The Naked and the Dead (46 page)

            Hearn suffered the results in all their immediacy. Without the disturbing and fascinating intimacy the General had granted him in his first weeks as an aide, the job had become reduced quickly to its onerous humiliating routine. A change had come about in their relationship, quietly achieved, but its end product left him in a formal and obviously subordinate status. The General no longer confided in him, no longer lectured him, and the duties of his job, which had been treated between them until now as a tacit joke, had become demanding and loathsome. As the campaign floundered along day after day, the General became stricter about the discipline in his headquarters, and Hearn suffered the brunt of it. Each morning Cummings made a point of inspecting his tent, and almost every time he delivered a criticism of the way Hearn had supervised the orderly. It was always a quiet rebuke, uttered slyly, with a sidewise glance at Hearn, but it was disturbing and finally harassing.

            And there were other tasks, silly pointless ones which assumed a galling character after they had continued long enough. One time, almost two weeks after they had had their last long conversation on the night of the chess game, the General had stared at him blankly for a few seconds, and then had said, "Hearn, I think I'd like to have some fresh flowers in my tent each morning."

            "Fresh flowers, sir?"

            And the General had given his mocking grin. "Yes, it seems to me there're enough of them in the jungle. Suppose you just tell Clellan to collect a few each morning. Good God, man, it's a simple enough affair."

            Simple enough, but it added a further tension between Clellan and himself, which Hearn detested. Despite himself, he paid greater attention to the way Clellan made up the General's tent each morning, and it became a humiliating duel between them. To his own surprise, Hearn discovered that the General was making him vulnerable; he was beginning to care that the tent was made up correctly. Each morning now he approached the General's tent with distaste, figuratively squared his shoulders, and then went in to continue his feud with Clellan.

            Clellan had started it. A tall slim Southerner with a complete and insolent poise, a facility for never questioning himself, he had resented any of Hearn's suggestions from the very beginning. Hearn had ignored him at first, amused a little by the proprietary concern with which Clellan regarded his work, but Hearn knew by now that he was contributing a little to the feud himself.

            One morning they almost quarreled. Hearn entered the tent as Clellan was finishing his work, and he examined it while Clellan stood at the General's cot, his hands by his sides. Hearn prodded the bed, which was made very neatly, the extra blanket folded squarely at the foot, the pillow centered at the head with its ends tucked in. "Good job on that bed, Clellan," Hearn said.

            "You think so, Lieutenant?" Clellan didn't move.

            Hearn turned away and inspected the flaps of the fly-tent. They were tied neatly and evenly, and when he yanked at one of the tie cords the knot did not slip. He strode about the outside of the tent, examining the stakes. They were all in line, all slanted at the same angle -- since there had been a heavy rain the night before, Hearn knew that Clellan had already straightened them. He walked back inside the tent, and looked at the board floor, which had been swept and washed. Clellan looked sullenly at Hearn's feet. "You're tracking it up, Lieutenant," he said.

            Hearn stared at the muddy marks his shoes had left. "I'm sorry, Clellan," he said.

            "It's a lot of work, Lieutenant."

            Hearn's temper flared. "Clellan, you don't work so hard."

            "Cain't say as any of us do," Clellan drawled.

            Well, what the hell! All right, he had deserved that answer. Hearn turned away again, examined the map board. The cover was draped smoothly over it, and the red and blue pencils at its base had been sharpened and separated into their compartments. He walked about, opening the General's foot locker to see that his clothing was stacked tidily, sat down before the General's desk to open the drawers and inspect the insides. Searching for dust, he trailed his fingers under the ledge. Hearn grunted with distaste and stood up to inspect the rain ditch that ran around the tent. Clellan had already removed the silt from the night's rain, and the ditch was clean with new soil. Hearn stepped inside.

            "Clellan," he said.

            "Yes?"

            "Everything seems okay today except the flowers. You can change them."

            "I'll tell you, Lieutenant," Clellan said flatly, "it don't seem to me as if the General cares much about having flowers."

            Hearn shook his head. "Get them anyway."

