afraid to tackle anybody. All this showed up in his first encounter with Witt, after the Kentuckian’s transfer went through. Witt had been back two days and drunk both nights, and Fife had had one fight, before they actually ran into each other face to face. When they did, Fife went up to him and smiled and stuck out his hand. Squinting his eyes and putting his head a little on one side and grinning, he said, “Hello, Witt. Or are you still not speakin to me?” Witt had grinned back and taken the hand. He seemed to sense some change he liked. “No. I guess I’m talkin to you now.” “Because if you’re not, I thought we might as well have it out right here and now,” Fife grinned. Witt nodded, still grinning. Apparently he had seen the fight. “Well, we could do that. I think I could still take you. But you got a pretty good right hand there. If you tagged me with that right hand, you might could whup me. Awys pervided I couldn’t keep away from it, a course.” “There ain’t really no need though,” Fife grinned, “now. Since you’re talking to me. Is there?” “Not really,” Witt said. “What do you say we have a slug of swipe instead?” Cynically, they did. And it was this quality—of cynicism, or whatever the hell you called it—that worked for him when he went up to the hospital on sick call after MacTae suggested it.

When his turn in the line came and they called him into the examining tent, he saw that the examining doctor was Lt Col Roth—that same big, meatylooking, wavywhitehaired, pompous Lt Col Roth who had examined his head wound and been so contemptuous to him about his lost glasses. As far as Fife was concerned, that blew it. Only, this time Lt Col Roth smiled. “Well, soldier, and what’s your trouble?” he said, smiling in a sort of conspiratorial way. It was obvious that he did not recognize Fife. And that was the way Fife played it.

The climactic moment for Fife did not come till later. He told his story and showed his ankle. The ankle was still swollen. Lt Col Roth examined it carefully, twisting it this way and that until Fife winced. It certainly
was
a bad ankle, he said. He did not see how anybody could march, and fight in rough terrain, on something like that. How long had Fife had it? Fife told him the truth, then went on to tell him about the basketweave bandage and how he always carried tape with him. Lt Col Roth whistled admiringly, then looked at Fife sharply.

“Then how come you decided to report to hospital with it
now?
” the Colonel said sharply.

It was Fife’s moment, and in some dim way he knew it. But his reaction was entirely instinctive. Instead of looking guilty, or even pleading, he gave Lt Col Roth a cynical, guarded smile. “Well, Colonel, it seems to be bothering me a lot more lately,” he said, and grinned.

Roth’s lips twitched, and his eyes glinted, and then the same identical cynical, conspiratorial smile passed across his own face fleetingly. He bent and manipulated the ankle again. Well, it would need an operation, that much was certain, and that would mean several months in a cast. Was Fife prepared to spend several months in a plaster cast?

Fife grinned guardedly again. “Well, if it will help it, Sir—I guess I am.”

Lt Col Roth bent his head again. It might never be all right, he said, but perhaps it could be helped. Those ligament and tendon operations were ticklish things. There was an orthopedics man, a top man, at Naval Base Hospital No. 3 on Ephate, who really enjoyed doing that kind of ticklish job of surgery. After that, Fife would be shipped on to New Zealand, if he had to spend that long in a cast. And after that—Roth shrugged, and again his eyes glinted. He turned to the orderly. “Admit this man for evacuation,” he said.

Fife was afraid to believe it, lest something happen to change it. Just like that. Just like that, and he was out. Out!
Out!
Saying nothing, he bent and began putting on his sock and boot.

As he was going out the flap, Roth called him. When he turned back, the Colonel said, “You’re a Sergeant now, I see.”

“Sir?” Fife said.

Roth grinned. “You were a Corporal before, weren’t you? What happened about those eyeglasses of yours? Nothing? Well, when you get down there, mention it to them. They’ll fix you up with new ones.”

It didn’t make any sense. Why would he be one way one time like that, and then the exact opposite the next? Was this Lt Col Roth, who carried in his hands the decision between certain life and probable death for simple infantrymen, was this man prey to the changeabilities and vagaries of emotion like that? Like everybody else? The thought was terrifying. He had three days to wait for the next hospital ship. (Only serious cases and emergencies were being flown out.) They were three days of misery and sadness. Because now that he was sure he was going, now that he was definitely safe, Fife wondered if he really ought to go? Should he not just skip out of the hospital and go back to C-for-Charlie, like Welsh had done? He tried hard to keep his mind on the sensible, sane MacTae. But the question stayed.

He took it up with Welsh himself, finally, when the First Sergeant came up to the hospital bringing personal gear for somebody else who was shipping out.

“So you finally makin it out, hunh, kid?” Welsh leered at him when he saw him, his black eyes glinting contemptuously.

“Yeh,” Fife said sadly. He couldn’t help feeling melancholy. “But I been thinkin, First. Maybe I ought to stay?”

“You what!” Welsh snarled.

“Well, yes. I mean, you know, I’m gonna miss the company. And it’s—it’s sort of like running out. In one way.”

Welsh leered at him in silence, his mad eyes gleaming. “Sure, kid. I think if you feel like that, you oughta come back.”

“You think so? I thought I might slip out of here tonight maybe.”

“You should,” Welsh said, and then grinned his slow, sly grin. “You wanta know somthin, kid?” he said softly. “You want to know why I got you busted out of the orderly room that time? You thought it was because we thought you weren’t coming back, didn’t you?” Before Fife could answer, he said, “Well, it wasn’t. It was because you were such a lousy fucking bad clerk,
I HAD to do it!
”