The Thin Red Line

by James Jones

  They put up an arrow sign for B Company to show the water.

  Then they went on to find the third hill (if it was the third hill) unoccupied, too. This was early afternoon.

  But not the fourth. If it was the fourth.

  It was Band who decided to go on and not wait for Baker to catch up. He still had his mind on Boola Boola for the next day, and the next hill was only four hundred yards off by the map. Actually it turned out to be nearer to six hundred yards when they got there, and this time they had to chop trail. Up to now they had been able to follow old trails. This too took its toll, as well as the normal exhaustion of having pressed on so hard, and they arrived at Hill 279 eight men short, all of whom had been left stretched out along the trail in varying states of collapse, with orders to come on when they could, or wait and be picked up by the patrol Band had left back on the third, if it was the third, hill for Baker Company.

  It was just before leaving this next to last, third, fourth, or fifth hill that Sgt Beck came to Band again with a request that his 2d Platoon be allowed to relinquish the point to somebody else. Again Band refused him, but he promised that tomorrow—in the morning at least, Band amended quickly—Beck’s platoon could go into reserve. So it was once again the 2d Platoon which was in the lead when the company received fire. This time, John Bell’s squad was the point squad.

  It was the most—in fact, it was the first—boring situation, and fight, that any of them could remember. That any fight at all could be boring was incredible, but it was true.

  They had been listening hard, as they chopped their way along, hoping there would not be any fight at all and they could move right in, and they had not heard or seen anything at all. Then a man in Bell’s point squad hollered and went down as machine-guns and rifles opened up on them. They were about fifty yards from the top of Hill 279 and open ground. The others in the point squad scattered and spread out. The second squad moved into line on the first squad’s left. The prolonged burst had ceased for several seconds. Now a second came. The wounded man lay crying and moaning. The third squad spread out on the first’s right. The tense-faced men lay and looked at each other and up the hill. All this had been without any orders, without a word spoken. Everybody knew his job. Sgt Beck (trailing behind him the new lieutenant, Tomms) crawled up with the fourth squad, Thorne’s, which now had no real second in command. Beck, with his hand, held them there in reserve position. A medic pushed past Beck to get to the wounded man who still writhed and cried out piteously on the ground. Behind them directed by Brass Band the 3d Platoon was already scrambling, but in the noise seeming to glide, through the dense undergrowth on a tangent which would bring them into line on 2d Platoon’s left. 1st Platoon under Skinny Culn and his new lieutenant, The Pain, was moving up to spread out in company reserve. One MG section each from Weapons was on its way to the two front platoons. And the two mortar sections were flat on their faces. The whole thing had taken maybe forty-five seconds since the first shot. Everybody was scared—naturally—but they were also very tired. It would have to happen to them now at the end of the day. Also, the combat numbness had been advancing in all of them since yesterday morning. It was hardly even exciting, and the half hour’s battle which followed was hardly more exciting.

  The upshot of it was that they kept drifting left trying to find a hole. And that was the form the battle took. It was soon clear there would be no counter-attack. Band overestimated the enemy force at just under a company. He sent 1st Platoon around to the left of 3d Platoon, but they found no hole either. The three platoons hid behind trees and the huge tree roots and fired back with no appreciable effect. It was tiring, uninspired, nervousmaking work which everybody wanted to get over and done with; but the Japanese defended their little hill expertly and toughly. Two more men had been wounded now, and with their crying and moaning added their small but important bit to the general noise. Finally Band decided on a frontal attack. A charge. It was the only thing he could think of, since his mortars could not fire because of overhead obstruction.

  In front of 3d Platoon was a gently sloping depression up onto the hilltop which seemed to present a sort of psychological entrance channel. So 3d Platoon was given the rather dubious honor of making the charge. They wouldn’t just charge, of course. They would work their way forward as far as they could, then give them a grenade shower, and rush. The MGs and the other two platoons would give them fire support and be prepared to join them as soon as they were in. Lt Al Gore, a thin, hollowcheeked, anguish-faced young man, and Sgt Fox, a heavier, hollowcheeked, anguish-faced man, crawled forward to have a look. They would go in two waves of two squads each.