            Clellan remained still. "Yestiday, General said to me, 'Clellan, whose idea is those damn flowers anyway?' I told him I didn't know, but I said I 'spected it was yours."

            "The General said that?" Hearn was amused and then furious. The sonofabitch! He lit a cigarette, and exhaled it slowly. "Suppose you change the flowers, Clellan. I happen to be the one who hears the complaints."

            "Lieutenant, I pass the General maybe ten times a day. I reckon he'd say something to me if he figgered I wasn't doin' it right."

            "You'll just have to take my word for it, Clellan."

            Clellan pursed his lips, flushed a little. He was obviously angry. "Lieutenant, you just want to remember that the General's a man, he's no better than you or me, and there's no sense in being afraid of him."

            That was about enough. He'd be damned if he'd stand around arguing with Clellan. Hearn started to walk out of the tent. "Just get those flowers, Clellan," he said coldly before he stepped out.

            Disgusting, humiliating. Hearn stared morosely at the raw cropped earth of the bivouac as he walked over to officers' mess for breakfast. That sort of thing could go on for a year or two, a daily and nasty piece of business to be taken each morning on an empty stomach. Clellan of course would love it. Every retort Clellan could get away with would be just so much grist to his self-esteem, and any time he would be rebuked he could generate the satisfying hatred of the underdog. There were angles to being an enlisted man. Hearn kicked a pebble with his foot.

            Lo, the poor officers! Hearn grinned at himself, and waved to Mantelli, who was also approaching officers' mess.

            Mantelli cut over to him, and clapped him on the back. "Keep away from poppa today."

            "What's the matter?"

            "Last night we got a Lonely Hearts from corps. They told Cummings to get his ass in gear. Jesus! He'll be having me leading headquarters company in a charge." Mantelli took out his cigar and extended it forward like a spear.

            "All you're good for is charging a chow line."

            "Ain't it the truth. I got a desk job, flat feet, Hollandia, Stateside, Pentagon, I wear eyeglasses, I cough. . . listen."

            Hearn shoved him playfully. "Do you want a word with the General?"

            "Sure, get me in USO." They walked in together to chow.

            After breakfast Hearn reported to the General's tent. Cummings was sitting at his desk studying an Air Corps engineer report. "They won't have the airfield ready for two months. They switched a priority on me."

            "That's too bad, sir."

            "Naturally I'm expected to win the damn campaign without it." The General griped abstractedly as if unaware of the identity of the man before him. "This is the only division in action at the moment which doesn't have any dependable air support." The General wiped his mouth carefully, looked at Hearn. "I thought the tent was pretty good this morning."

            "Thank you, sir." Hearn was annoyed with the pleasure this gave him.

            Cummings extracted a pair of eyeglasses from a drawer in the desk, wiped them slowly, and put them on. This was one of the few times Hearn had seen him wearing eyeglasses, and they made him look older somehow. After a moment Cummings took them off and held them in his hand.

            "You junior officers getting all your liquor supplies?"

            "Why, yes, I believe we are."

            "Mm." Cummings clasped his hands.

            Now, what was this all about? Hearn wondered. "Why do you ask?" he said at last.

            But the General didn't answer. "I'm taking a trip up to Second Battalion this morning. Will you tell Richman to have the jeep ready for me in about ten minutes?"

            "Am I coming along, sir?"

            "Eh, no. You see Horton. I want you to go out to the beach, and pick up some extra supplies for officers' mess."

            "Yes, sir." A little puzzled, Hearn went down to the motor pool, gave the order to Richman, the General's driver, and then saw Major Horton, who gave him a list of supplies to be purchased from a Liberty ship out in the harbor.

            Hearn collected a detail of three men from the first sergeant of headquarters company, requisitioned a weapons carrier, and drove down to the beach. Already the morning had become hot, and the sun, obscured by overcast, refracted from the jungle and heated the moist dank air. Occasionally on the trip along the road, the sound of some artillery would eddy back to them, heavy and depressed like a heat storm on a summer night. Hearn was sweating by the time they reached the end of the peninsula.

