The Naked and the Dead (67 page)

            "Yeah, send me a letter."

            Stanley's mouth tightened but he could think of no answer. He looked at Croft, whose face was impassive. "I just wish you guys were in my squad," he said to Red and Gallagher. They guffawed at this.

            Croft was annoyed. He had wavered between his desire to see a fight and his knowledge that it would be a bad thing for the platoon. Now he was contemptuous of Stanley; a noncom had to know how to keep a man in his place, and it had been bungled. Croft hawked a little spittle over the side wall of the boat. "What's the matter, everybody worked up already?" he said coldly. Aimless talk irritated him.

            They were all quiet again. The tension between them had collapsed like a piece of moist paper shredding of its own weight. All of them except Croft were secretly relieved. But the patrol to come draped them in a shroud of gloom. Each retreated into silence and his private fears. Like an augury, the night was coming closer.

            Far in the distance they could see Mount Anaka rising above the island. It arched coldly and remotely from the jungle beneath it, lofting itself massively into the low-hanging clouds of the sky. In the early drab twilight it looked like an immense old gray elephant erecting himself somberly on his front legs, his haunches lost in the green bedding of his lair. The mountain seemed wise and powerful, and terrifying in its size. Gallagher stared at it in absorption, caught by a sense of beauty he could not express. The idea, the vision he always held of something finer and neater and more beautiful than the moil in which he lived trembled now, pitched almost to a climax of words. There was an instant in which he might have said a little of what he was feeling, but it passed and he was left with a troubled joy, an echo of rapture. He licked his lips, mourning his wife again.

            Croft was moved as deeply, as fundamentally as caissons resettling in the river mud. The mountain attracted him, taunted and inflamed him with its size. He had never seen it so clearly before. Mired in the jungle, the cliffs of Watamai Range had obscured the mountain. He stared at it now, examined its ridges, feeling an instinctive desire to climb the mountain and stand on its peak, to know that all its mighty weight was beneath his feet. His emotions were intense; he knew awe and hunger and the peculiar unique ecstasy he had felt after Hennessey was dead, or when he had killed the Japanese prisoner. He gazed at it, almost hating the mountain, unconscious at first of the men about him. "That mountain's mighty old," he said at last.

            And Red felt only gloom, and a vague harassment. Croft's words bothered him subtly. He examined the mountain with little emotion, almost indifference. But when he looked away he was bothered by the fear all of the men in the platoon had felt at one time or another that day. Like the others, Red was wondering if this patrol would be the one where his luck ran out.

            Goldstein and Martinez were talking about America. By chance they had chosen cots next to each other, and they spent the afternoon lying on them, their ponchos drawn over their bodies. Goldstein was feeling rather happy. He had never been particularly close to Martinez before, but they had been chatting for several hours and their confidences were becoming intimate. Goldstein was always satisfied if he could be friendly with someone; his ingenuous nature was always trusting. One of the main reasons for this wretchedness in the platoon was that his friendships never seemed to last. Men with whom he would have long amiable conversations would wound him or disregard him the next day, and he never understood it. To Goldstein, men were friends or they weren't friends; he could not comprehend any variations or disloyalties. He was unhappy because he felt continually betrayed.

            Yet he never became completely disheartened. Essentially he was an active man, a positive man. If his feelings were bruised, if another friend had proved himself undependable, Goldstein would nurse his pains, but almost always he would recover and sally out again. The succession of rebuffs he had suffered in the platoon had made him more wily, more cautious in what he said and did. But still, Goldstein was too affectionate to possess any real defenses; at the first positive hint of friendship he was ready to forget all his grievances and respond with warmth and simplicity. Now he felt he knew Martinez. If he had phrased his opinion he would have said to himself, Martinez is a very fine fellow. He's a little quiet but he's a nice guy. Very democratic for a sergeant.

            "You know in America," Martinez was saying, "lots of opportunity."

            "Oh, there is," Goldstein nodded sagely. "I know I've got plans for setting up my own business, because I've considered it a-lot, and a man has to strike out for himself if he wants to get ahead. There's a lot to be said for steady wages and security, but I'd rather be my own boss."

