| We're a hard-luck platoon, there's no doubt about it, I just hope nobody gets hurt tonightHe stared into the darknessI'm real lucky being left behind, he told himself, I'm sure glad I'm not in Martinez's shoesIt's going to be real rough tonight, and I don't want any part of itI've had my share of the close ones, running across a field with a machine gun ticking after me or swimming in the water that time the Japs had the AA gun turned on us is enough for any man to have to takeI'm proud I'm a sergeant, but there are times when I wish I was just a buck private and all I had to do was bitch like RothI've got to look out for myself because no one else will, and I've sweated this war out long enough not to get hit now
He fingered one of the jungle ulcers on his mouthI just hope to hell none of the boys get hurt tonight, he said to himself
The truck convoy ground sullenly through the mudIt was over an hour since recon had left its bivouac area, but it seemed much longerThere were twenty-five men packed inside the truck and, since there were seats for chanel bucket bags only twelve, over half the men sat on the floor in a tangle of rifles and packs and arms and legsIn the darkness everyone was sweating and the night seemed incomparably dense; the jungle on either side of the road exuded moisture continually
No one had anything to sayWhen the men in the truck listened they could hear the front of the convoy grinding up a grade before themOccasionally the truck to their rear would creep up close enough for the men to see its blackout lights like two tiny candles in a fogA mist had settled over the jungle, and in the darkness the men felt disembodied
Wyman was sitting on his pack, and when he closed his eyes and let the rumble of the truck shake through him he felt as if he were in a subwayThe tension and excitement he had felt when Croft had come up and told them to pack their gear because they were moving forward had abated a little by now and Wyman was drifting along on a mood which vacillated between boredom and a passive stream of odd thoughts and recollectionsHe was thinking of a time when he had accompanied his louis vuitton online mother on a bus trip from New York to PittsburghIt was just after his father died, and his mother was going to see her relatives for moneyThe trip had been fruitless and, coming back on a midnight bus, he and his mother had talked about what they would do and decided that he would have to go to workHe thought of it with a little wonderAt the time it had been the most important night of his life, and now he was going on another trip, a far more eventful one, and he had no idea what would happenIt made him feel very mature for a moment; these were things which had happened just a few years ago, insignificant things nowHe was trying to imagine what combat would be like, and he decided it would be impossible to guessHe had always pictured it as something violent, going on for days without haltAnd here he had been in the platoon for over a week and nothing had happened; everything had been peaceful and relaxed
"Do you think we'll see much tonight, Red?" he asked softly
"Ask the General," Red snortedHe liked Wyman, but he tried to be unfriendly to him chloe because the youth reminded Red of HennesseyRed had a deep loathing of the night before themHe had been through so much combat, had felt so many kinds of terror, and had seen so many men killed that he no longer had any illusions about the inviolability of his own fleshHe knew he could be killed; it was something he had accepted long ago, and he had grown a shell about that knowledge so that he rarely thought of anything further ahead than the next few minutesHowever, there had been lately a disquieting uncomfortable insight which he had never brought to the point of words, and it was bothering himUntil Hennessey had been killed, Red had accepted all the deaths of the men he knew as something large and devastating and meaninglessMen who were killed were merely men no longer around; they became confused with old friends who had gone to the hospital and never come back, or men who had been transferred to another outfitWhen he heard of some man he knew who had been killed or wounded badly, he was interested, even a little concerned, but it was the kind of chloe bag white leather padlock emotion a man might feel if he learned that a friend of his had got married or made or lost some moneyIt was merely something that happened to somebody he knew, and Red had always let it go at thatBut Hennessey's death had opened a secret fearIt was so ironic, so obvious, when he remembered the things Hennessey had said, that he found himself at the edge of a bottomless dread
Once he could have looked ahead to what he knew would be bad combat with a repugnance for the toil and misery of it, and a dour acceptance of the deaths that would occurBut now the idea of death was fresh and terrifying again
"You want to know something?" he said to Wyman
"Yeah?"
"They ain't a thing you can do about it, so shut up Wyman was hurt and lapsed into silenceRed felt sorry immediately afterward, and drew out a bar of tropical chocolate, bent out of shape and covered with tobacco grains from the silt of his pockets"Hey, you want some chocolate?" he asked
They felt the night about themIn the truck there was no sound except for an occasional mutter or curse as they hit a cartier santos demoiselle |