            After a few minutes' wait, he was able to requisition a landing craft, and they rode out over the water to where the freighters were anchored. A mile or two away over the sullen torpid water, Anopopei was almost obscured by haze, and the sun, a smudged yellow, burned a fierce gap through the sluggish vault of the clouds. Even on the water it was extremely hot.

            The landing craft cut off its motors, and drifted in against the side of the freighter. When it bumped against the side, Hearn caught the ladder and climbed up to the deck. Above him on the rail were a number of seamen staring at him, and the blank look on their faces, critical and slightly disdainful, irritated him. He stared down through the rungs of the ship ladder at the landing craft, which had backed off toward the loading crane at the bow of the ship. Hearn found himself sweating again from the minor exertion of climbing the ladder.

            "Who's in charge of ship's stores?" he asked one of the seamen at the rail.

            The sailor looked at him, and then without speaking jerked a thumb in the direction of a hatch. Hearn walked past him, pushed open the heavy hatch door, and started down a ladder. The heat smote him with an unexpected shock; he had forgotten how unbearable a ship's hold could become.

            And of course it stank. He felt like an insect crawling through the entrails of a horse. "Damn," he muttered in disgust. As usual the ship smelled of stale cooking -- fat mixed with something as nauseous as the curds from a grease trap. Abstractedly, he rubbed his finger against a bulkhead and drew it away wet. All over the ship the bulkheads sweated a film of oil and water.

            He stepped warily along the passageway, narrow and lighted poorly, the metal floor plates obstructed by an occasional pile of equipment sloppily covered with a small tarpaulin. Once he skidded and almost fell on some oil slick. "Goddam filthy place," he swore. He was enraged, inordinately angry, and it seemed without cause. Hearn paused, wiping his forehead roughly with his sleeve. What the hell's the matter with me?

            "Are you junior officers getting your liquor supplies?" the General had asked, and something had leaped in him at that moment, left his nerves raw and displaced since then. What had the General meant?

            After a moment or two he pushed down the corridor again. The ship's stores office was in a medium-sized cabin off the passageway. It was cluttered with odd ration crates, bits of wood from broken boxes, a pile of papers which had overflowed from a wastebasket, and a large worn desk pushed into one corner.

            "Are you Kerrigan?" Hearn asked the officer sitting at the desk.

            "That's right, sonny, what can I do for you?" Kerrigan had a lean, rather battered face with a few teeth missing.

            Hearn stared at him a moment, his anger pulsing again. "Let's cut out all this 'sonny' crap." He was rather startled by his own rage.

           
"Anything you say, Lieutenant."

            Hearn controlled himself with an effort. '"I've got a landing barge over the side. Here's the requisition for the supplies I want. I'd like to get out of here without taking up too much of your time or mine."

            Kerrigan went through the slip. "This's for officers' mess, eh, Lieutenant?" He ticked off the items aloud. "Five cases of whisky, a carton of salad oil, carton of mayonnaise" -- Kerrigan pronounced it "myonize" with an amused brogue -- "two crates of boned canned chicken, a box o' condiments, a dozen bottles of Worcestershire, a dozen bottles of chili, a crate of ketchup. . ." He looked up. "It's a small list. Restrained tastes y' have. I surmise tomorra you'll be sendin' out a barge to pick up a coupla jars of mustard." He sighed. "Pick and choose, pick and choose." He drew his pencil through most of the items. "I can give y' the whisky. For the rest of it, we're not runnin' a stop-and-shop."

            "If you'll notice the requisition is signed by Horton for the General."

            Kerrigan lit a cigarette. "When the General runs this ship, I'll start to sweat before him." He stared gleefully at Hearn. "One of Horton's men, a captain something or other, picked up the supplies for Division Headquarters yesterday. We're not special caterers to officers' mess, you know. Ye'll draw your supplies in bulk and break 'em down on the beach."

            Hearn restrained his temper. "These are purchases. I have funds from officers' mess to pay for them."