            Martinez nodded. "Lots of money in your own business, huh?"

            "Sometimes."

            Martinez considered this. Money! A little perspiration formed on his palms. He thought for a moment of a man named Ysidro Juaninez, a brothelkeeper who had always fascinated him when he was a child. He shivered as he remembered the way Ysidro would hold a thick sheaf of dollar bills in his hand. "After the war maybe I get out of the Army."

            "You certainly ought to," Goldstein said. "I mean you're an intelligent fellow and you're dependable."

            Martinez sighed. "Still. . ." He did not know how to say it. He was always embarrassed at mentioning the fact that he was a Mexican. He thought it was bad manners as if he were blaming the man he told it to, implying that it was his fault there were no good jobs for him. Besides, there was always the irrational hope he might be taken for a pure Spaniard.

            "Still, I'm no educated," he said.

            Goldstein shook his head in commiseration. "That's an obstacle, it's true. I've always wanted a college education, and I feel its absence. But for business a good head can carry you through. I really believe in being honest and sincere in business; all the really big men got where they are through decency."

            Martinez nodded. He wondered how big a room a very rich man needed to hold his money. Images of rich clothing, of shoeshines and hand-painted ties, a succession of tall blonde women with hard cold grace and brittle charm languished in his head. "A rich man do anything he damn well feel like it," Martinez said with admiration.

            "Well, if I were rich I'd like to be charitable. And. . . what I want is to be well off, and have a nice house, some security. . . Do you know New York?"

            "No."

            "Anyway there's a suburb I'd like to live in," Goldstein said, nodding his head. "It's really a fine place, and nice people in it, cultured, refined. I wouldn't like my son to grow up the way I did."

            Martinez nodded sagely. He never possessed any definite convictions or ambitions, and he always felt humble when he talked to a man who had sharp complete plans. "America's a good country," he said sincerely. He had a glow of righteous patriotism for a moment; half-remembered was his image of a schoolroom and the children singing "My Country 'Tis of Thee." For the first time in many years he thought of being an aviator, and felt a confused desire. "I learn to read good in school," he said. "The teacher thought I was smart."

            "I'm sure she did," Goldstein said with conviction.

            The water was less rough, and the spray had become infrequent. Martinez looked about the boat, listened for a moment to the random sounds of conversation, and shrugged again. "Long trip," he said.

            Gallagher had come back to his cot, which was adjacent to Martinez's, and he lay down without saying anything. Goldstein was uncomfortable; he had not spoken to Gallagher for over a month. "It's a wonder none of the men are seasick," Goldstein said at last. "These boats aren't good for traveling."

            "Roth, Wyman, they're sick," Martinez said.

            Goldstein shrugged proudly. "I don't mind it. I'm used to being on boats. A friend of mine had a sailboat on Long Island, and in the summer I used to go out with him a lot. I enjoyed it thoroughly." He thought of the Sound and the pale dunes that surrounded it. "It was beautiful there. You know you can't beat America for beautiful country."

            "You can say that again, brother," Gallagher snorted suddenly.

            It was just his way of talking, Goldstein decided. He didn't mean any harm. "Did you ever go out on boats, Gallagher?" he asked mildly.

            Gallagher raised himself on an elbow. "Aaah, I went canoeing once in a while out on the Charles, past West Roxbury. Used to go with my wife." He said it first, and then thought about it. His face altered for an instant, assumed a numb stricken cast.

            "Oh, I'm sorry," Goldstein breathed.

            "That's all right." Gallagher felt some irritation at getting sympathy from a Jew. "Forget it," he added, a little meaninglessly. But he was becoming tender again, dissolving in a bath of self-pity and pleasant gentle sorrow. "Look," he said abruptly, "you got a kid, ain't ya?"

