Chapter 15
There go the supply boys lugging unwieldy boxes of ammunition
and cartons of field rations and tools and jungle equipment,
reducing the problems of military logic to an aching back.
A group of men with rolls of white fabric tape
are laying out trails to guide and restrict the column,
while booby traps and trip wires are placed across approaches.
Engineers are marking a field for the planting of mines
and the circular containers are gingerly delivered to prescribed places.
Defense lines for the advanced assembly area are being disposed
in a perimeter along the outer edge of the sabana.
Squads are being allocated their positions about ten yards apart,
and sandbags are being filled and fire lanes are being
cut and observation teams are being established in nearby trees
and standing patrols are posted to cover routes of infiltration.
Melt to the ground. Turn over on your left side
and pull your canteen out of its dirt-caked canvas carrier.
Unscrew the cover and let it dangle by its chain.
Take a mouthful of water, rolling it around before swallowing,
then let its moistness trickle slowly down your parched gullet.
Funny. You always thought South Sea Island life was composed
of an exotic combination of savage headhunters and missionaries and
girls wearing sarongs in gay pursuit of one another through
picture postcard scenery. But all you've discovered so far in
this topographical error is the only place in the world
where you can stand in mud up to your bellybutton
And still have prickly silt slap you in the face. . .
Oh, well -- take off your instincts and make yourself comfortable
and stretch your body out in the quiet, cool grass
and watch the hill balance the sky on its breast,
staring into the emptiness and space of its empty spaces.
Graham uncoils his lean frame at your side. He says,
"You know, I just killed a man three minutes ago.
If I lie down here long enough I'll start wondering
if maybe it wasn't the other way around." You answer,
"Forget it. Jesus Christ, forget it. Don't wonder about anything
or your brain will strip a gear. Just dial your
thoughts like a radio and tune in something entirely different."
You offer him your canteen. "Have a drink?" He shakes
his head, and he replies wryly, "If a drop of
water touched me it would probably go up in steam."
There are some casualties and they are being taken back
to the beach where pre-op cases will receive whole blood
or plasma before an amphtrack will evacuate them to ships.
Broken eggs can never be mended. They go into crates
by themselves. And how would you like to shake hands
with yourself some day and say, "Pardon my artificial extremity"?
The American dead are immovably comatose,
mmmshrouded by O.D. ponchos,
and they will be buried in accordance with Army regulations.
You think of battle orders, plans, preparations, training,
mmmmaneuvers, rehearsals.
The War Department tells the Army through normal military channels
and it goes from the General Staff to the corps,
then to the division, to the regiment, to the battalion,
to the company, to the platoon and to the squad.
In tight language, bony with abbreviations and bare of adjectives,
the enemy's position is made clear and his strength inventoried.
The mission is explained with a statement of principal objectives
and a breakdown of the overall expectation into unit missions.
To this are added annexes and outlines of alternate procedures
detailing successive objectives, frontages, boundaries between
mmmdetachments and security measures.
But nobody ever issues instructions on how to die.
