Chapter 32
Egan says, "I'll do it, Sarge." Whitney mutters, "Hell no,
send me!" Lindstrom shakes his head. "Neither of you are
going." His mouth is grim. "Today I am a man."
He takes his Tommy gun from his shoulder and unhooks
the reel, handing both to you. Then he whispers, "You
boys cut across to your left for about fifteen yards.
That should put you directly in front of the sentry.
Meanwhile, I'll be skirting around to his rear and getting
into position for our little squeeze play." He looks down
at his watch. "Check the time." You bring your wrist
up to your face and stare at the white roundness
of the dial strapped to your skin and at the
pale green of the figures around its edge and at
the two webbed hands pointing impersonally and at the jerky
sweep of the longer, thinner second hand moving around them.
"I've got 0631," Lindstrom announces. "What have you got?" Egan
murmurs agreement while Whitney makes a slight
mmmadjustment. You nod.
"Give me a minute or so to get set," he
resumes, "and at 0633 do something to stimulate his curiosity.
Make animal noises or wave a branch back and forth.
But don't worry. Before he has a chance to fire
I'll be quietly at work with my handy little tool.
Okay, now — let's go!" He moves off as he came.
The three of you are alone, and you gaze at
each other for a brief moment and then turn sideways
in the indicated direction. Whitney is ahead and softly counts
the number of wary steps he takes, while you are
directly behind him, and are followed by Egan. Easy now.
A stumble, a slip of shoe leather on a root,
a fall or even an effort to regain your balance
will draw a shot and some highly unwelcome Japanese curiosity
and the whole mission will blow up in your face.
Anyhow, you're glad Lindstrom didn't ask you to do it.
You killed a man. Sure. But all you had to
do was squeeze a trigger and all you could feel
was the slap of the rifle butt in your armpit,
and all you had to look at was an alien
figure fifty feet away grow instantly rigid and drift downward
in the strange languor of lifelessness. But this is different.
You'd have to feel flesh under your fingers and hear
the point of your knife scrape against some internal bone
and see the last paroxysm tremble on the fulminating skin.
Whitney stops. He parts a few blades of tall grass
and peers through. Then, with his arm low and palm
distended, he motions toward the ground. You lower your body
and rest on your elbows. Egan joins you noiselessly and
Whitney lets himself down so that you all lie parallel.
He breathes, "He's coming this way. Keep watching straight ahead
And you'll be able to see him cross our path."
You look between the stalks of brush cane and bamboo,
and you think to yourself, "Little brown brother, we are
about to separate you from your place in the sun.
The spirit of Bushido has been spoken of from olden
times in these words: 'Among flowers the cherry, among men
the warrior.' We do not suppose that death will change
your point of view, but it will effectively end it,
and when your futile existence has been finalized, death will
despise you because you have chosen to live despising life.
Little brown brother, it is God's will that you die.
"We will do our best to collaborate with the Almighty."
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