            Goldstein nodded. "Oh, yes," he answered eagerly. "My boy is three years old now. Wait, I'll show you a picture of him." With some effort, he rolled over on the cot and withdrew his wallet from his back pocket. "This isn't a good picture of him," Goldstein apologized, "he's really one of the handsomest children you could imagine. We've got a big picture at home of him that we had a professional photographer take, and honestly you couldn't beat it. It could win a prize."

            Gallagher stared at the picture. "Yeah. . . yeah, he's a cute kid, all right." He was a little bewildered, uncomfortable with the praise that welled clumsily out of his mouth. He looked at the picture again, seeing it really for the first time, and he sighed. In the one letter he had written home since Mary died he had asked for a picture of his child. He had been waiting with increasing impatience for it ever since, and it had become an important need in his life. He would idle away many dull inactive hours daydreaming about his child, wondering what it looked like. Although he had not been told, he assumed it was a boy. "That's a real cute kid," he said in a rough voice. He fingered the side of the cot for a moment. Surmounting his embarrassment, he blurted, "Hey, what is it like, havin' a kid?"

            Goldstein debated for a moment, as if to give the definitive answer. "Oh, it's a lot of. . . of joy." He had been about to say
"nochis."
"But there's a lot of heartaches in it too. You worry about them a lot, and of course there are the economic difficulties."

            "Yeah." Gallagher nodded his head in agreement.

            Goldstein went on talking. He had some constraint, for Gallagher was the man he had hated most in the platoon. The warmth and friendliness he felt toward him now were perplexing. Goldstein was self-conscious when he saw himself as a Jew talking to a Gentile; then every action, every word, was dictated to a great extent by his desire to make a good impression. Although he was gratified when people liked him, part of his satisfaction came from the idea that they were liking a Jew. And so he tried to say only the things that would please Gallagher.

            Yet in talking about his family, Goldstein experienced once more an automatic sense of loss and longing. Wistful images of the beatitudes of married life drifted in his head. He remembered a night when his wife and he had giggled together in the darkness and listened to the quaint pompous snoring of their baby. "Children are what makes life worth while," he said sincerely.

            Martinez realized with a start that he was a father too. He remembered Rosalie's pregnancy for the first time in years. He shrugged. Seven years now? Eight years? He had lost count. Goddam, he said to himself. Once he had been free of the girl he had remembered her only as a source of trouble and worry.

            The fact that he had begotten a child made him vain. Goddam, I'm okay, he said to himself. He felt like laughing. Martinez make a kid and run away. It gave him a malicious glee, as though he were a child tormenting a dog. What the hell she do with it? Knock her up. Goddam! His vanity swelled like a bloated belly. He mused with naïve delight about his potency, his attraction for women. That the child was illegitimate increased his self-esteem; somehow it made his role more extravagant, of greater magnitude.

            He felt a tolerant, almost condescending affection for Goldstein. Before this afternoon he had been a little afraid of him and quite uneasy. They had had an argument one day and Goldstein had disagreed with him. Whenever that happened, Martinez would react inevitably like a frightened schoolboy reprimanded by his teacher. There had never been a time when he was comfortable as a sergeant. But now he had been bathed in Goldstein's affection; he no longer felt Goldstein had despised him that day. Goldstein, he is okay, Martinez said to himself.

            He became conscious of the vibration of the boat, its slow pitching advance through the swells. It was almost dark now, and he yawned and curled his body down farther beneath the poncho. He was slightly hungry. Lazily, he debated whether to open a ration or merely to lie still. He thought of the patrol, and the quick fear it roused made him alert again. Oh. He expelled his breath. No think about it, no think about it, he repeated to himself.

            He became conscious abruptly that Gallagher and Goldstein were no longer talking. He looked up, and saw nearly all the men in the boat standing on their cots or chinning themselves on the starboard bulkhead. "What're they lookin' at?" Gallagher asked.

            "It's the sunset, I think," Goldstein said.

            "Sunset?" Martinez gazed at the sky above him. It was almost black, clotted with ugly leaden rain clouds. "Where the sunset?" He stood up on his cot, straddling his feet on the side poles, and stared into the west.