The Thin Red Line

by James Jones

  And he still felt the same way today as he moved along at the head of his squad with two grenades hooked in his belt. It would hardly have been fair to his Pfc acting, would it? Whatever else, Doll’s squad came first. That was why he took more than his share of the dirty jobs, like taking this point himself today, for his point squad: he wanted them to know it. And now when he turned around to tell the man behind to pass the word back to Beck that he thought they were approaching destination, Doll grinned at him reassuringly. It was just then that the machinegun somewhere in front of them opened up with its stuttery voice.

  As one man, the platoon dived off the trail into the leaves, some on one side, some on the other. Doll himself, who had caromed off a treetrunk in his blind leap through the leaves, found himself landing squarely on top another man, a young Pfc from his own squad named Carol Arbre. Already lying on his stomach on the jungly ground while Doll was still bouncing half-stunned off his tree, Arbre had not entertained the idea of having someone light on his back; and now Doll, his crotch pressed tightly to the juncture of Arbie’s already powerfully-clamped-together buttocks, sprawled on top of him in the classic position of buggery. A rather girlishly-built, girlish-looking young man, who was continually having his bottom felt in joke or perhaps not in joke, Arbre had been forced throughout his Army career to protest furiously against such indignities. People could not believe, given his girlish build, that he was not homosexually inclined. Now he turned his head back over his shoulder to peer at Doll, red with embarrassment and frowning furiously, and said in a choked voice: “You git off of me like that!”

  Doll, still a little stunned from running headlong into the tree, required several seconds to collect his scattered wits. At the same time, stunned as he was, he was not unaware of his crotch pressed to the now-even-more-tightly-pressed-together buttocks of Arbre beneath him. Shaking his head a few times, he rolled off one full circuit to the right, using his riflebutt to keep the muzzle out of the dirt and still have it ready in front of him. And it was just then that they heard the too swift, murderously soft shu-shu sound they knew so well and mortar rounds began to land and explode around and among them. But despite the mortars, within Doll the memory—of his crotch pressed to the (if the truth had to be told) rather sweet, girlish buttocks of Carrie (of course they called him Carrie) Arbre—lingered.

  The mortars kept on coming. Doll heard a couple of men yell somewhere behind him. Still out of breath and a little groggy from running into the tree, he tried to think what to do. He was pleased to note, to realize suddenly, that the numbness he had felt during the last stages of the big battle last week, was now coming back over him swiftly—had in fact been growing in him unnoticed since their departure from Hill 210. It left his mind clear, and cool, suffused with a grinning bloodthirstiness. It spread all through him, making a solid impenetrable layer between himself and the choking fear which would not allow him to swallow as he hugged the ground. He could not tell exactly how far the MG (it had now been joined by another one somewhere else) was from him. He debated whether it was worthwhile trying to crawl uphill to it with one or two men and some grenades to see if they could get close enough to throw. He was pulled from this revery by someone vigorously jiggling his left foot behind him. He looked around. Sgt Beck had crawled up from the rear of the platoon.

  Beck, when Doll first halted the column, had immediately taken another compass reading, allowing his own new lieutenant, Tomms, to pretend to help: after all, that cost him nothing. The largely inaccurate map they had was not to be trusted very far. They had Culn’s and Payne’s descriptions from yesterday, but Beck was always instinctively suspicious of other people’s explications. He preferred his own two eyeballs, and he was already (even before the message from Doll could have reached him, which it never did because of the MG) pretty sure they were quite close to The Sea Slug. When the mortars started dropping in, he had decided to go forward to find out why Doll had halted them before the machinegun.

  Beck too, like Doll, was surprised to find that the old, peculiar numbness was right there, already waiting, and that it had quickly taken him over leaving the rest of him, the best of him, free to act. It was a good thing to know. Apparently it came quicker with practice. No feeling without Feeling Pay! He too felt murderously bloodthirsty. Make them pay, was what his head told him. If you can. If you can make them. Everybody knew the mortars were coming from somewhere on The Giant Boiled Shrimp, and as he crawled forward Beck stopped off by the walkie-talkie man Band had thoughtfully given him and told him to radio back for fire on The Shrimp.