  Corporal Fife, as he got himself ready in Jenks’ squad which would be in the first wave, could hardly believe this was happening to him. Somehow he had always thought he would be spared this experience, that somehow something would always intervene to prevent him having to face Japanese in close proximity with bayonets or knife. He was not at all sure that he could kill somebody who was looking right at him. As they started the crawl under the fire the other two platoons were trying to draw away from them, his teeth were chattering and he was shaking like a leaf from head to foot with terror and lack of confidence.

  Earlier, when the first fire had opened on them, wounding and breaking the arm of that man in Bell’s squad, Fife’s squad had been directly behind 2d Platoon. While the others were starting their quick move to the left, Fife had simply frozen, standing there crouched in his tracks unable to move, until Jenks had to yell at him irritably to “Come on, damn it! Get to movin!” After that he was able to move, but his mind simply would not function and he could not think about anything. He knew this sort of thing could get you killed, but that did not help him. And anyway you could get killed in a lot of ways, in just about any way at all in fact. This thing about all the ways you could get killed had been with him ever since his own wounding, and now its sheer unreckonability unnerved him. The cries and moans of the hurt man unnerved him further. Why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut? Fife had. This was not just another day’s work to him like it apparently was to Jenks. And also Jenks had never been hit. Getting hit made you realize that you—…

  He had tried to do better, helping Jenks herd the squad, pretending he was not unnerved, that he was not thinking of all the unreckonable ways to get killed. But his performance was at best mechanical. And the worst thing in his mind was that he might not be able to kill some Japanese or other who confronted him, and who, therefore, would kill him.

  And the same thing was in his mind now as they crawled. Suddenly, for no real reason, he found himself remembering that young, foolish, innocent, gullible Corporal Fife, that total stranger, who once had stood forth in the dawn on Hill 209 and had stretched out his arms willing to be killed for mankind, and the love of mankind. Well, fuck mankind, that bunch of ‘honorable’ animals. Piss and shit on them. That was what they deserved.

  They were on their feet before the grenade shower had even exploded. They ran uphill, hollering and yelling. Fife scampered along with them, panting and sweating. Nothing touched him. On his right the usually imperturbable Jenks let out a long, shrill, screeching, quavering rebel yell. Three men went down hollering in the rush. Nothing touched Fife. Then they were in. The second two squads were right behind them. Fife had no trouble shooting. When he first saw those scrawny, tattered, scarecrow yellow men firing their rifles and MGs intently, he could hardly believe it and felt astonished. When he saw one Japanese in a hole whirl with a grenade in his hand and stare at him wide-eyed, he shot him through the chest and watched him fall, the phrase repeating itself over and over in his mind happily that “I can kill, too! I can! Just like everybody! I can kill, too!” Then he looked around for more targets and saw a Japanese running, trying to make the jungle. Head down, arms pumping, he ran in total despair like a man on a too-swift treadmill which was carrying him backward. Fife led him just a hair and shot him through the left side just below the armpit, shouting with
elation as the man tumbled with a yell just feet away from the jungle and safety. Then it was all over. 2d and 1st Platoons were pouring in on both sides of them.

  A number of the Japanese—maybe half—had got out, running and diving into the jungle leading to their own rear. If such a term as rear applied, in this crazy campaign. The rest, including the two or three who tried to surrender, were shot out of hand by tense-faced, nerve-racked men who wanted no fucking nonsense. The whole thing had lasted just under half an hour. They were all exhausted, by the long trailchopping jungle trek, by the difficult maneuvering through the dense undergrowth, by the fight itself. Now all they had left to do, as soon as they got their breath back, was to get rid of the corpses and make a perimeter defense and dig in for the night. C-for-Charlie had lost two dead and six wounded. The Japanese had lost twenty-three dead. There were no Japanese wounded. But some might have escaped with the others.

