The Thin Red Line Page 9

  This was a great deal of talking for Queen. But at least he regained control of his voice, was speaking in the deep voice everybody expected from Big Queen. Again, nobody answered.

  “Leave it where you found it,” he said with ponderous authority.

  Without a word the man (who still held it by thumb and forefinger as if it might contaminate him) turned and swung it and let it go. It fluttered back down into its angle between the roots, no longer wadded.

  “Yeah, leave’m lay where Jesus flung’m,” someone else said. No one answered him.

  The breathless, curiously sexual look had disappeared from the faces. It had been replaced by a sullen look of sexual guilt. Nobody seemed to want to meet anybody else’s eyes. They looked curiously like a gang of boys caught masturbating together.

  “Yeah. Let’s look around a little more,” one said.

  “Yeah; maybe we’ll find out what happened here.”

  Everybody wanted to leave.

  And so it was that, in such a mood, they found the battlefield and nearby to it, afterwards, the trench grave.

  A curious sense of unreality had come over all of them with the discovery of the shirt. The dripping, gloomy, airless jungle with its vaulted cathedral-like ceiling far above did not serve to lessen it. Fighting and killing, and being struck by death-delivering bullets which keyholed through you, were facts. They existed, certainly. But it was too much for them to assimilate, and left them with a dreamlike nightmare feeling which they couldn’t shake off.

  Mutely (because of course nobody wanted to admit this essentially unmanly reaction to anybody else) they moved off through the green air of the arm of jungle in a conspiracy of silence. Their minds had balked. And when the mind balked like that, the reality became more dreamlike than the nightmare. Each man each time he tried to imagine his own death; tried to conjure up the experience of that bullet keyholing through his own lung; found himself being tricked by his own mind. The only thing he was able to picture was the heroic, brave gesture he would make when dying. But the rest was unimaginable. And at the same time somewhere in the back of each mind, like a fingernail picking uncontrollably at a scabby sore, was the small voice saying: but is it worth it? Is it really worth it to die, to be dead, just to prove to everybody that you’re not a coward?

  Tacitly they had resumed almost exactly their same places in the line. Instinctively and without apparent reason they all moved off to the left, leaving the line anchored in the person of Queen. And it was there, at the other, the far left end, that they found the first abandoned, tumbledown emplacements. They had entered the jungle perhaps thirty yards too far to the right to see them. Had they not found the shirt, and then had they not reasonlessly extended their line to the left, they might never have known the place was there.

  The position was unmistakably Japanese. It was also clear that it was a lost position. They had had a line here along the edge of the jungle at some time or other, and C-for-Charlie’s men had come upon it just where it turned in from the edge to wind its way tortuously back into the depths of the jungle. It was in acute disrepair. Mounds and humps and ditches and holes which once had been dugouts, trenches and parapets twisted in and out in a continuous band of raw earth between huge tree boles and clumps of undergrowth until they lost themselves in the dim light of the jungle interior. Total silence hung over it everywhere except for the occasional loud cries of birds. Eagerly in the dim light, more than glad to forget the shirt, the men hurried over and began to clamber up onto the mounds to inspect—with a sort of painful, almost lascivious masochism—what they one day soon would be up against themselves. It was beyond these mounds, where it had remained hidden from their view because of them, that the mass grave lay.

  From the top of the mounds a look at the terrain was enough to show that the Marines and, as evidenced by the shirt, elements of the Americal Division had attacked or else counterattacked this line. Slowly (that much was apparent) and perhaps several times, they had come across the same ground which C-for-Charlie’s men had themselves just traversed. Stumps of saplings, torn undergrowth, cut vines, pitholes all showed the volume of mortar and machinegun fire to which the ground in front of the position had been subjected. Already, new growth had effectively hidden most of these signs and they had to be searched for, but they were there. Only the scarred, bullet-hacked forest giants, standing impassively like rooted columns, seemed to have survived this new type of tropical storm without crippling effects.