  “Tell them to throw every-fucking-thing they got,” he snarled. “Piss on the cost of ammo. Tell them cover the whole damned area! Shut them mortars up!”

  Behind him Beck heard a man scream up through the sound flower of a mortar round. It was hardly so much a scream as a guttural, surprised, infuriated “Hagh-ah-ah-ah!” Beck pressed on, tripping and treading on members of his platoon as well as on jungle vines. Well, this was it. They were in it for sure now. He was pleased to note that he wasn’t scared—just afraid. What a fucking, shiteating war. He would have to get the platoon after the goddam war started. A platoon used to be gravy.

  As soon as Doll looked around at the jiggling of his foot, Beck tried to smile at him. “What’s the situation?”

  There was a drawn, wrinkle-eyed look on everybody’s face, including his own. Everybody had crowsfeet today.

  Doll seemed surprised to see him. “I don’t know. I don’t think they is any.”

  “Why’d you halt us?”

  Doll pointed to the ground. “We were gettin into the blast area, and it begins to get a lot steeper here.”

  “I think you were right. You probly saved us a couple guys from that MG.” He paused. “Well, what the hell do we do now? Why the hell don’t Band get up here?”

  Beck was thinking out loud to himself more than speaking to Doll, and Doll hesitated before he spoke. “Screw Band! Lissen, Milly,” he said, using one noncom’s prerogative of intimate address to another. Beck’s first name was Millard. “I think we can knock out that MG. See how far he’s firin over our heads here?”

  Beck didn’t mind the intimate address. He squinted uphill through the growing smoke. “You think you can?”

  “I think we’re deefalaided here. If I take two guys with three four grenades apiece, I think we can crawl up and knock him out and move on in.” He gestured. “Out of this crap.” When the mortar rounds weren’t actually going off, his voice sounded preternaturally loud.

  Milly Beck debated. Band should have arrived by now. “Okay. But wait’ll I get the platoon into position. Pick two guys. Them squads should of been up by now without me telling them.” Turning his head rearward, Beck began to roar, waving his right arm. He was sure nobody could see him. But it made him feel better. “Bell’s squad up on the right! Dale’s squad up on the left! Make a line, make a line! You assholes! Load and lock! Prepare to fire cover!”

  Behind them somebody else screamed with startled pain as he was hit. While Beck continued to roar, Doll looked over his squad, his whole face grinning. The bloodthirstiness was growing to a dull blood roar in his ears, almost drowning even the mortars. “You,” he said, pointing. “And you.” Then he realized the second man he had chosen was the fawneyed Arbre. “No, not you,” he said; “you,” and picked another. It was instinctively done, without thinking, but even so he was a little surprised at himself. Arbre was as good a soldier as the next man. He could carry his weight. “Everybody take five grenades.” Arbre was staring at him strangely. Doll grinned back at him. On right and left the two squads were moving up. Thorne’s, the fourth squad, was coming up as reserve.

  “Okay?” Doll said.

  “Okay,” Beck said huskily. “Let’s get the fuck out of this.”

  Doll wasn’t really sure they were defiladed. The gunner could probably depress if he wanted. But he gambled and took them forward on their feet, instead of crawling. But they had not gone ten
yards when there were screams up above, the explosions of several grenades, and the machinegun stopped. Then voices in English with unmistakable American accents yelled down at them. “Hold your fire! Hold your fire! This is 3d Battalion! Hold fire, 2d Battalion!” Doll was suddenly so frustrated that he bit his lip till tears came in his eyes. He had had himself all primed. And now nothing. Adrenaline and emotion surged through him unreleased leaving him lightheaded.