  Standing with the others of his platoon as they panted and sweated and slowly came back to themselves, or presumed to, Corporal Geoffrey Fife ex-company clerk was astonished to realize that he had personally killed two Japanese. He did not, like most of the others, take part in the poking and looking and souvenirhunting because the corpses made him feel queasy and vaguely guilty. But he watched. Was this the way they’d done it at The Elephant’s Head? And when Charlie Dale whipped out his pliers and Bull Durham sacks and began yanking gold teeth, Fife had to turn away. A few others appeared to view Dale’s toothpulling with distaste, but nobody said anything, and nobody looked as upset as Fife felt. And this upset Fife even more. Don Doll, for instance, was watching Dale and grinning broadly. What was wrong with him? If the rest of the guys could be this tough, why couldn’t he be? He had killed two, hadn’t he?—one of whom had been looking straight at him.

  Taking himself in hand, he made himself turn back and watch. He even grinned a little. Doll was grinning. So Fife grinned too. Casually—much more casually than he actually felt—he made himself walk over to one of the cadavers and look at it. He thought of sticking his bayonet in it, to show he didn’t give a damn, but he was afraid that would look too affected. So instead he squatted, taking the stragglybearded greasy chin in his hand, and turned the head so he could look directly into the face. The eyes were still open and a tiny thin trickle of blood had run out of the halfopen, mutilated mouth where Dale had worked on it. Fife gave it a push and stood up and walked away. That ought to show them! He had a strong impulse to wipe his hand vigorously on his pantsleg, but he resisted it. Instead he started getting out his entrenching tool off his belt because soon they’d have to start digging, that much was for sure.

  Fife was quite right. That was the next major chore that faced them, before they themselves could face the night. Digging. Their neverending, universal digging. Sweating and panting with exhaustion, digging. Like last night. And almost every night in the world. And sometimes two or three times in the day. A place to lay your head. Three by three by seven, slit trench. Only the very lucky ever inherited another outfit’s holes. Nobody dug the round deep foxholes here because there weren’t any tanks. Here the home was the slit trench. There might not be any atheists in foxholes, John Bell thought with a grim smile, like that dumb Catholic Chaplain in the Philippines said, because nobody here dug foxholes. But he knew a lot of them in slit trenches, and getting more and more every day.

  A detail was sent to complete the remaining fifty yards of trail. A patrol was sent back to collect the stragglers and inform Baker where they were. The wounded went out with the patrol. Of the six wounded, only three were litter cases. This meant that one of the four litter teams could stay with the company. Replacement litter teams were to be requested and sent forward, in the morning, perhaps shuttled up from Baker. Everything done, Brass Band decided not to call Battalion. He had not called them last night. After all, they had told him he was an independent command. Independent command! And he was well within the schedule, and even ahead of it.

  It was about a half hour after dark—when both of the patrols, and all of the stragglers, were back safely inside the perimeter defense—that the men awake in the section of holes overlooking the trail, heard themselves hailed from the trail in a strong Kentucky accent.

  “Charlie Compny! Charlie Compny! Hold your fahr! It’s Witt! It’s Witt! Acting-P-F-C Witt!” the voice added in a burst of sly humor, “of Cannon Compny!”

  It was indeed Witt. He had walked the last six hundred yards alone in the dark from B-for-Baker’s position on the next hill back. He had found A-for-Able first, gone on, stopped to read the dogtag on the triggerguard of Big Un’s rifle, reached B-for-Baker where they gave him the password, decided to come on despite their best advice, and here he was. Hardly anyone was asleep yet, and there was a great deal of backslapping, laughter, and handshaking. The first thing he wanted to know was what was the new Battalion Commander like. Everybody was overjoyed to see him, to know that he would have searched them out like this just to be with them. Everybody included Brass Band, who with his insipid smile had only just then decided to place outside the perimeter the roadblock which he had decided the company’s position needed.

  Witt of course volunteered for it immediately.