  Like a band of energetic ants the men spread out, poking here, peering there, looking at everything. Souvenirs had now become their preoccupation. But no matter how greedily they hunted, there was almost nothing left for them to find. Quartermaster Salvage units had been over the ground with fine-tooth combs. Not a piece of equipment, not a single strand of barbed wire, not even an empty Japanese cartridge casing or old shoe remained to be picked up by scavengers like themselves. Once they had disappointedly assured themselves of this, as if by a common accord they turned their rapt, still somewhat awed attention to the long mass grave.

  It was here that the delayed emotional reaction to the death shirt caught up with them in the form of a sort of wild horseplay of bravado. Big Queen was the leader of it. The grave itself ran for perhaps forty yards along the very edge of the jungle, just inside the tight skin of leaves. It had been made by widening the former Japanese trench. Either it was very shallow or there was more than one layer of bodies, because here and there undecayed appendages or smaller angular portions such as knees and elbows stuck up out of the loose dirt that had been shoveled back over them.

  Obviously it had been a sanitary arrangement more than anything else. Which was quite understandable, if one contemplated the acrid, bronzegreen odor that hung over the position and became slowly stronger the closer one came to the edge of the ditch. It must have been hellish before they buried them. They were of course all Japanese. An ex-undertaker, after examining a greenishcolored, half-clenched hand found sticking up near the edge, gave it as his opinion that the bodies were a month old.

  It was up to the edge of this ditch, not far from where a stocky, uniformed Japanese leg thrust up out of it at an angle, that Big Queen advanced and stopped. Several men before him already had somewhat incautiously stepped out onto the grave itself in their eagerness to see, only to find themselves slowly sinking kneedeep into the dirt and dead. For men whose feet were still sinking and not resting on anything solid they all had leaped back out with astonishing nimbleness. Cursing savagely and smelling strongly they provided, to the guffaws of the others, a sterling object lesson. So Queen ventured no further.

  Standing with the toes of his combat boots exactly at the edge of the solid ground, sweating a little, grinning a strangely taut, fullwidth grin which made his large teeth resemble a dazzling miniature piano keyboard in the green light, Queen looked back at the rest challengingly. His face seemed to say that he had suffered enough personal indignities for one day and by God now he was. going to get even.

  “Looks like this one was a healthy spec’men. Ought to be somethin worth takin home on some of them,” he said by way of preamble, and leaning forward seized the shod foot and jiggled it around tentatively to see how well it was attached, then gave it a solid heave.

  The surface of the ditch quivered seismically, and along it tranquil flies rose buzzing in alarm, only to settle back in the quiet that followed. In the late afternoon jungle light everyone watched. Queen still held the leg. The leg itself still remained in the ditch. After a time-dead second in which nothing moved or breathed, Queen gave the foot another, even more tremendous heave; and again the flies buzzed up in panic. The leg still held.

  Not to be outdone another man standing by the ex-undertaker stepped forward and took hold of the greenishcolored half-clenched hand. This was Pfc Hoff, an Indiana countryboy from the second platoon. Clasping the hand as if in a handshake, as though he were wishing its former owner a bon voyage on his journey, Hoff took the wrist with hi
s other hand and pulled too, grinning stupidly. In his case too nothing happened.

  As though taking these two actions as their key, the rest began to spread out around the grave edge. They seemed seized by a strange arrogance. They pushed or poked at this or that exposed member, knocked with riflebutts this or that Japanese knee or elbow. They swaggered impudently. A curious Rabelaisian mood swept over them leaving them immoderately ribald and laughing extravagantly. They boisterously desecrated the Japanese parts, laughing loudly, each trying to outbravado the other.