  Seconds later the mortars stopped. An unearthly silence fell, deathly, weird, mentally unmanageable as yet. It was over. At least temporarily. Men strove to adjust themselves to the silence and to the idea that they were not going to be dead yet for a while. There were surprisingly few yells or screams from the wounded, only a few low moans. The two new company medics, who were never as well liked as the two nowdead originals, but who were gaining, moved among them. They were all getting pretty old pro there, Sgt Beck thought, listening and feeling proud.

  “Well, shall we get on up there?” he said aloud. He stood up. Other men around him stood up. It was then that Lt Tall George Band appeared, picking his way among the men who had not yet gotten up.

  “What’s the situation, Beck?” he asked.

  “3d Battalion seems to be in full control on The Sea Slug, Sir.”

  “Why did the mortars stop?”

  “I don’t know for sure, Sir. Maybe the artillery stopped them. I radioed back for fire.”

  “Good work. All right, let’s go up and have a look.” Adjusting his steelrimmed spectacles, Band started off without looking back. He headed for Doll and his two men, who were now standing up holding or wearing all their extra, unused grenades. Beck stood staring after him wanting to curse, but Band did not know this. “You men look like Christmas trees!” he called to Doll in a jocular voice as he clumped along. “Where the hell you going dressed up like that?”

  It was a mistake, a mistake from start to finish. Perhaps it was a serious mistake. But Band was not aware of it. He clumped on past Doll heading uphill, pushing his way over the artillery damaged undergrowth. Slowly, in ones and twos, the men began to follow him—except for Beck, who stayed a minute to check on his four wounded: a thing he might not have done or bothered with, had Band not gone on.

  Why had Band done it? Nobody knew. Nobody knew exactly why it was a mistake either. Another man could have done and said the same things Band did and said and it would not have been a mistake. But in Band’s case it was one. Everyone present who saw and heard it, marked it down jealously in their little private mental notebooks of references which they just as jealously would not forget. And those who had not seen or heard it were informed by the others, and marked it down just as jealously in their own jealous notebooks. They had not all that quickly forgotten Capt James Bugger Stein, whom they subsequently had heroized out of all reasonable proportion; Bugger had been for them, they believed. And Band knew nothing about it at all, never suspected.

  George Band had enjoyed himself immensely during the mortar bombardment—in much the same way Doll had. He had lain with most of the rest of the company back out of range and had felt like weeping when the wounded yelled. He had not gone forward into the fire because his place was back where he could direct the other platoons if they were needed. He really wanted to be up there with them, but he knew it was not his job. But this did not preclude his sharing the emotions which he knew Beck and Doll and the others must be feeling.

  Band had also enjoyed himself immensely the night before, with the new Battalion Commander from the other regiment. In fact, his capacity for enjoying himself immensely had increased enormously, out of all proportion, with the simple routine act of becoming a Company Commander. He had always known he would make it, and last night after Payne and Culn had reported, been given a drink, and were dismissed, the new Colonel had asked him to stay a bit. The new Colonel had had a correspondent with him all during the day before and had gleaned from him two bottles of Time-&-Life-bought scotch, one of which he now broke out for just the two of them: Grand MacNeish! He and Band had several snorts of it together. The new Colonel was quite pleased with the results of the patrol, especially Culn’s voluntary lingering under the mortars to put rifle and BAR fire into The Sea Slug’s enemy MGs. “Make them think a bit anyway,” was his retort. “If they’re smart,” he smiled. “I mean, if they know their tactics they’ll withdraw.” He smiled again. “I mean, it can only be an outpost for them. Their main defensive line has to be the hill mass of The Giant Boiled Shrimp.” He and Band had one more quick snort. It was then that Band offered his company to lead off the Battalion for tomorrow. The new Colonel accepted smiling, nodding his big graying handsome head appreciatively; he had already heard about C-for-Charlie. It was the best scotch Band had tasted in he did not know when. He arrived back at the company just as it fell full dark, peacefully content. Band had always known he would get the command. And as he bedded down for the night in the little Japanese shanty, he dwelt upon it.