  Everybody had wondered why the Japanese had decided to defend Hill 279 and not the others. The answer, which also showed on the map had anyone thought about it, was just on the other side of the hill. Following a usually dry river bed toward the coconut groves and the beach, one of the two major north-south trails across the whole island passed through the jungle just under the shoulder of Hill 279. Beaufort Trail, much further on ahead, and this one here called Dini-Danu in the native tongue but immediately renamed Ding Dong Trail by the Americans, were the only means of moving across the island. It was known that the Japanese used them both to march across their skimpy reenforcements landed from fast destroyers on the other side of the island, and it was because of this fact that Tall George Band decided to throw a block across it. He wanted to deny the Japanese any reenforcements that he could for the battle of Boola Boola tomorrow. He had received no orders about Ding Dong Trail one way or the other, from Battalion or from Regiment, but he was convinced that he could help in this way.

  Witt was the first man to volunteer for it, though he had, he said, serious reservations about the whole idea. John Bell was the second, though he could not have told anybody why. The third was Charlie Dale, who still had in mind his plot for getting a platoon, and whose nose had been put out of joint by Witt’s dramatic return. Dale, however, was disallowed by Band, who said two noncoms were enough, and who thereby probably saved his life because Witt and Bell were the only two to survive the mission.

  The rest of the volunteers were Pfcs and privates. A couple of men from Bell’s squad volunteered because their leader was going. A man named Gooch, an oldtime Regular and boxing buddy of Witt, volunteered because he was a good friend of Witt and wanted to talk to him. Band wanted two BARs so Bell’s BAR man volunteered. Then Charlie Dale’s BAR man volunteered to go with Witt. They were twelve Pfcs and privates in all. All of them died.

  Originally Band had thought to send his entire ‘Old Vet’ 2d Platoon, but had thought better of it and asked for volunteers when he remembered Beck’s protests. In a way it was lucky, because from what happened it was pretty clear that a platoon would have done no more good than the fourteen men Band later decided to send, though more of them certainly would have survived. Band did not yet know that most of his company was already calling him by his new nickname The Glory Hunter behind his back, or that the majority of his higher sergeants already knew from Beck that he had volunteered the company to be lead company. If he had, it probably would not have influenced his decision. Witt did not yet know any of this, either. If he had, it would certainly have made him protest about the roadblock even stronger. As it was, it was strong enough to astonish Band.

  “I want to go,” Witt said, when he first volunteered. “But I want to make it plain that I think the whole
thing is a pretty bad idea. If they come through there like in any strength at all, Lootenant, they going to knock that roadblock to hell and flinders even if it’s a whole platoon. We couldn’t hold them. But I want to go.”

  Band was staring at him in amazement from behind his spectacles. He had only just finished making him Acting Sergeant again a moment before. “You don’t have to go, Sergeant Witt,” he said thinly. “If you don’t want to. Others will volunteer.”

  “No, I want to go,” Witt said. “If somethin bad happens, I want to be there so maybe I can help. Besides, nothin bad may happen at all.”

  But as it turned out, there wasn’t much he could do to help. Or anybody. They were had cold turkey. The only thing that saved him himself was that he was sitting over on the far left end with Gooch, Gooch who later died silently in his arms so as not to give him away. They had been talking about the last Regimental boxing season. Gooch had just missed making Department bantam champion, winding up as runnerup, and he was explaining to Witt again his excuses for this failure. That was when it hit them.

  So there they were, twelve Pfcs and privates and two sergeants, one of them Acting. All normal men in a normal situation, all normal soldiers, who had accepted a normal commission to do a normal job, and death came for them in a normal way—except that nobody dies normally. Not to himself, at least. But the normality of it was what was so grotesque—afterwards, to both of the survivors. Death came for them in the form of a .31 cal machine-gun strapped to the back of a perfectly normal Japanese soldier.

  Actually their tactical situation was not a bad one. They had come down the hill in the faint moonlight, explored the trail carefully for several hundred yards (at great danger to everybody), and—Witt and Bell conferring—chosen themselves the best spot available. They picked a place where the sandybottomed dryriverbed narrowed to a gulch so thin that only one man or at the most two could squeeze through it at a time. Thirty yards in front of this, on the downhill, seaward side, they spread themselves out behind a couple of downed saplings which really offered only psychological comfort, both BAR men prominently displayed. One man was told off to watch the other, seaward approach, but they all knew, somehow, that if anything came it would come from inland. Witt was over on the far left, and John Bell was on the right though not as near the nine foot bank.