Chapter 60
Home is the hunter, home from the hill, and all
that you have hunted you bring in your arms, and
all that you bring is nothing. It is languorously quiet
and you feel enervated into the future and thought is
a burden you would like to put down somewhere and
run away from. Solitude is the only thing you are
conscious of and you are surprised that loneliness can become
a presence. It's like seeing a hand outstretched and grasping
it and unaccountably finding that it is your own. And
in the intimacy of self encountering self at long last,
all other awarenesses withdraw as though they had
mmmtactlessly intruded.
Advance, friend. Advance and be recognized. Salute and
mmmpass on
and take your place in ranks in a position of
rest. It's easy to sleep when you know you won't
have to get up again, but it's not so deep
a slumber nor so still a silence that it will
not break when your name is being called once more.
You cannot see the war because of all the fighting
and you cannot see its ugliness because of the stinking
horror and you cannot see humanity because of the people.
Everybody is born with an umbilical cord sticking out of
his navel and its purpose is not wholly the binding
of mother to son but the knotting together of man
to man. You walked through the jungle and Lindstrom and
Egan and Whitney were in front of you and you
were behind them, and between you there was connecting tissue.
It was not because of any similarity you may have
had in thought or behavior or habit or belief, but
because you had groped for it and found it and
it had drawn you close. One of you fell down
and another picked him up and carried him in the
simple compulsion of linked survival, and that is the parallel
transcending tribe and race in the utter need of existence.
There are symbols that remain unsearched and secrets that are
locked in miracles and elusive equations that cannot be solved
merely by turning to the back of the book. But
the sun is standing still and the sands are heated
and the hill is floating up to embrace you and
the trees are hoisting their shimmering green banners of hope.
And the sound of Taps ends on a high note. . .
You do not hear the continuing noise of battle from
the beach where the Jap counter-attacking force is rapidly being
annihilated, or the clamor and disorder of retreat directly below
where the enemy has lost his positions and now streams
wildly back to join with reinforcements in the rear. You
do not see the bending bushes yielding to the press
of stampeding brown bodies, some transporting wounded
mmmand others cradling
machineguns and none looking back. You do not hear
the Americans shouting orders and regrouping in skirmish
mmmlines and
bringing up mortars and ammunition and calling for a medic.
You do not see the unwashed face of Private Whitney
poke itself through the grass and survey the ground in
clinical analysis, then wave to the other members of your
squad emerging from the brush. You do not see him
approach you at a crouch and look down at the
hole in your side and lift up your left wrist
and press his finger against it to detect a pulse.
You do not hear Lieutenant Nixon come forward to the
group and ask Whitney whether or not you're still alive.
"Lieutenant," he replies, "there is nothing moving but his watch."
* * *