  He would do for them what Stein could never have done; because he loved them. He really loved them. Not with sentimentality like Stein, but with full, tragic cognizance of what voluntary sacrifices would be demanded of them and of himself too. You simply could not treat them equal as men, as Stein had tried. It had to be a stern paternal love relationship, because they were children and did not know their own minds or what was best for them. They had to be disciplined and they had to be ordered. Band had two children of his own. And in his high school classes back home he had treated his students the same way, too. But he could not feel for any of those children back there, students or real ones, what he felt for these children here. How could he, when he had not shared with those the terrible, horrible, brave experiences he had shared with these ones here? A great, warm, paternal, each-child-hugging love brimmed in him. Filled with a sure awareness of the things he and they would accomplish together out of the depth of their more-than-mated love, Band had dropped blissfully off to sleep, not at all disturbed by—more, even relishing—the rocks and knobs of dirt which stuck him in the various parts of his back through the canvas stuffing of his bedroll.

  That had been last night. And now, as he climbed the slopes of The Sea Slug to meed 3d Battalion at 7:40 the next morning, after a mortar pummeling that had wounded four men of his best platoon, and some others, he still felt the same way about them. He would do anything in the world for them. Behind him his men followed, much more interested in the terrain they were getting a first look at, than in what their present commander might ever do for them.

  “Jesus!” Sgt Doll said to Sgt Beck. “Am I glad 3d Battalion did get there first!”

  “Yeh,” Beck said, out of breath. “So’m I.”

  What they saw was a series of fingerlike ridges thirty-five to forty feet high, rocky, steep, totally bare, with narrow, bare, ten to twenty foot draws between them. These were on the left. To have scaled them under Japanese fire was more than the toughest wished to contemplate. But on the right was a long, steep grassy slope devoid of cover for at least fifty yards. To have gone up this into MGs would have been to invite being mown like Nebraska wheat. The Japanese had even cut multiple fire lanes in the waist-high grass. Lucky. Lucky.

  Band shook hands with the commander of 3d Battalion’s L Company, an old drinking pal of his and Stein’s who had reduced the position, and whose men were standing all around getting back their breath. 2d Platoon, and then the others following, mingled in with them, talking and smoking. But this time there was no evidence of competition, no digs or wisecracks about being late or who got there first.

  L had not suffered badly: five men hit, one of them killed. Two of them by the first machinegun further back the ridge, three by the mortars which had hit them at the same time they hit C-for-Charlie. They had found only two MGs on the entire Sea Slug ridge, both suicide crews left behind to hold up the advance apparently. All had preferred to die. But there was evidence that there had been many more. The Japanese had pulled back apparently late yesterday,
or last night.

  What did all this mean? Neither L Company and its commander nor Band and C-for-Charlie had any idea. Both had expected a much tougher fight. Each would radio back the development to his respective battalion and carry on with his mission unless told otherwise. They decided to leave it like that. When they did radio, they were both told to carry on as planned.

  L Company’s orders were to cross to and attack the open ground of The Giant Boiled Shrimp hill mass as soon as The Sea Slug was taken. C-for-Charlie’s were to dig in and hold The Sea Slug against counterattack for an approach route. It was still not yet eight o’clock in the morning. “I’m not at all sure you’ve got the easier job,” L Company’s commander smiled as he shook hands with Band before leaving. “Not if they find we’re using this ridge as an approach route and decide to turn loose those mortars again.” With a grim chill those men of Charlie who heard him thought he might very well be right.

  Band put them to work right away. He chose for them the most advanced, most susceptible part of The Sea Slug ridge. Behind them Baker and Able were beginning to come up and spread out rearward from their flanks. As they dug, I-for-Item and K-for-King came up along the ridge and passed through them, I to take the left flank of the attack up the open ground of The Shrimp, twice as big as The Dancing Elephant in area, K to follow them as reserve 2d Battalion, they said, provided 3d was able to move on into the wider areas, was to follow them soon after and join in the attack.

  This was not, however, the way it worked out in the reality.