  It was just then that the first souvenir, a rusting Japanese bayonet and scabbard, was found. It was found by Pfc Doll. Feeling something hard under his foot, he reached down to see what it was. Doll had taken a quiet backseat at the finding of the bloodstained shirt, and had not said a word. He did not know exactly what it made him feel, but whatever it was was not good. He had been left feeling so depressed that he had not even bothered to hunt for souvenirs among the mounds with the rest. The trenchful of dead Japanese made him feel even worse but he felt he must not show this so he had joined in with the others; but his heart wasn’t in it, and neither was his stomach. Finding the bayonet by sheer luck like that restored his spirits somewhat. Cleaned up and shortened it would make him a better belt knife than the cheap one he had. Feeling considerably better Doll held it up to be seen and called out his find.

  Further up the ditch on the other side Queen was still staring fixedly at his Japanese leg. He really had had no intention of disinterring the leg or the body at the other end of it. He was only showing off. He only wanted to show them, and himself, that dead bodies—even Japanese ones afflicted with God knew what horribly dirty Oriental diseases—held no terror for him. But with Hoff getting into the act, and trying to top him like that—And now that punk Doll had to go and find a Jap bayonet—

  Tightening his mind and his grip on the foot, clamping his jaws even tighter in their piano-keyboard grin, Queen jiggled his leg around tentatively once more, issuing to it as it were the final definitive personal challenge. Then, grinding his exposed and grinning teeth together, he began to pull on it with every ounce of his great strength.

  Standing back on the perimeter of all of this, taking no part, Bell was nevertheless watching it all with a horrified fascination. Bell still could not free himself from that earlier illusion that he was in the midst of a nightmare dream, that he would soon wake up home in bed with Marty and push his face between the softnesses of her breasts to forget it. He would slide his face down her to inhale the lifecreating, lifescented womanperfume of her which always reassured and soothed him. At the same time Bell knew he was not going to wake up; and once again his mind tricked him with that weird transcendental image of Marty’s presence somewhere nearby watching this. But this time instead of seeing him as the leg in the grave, as before she had seen him wearing the shirt, she now stood somewhere up behind him watching the scene with him. Brutes! Brutes! Animal brutes! he could hear her cry. Why don’t you do something? Brutes! Don’t just stand there! Stop them! Is there no human dignity? Bru-u-u-tes! It rang in his head, fading away eerily in the high gloom of the trees, as he continued to stand, watching.

  Big Queen was now in the midst of making his main effort. His face was beet-red. Great veins stood out on his neck under his helmet. His big teeth, totally exposed now, dazzled whitely in his face. A high, semi-audible keening sound resembling one of those silent dog whistles came from his throat as he strained his strength beyond even his capacity.

  It was clear enough to Bell that the leg was not going to pull off its body. Therefore, only two possibilities remained. Bell understood, not without sympathy, that Queen had publicly committed himself. He must now either pull the corpse out of the grave bodily, or admit he wasn’t strong enough to do it. Fascinated by a great deal more than just simply what he was seeing, Bell watched quiescently while Queen fought to win his selfimposed test.

  What could I have done, Marty? Anyway, you’re a woman. You want to make life. You don’t understand men. Even in himself there were elements of pride and hope involved; he didn’t want to see Queen lose. Numb and sick as he was. Come on, Queen! Bell suddenly wanted to yell wildly. Come on, boy! I’m for you!

  Across the ditch Doll was having an entirely different reaction. With all his heart and soul, furiously, jealously, vindictively, he was hoping Queen would not win. His new bayonet dangled from his hand forgotten and he held his breath, his belly muscles tensed with the effort of helping the corpse resist Queen’s strength. Damn him, Doll thought with clenched teeth, damn him. Okay, so he’s stronger than us; so what?

  Queen couldn’t have cared less about either reaction. He stared down with bulging eyes, teeth bared, his breath whistling through his nose as he strained. He was furiously convinced that the leg was stretching. Heavily muscled in the calf, wrapped in its wool leggin, bandylegged and cocky even in death, it seemed as self-confident of its supreme Japanese superiority as its former owner must have been in life. Queen was dimly aware that the others had stopped what they were doing and were watching. But he had already used all his strength. In desperation he called upon a reserve beyond his capacity. He couldn’t quit now, not with them all watching. Once on a fatigue detail he had lifted a whole tree down off its freshly cut stump on his back. He concentrated on remembering that. And miraculously, the leg began to move.

  Slowly, dreamily, mercifully mudcovered, the body drifted up out of the grave. It was like some mad, comically impure travesty of the Resurrection. First came the rest of the leg; then the second leg, flung out at a grotesque angle; then the torso; finally the shoulders and stiff, spreadeagled arms which looked as though the man were trying to hold on to the dirt and keep himself from being dragged out; and lastly the mudcovered head. Queen released his grip on the foot with a great gasp and stepped back—and almost fell over. Then he simply stood, looking down at his handiwork. The helmeted head was so covered with mud it was impossible to distinguish its facial features as such. Indeed, the whole body was so mudsmeared that it was impossible to tell whether it wore any equipment in addition to its uniform or not. And Queen had no inclination to get closer. He continued to look at it, breathing heavily.

  “Well, I guess I was mistaken,” he said finally. “I guess there’s nothin worth keepin on this one after all.”

  As if released from their rapt state by his words a sudden spontaneous, if feeble, cheer-for-Queen broke out from among the watchers. Overhead, birds fluttered, squawked in panic and fled. Attacked by modesty, Queen smiled back shyly, sweating heavily. But the cheer, as well as any subsequent action, was suddenly choked off by a new development. From the grave a new smell, as distinct from the former greenishcolored one as if they derived from different sources, rolled up like an oily fog from around the muddy body and began to spread. With dismayed curses and astonished, pained exclamations of consternation the men began to back off, then finally just simply turned and fled, jettisoning their dignity and everything else. Anything with a nose must retreat in rout from that odor.

  Bell, escaping with the others and laughing as senselessly as they, ran breathlessly. He felt curiously surrealistic, and found a new popular-song title was running through his head over and over.

  “Don’t Monkey Around With Death”

  It ran over and over in his mind to the tune of some real song whose title he could not remember, as he made up words for it.

  “Don’t monkey around with death,

  It will only get you dirty;

  Don’t futz around with the Reaper,

  He will only make you smell.

  Have you got B O?

  Then do not go

  Fiddling with that Scythe-man;

  (optional break:)

  Because…(upbeat; pause)

  Your best friend will not tell you;

  Don’t monkey around with death;

  You will only wind up soiled.”

  Bell reached the top of the mounds with the others, whistling hi
s little melody between his teeth soundlessly and staring off blankly, then turned around to look back. The mudcovered Japanese man still sprawled stiffly and all spraddled out atop the ditch beside the pit his enforced disinterment had opened down into the depths of the grave there in the jungle gloom. Nearby Bell saw Doll still holding his souvenir bayonet and looking back also, with an odd faraway look on his face.

  Doll was trying very hard not to throw up. That was the reason for the faraway look; it was one of intense concentration. There was a strong urge in his throat to swallow repeatedly, and Doll was trying to control it. It was not enough to refrain from vomiting; if he kept swallowing, someone would be sure to notice it whether he threw up or not. And that was unthinkable. He couldn’t allow it. Especially with Queen standing not far from him.

  When Queen first had stepped back from his labor, his heel had struck something metallic behind him. Wild hopes had risen in him that he might find a Japanese .31 caliber heavy machinegun or some such item, buried in the mud. He discovered instead that it was a mud-daubed helmet. He had seized it and retreated to the top of the mounds with the others.

  But he got no chance to inspect his find there. It became apparent quite quickly that the top of the fortifications was not going to be far enough. By the time the last fleeing man reached the mounds, the smell like some invisible cloud had arrived too, right on his heels. There was no choice but to retreat again.

  There was no fighting that smell. It was as different in kind and texture and taste from the earlier one as two smells could be. The earlier had been mild, was greenishbronze in color, acrid, dry, only slightly unpleasant. The second smell was wet and yellowwhite. It was not mild. No man who was sane and at liberty to leave was going to stay around to smell it.