Read Online The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Norman Mailer
Ads: Link
into sluggish separate globules of mercury.
It seemed impossible to maintain any sort of order. Two companies might start in the morning with perfect liaison between their flanks, and by nightfall would be bivouacking a mile apart. The jungle offered far more resistance than the Japanese, and the troops tried to avoid it wherever they could, threading their way along creekbanks, forging trails through the comparatively uncluttered wilderness of natural coconut groves, and moving with pleasure through the occasional clearings of kunai grass. The Japanese in response would shell the clearings at unpredictable hours, so that the troops avoided them finally, and blundered through the uncertain avenues which thinner patches of jungle might provide.
In the first week of the campaign the jungle was easily the General's worst opponent. The division task force had been warned that the forests of Anopopei were formidable, but being told this did not make it easier. Through the densest portions, a man would lose an hour in moving a few hundred feet. In the heart of the forests great trees grew almost a hundred yards high, their lowest limbs sprouting out two hundred feet from the ground. Beneath them, filling the space, grew other trees whose shrubbery hid the giant ones from view. And in the little room left, a choked assortment of vines and ferns, wild banana trees, stunted palms, flowers, brush and shrubs squeezed against each other, raised their burdened leaves to the doubtful light that filtered through, sucking for air and food like snakes at the bottom of a pit. In the deep jungle it was always as dark as the sky before a summer thunderstorm, and no air ever stirred. Everything was damp and rife and hot as though the jungle were an immense collection of oily rags growing hotter and hotter under the dark stifling vaults of a huge warehouse. Heat licked at everything, and the foliage, responding, grew to prodigious sizes. In the depths, in the heat and the moisture, it was never silent. The birds cawed, the small animals and occasional snakes rustled and squealed, and beneath it all was a hush, almost palpable, in which could be heard the rapt absorbed sounds of vegetation growing.
No Army could live or move in it. The men skirted the jungle forests, and moved through second-growth brush, past smaller woods of coconut trees. Even here they could never see for more than fifty or a hundred feet ahead, and the early stages of the operation were conducted by groping movements of tiny groups of men. The peninsula was only a few miles wide at this point, and the General had two thousand men stretched across it, but there was little connection between them. Between one company of a hundred and eighty men and another, there was room for any number of Japanese troops to slip through. Even when the terrain was comparatively clear, the companies would not often try to set up a partial line. After a week of fumbling through the jungle, the military concept of a connected line could seem no more than a concept. There were Japanese left everywhere behind the front troops, and all through the jungle, in every part of the area that the General had captured on the peninsula there were subsidiary ambushes and skirmishes, until the mouthpiece of the ocarina seemed covered with burs. There was an intense and continuous confusion.
The General had expected this, had even made his allowances for it. Two-thirds of his force of six thousand men were kept in the rear working on supplies, and threshing the jungle in security patrols. He had known from intelligence reports before the campaign began that the Japanese had at least five thousand men against him, and of these, his men had not come in contact with more than a few hundred. The Japanese commander, General Toyaku, was obviously holding them for a protracted defense. As if in assurance, the scattered air
It seemed impossible to maintain any sort of order. Two companies might start in the morning with perfect liaison between their flanks, and by nightfall would be bivouacking a mile apart. The jungle offered far more resistance than the Japanese, and the troops tried to avoid it wherever they could, threading their way along creekbanks, forging trails through the comparatively uncluttered wilderness of natural coconut groves, and moving with pleasure through the occasional clearings of kunai grass. The Japanese in response would shell the clearings at unpredictable hours, so that the troops avoided them finally, and blundered through the uncertain avenues which thinner patches of jungle might provide.
In the first week of the campaign the jungle was easily the General's worst opponent. The division task force had been warned that the forests of Anopopei were formidable, but being told this did not make it easier. Through the densest portions, a man would lose an hour in moving a few hundred feet. In the heart of the forests great trees grew almost a hundred yards high, their lowest limbs sprouting out two hundred feet from the ground. Beneath them, filling the space, grew other trees whose shrubbery hid the giant ones from view. And in the little room left, a choked assortment of vines and ferns, wild banana trees, stunted palms, flowers, brush and shrubs squeezed against each other, raised their burdened leaves to the doubtful light that filtered through, sucking for air and food like snakes at the bottom of a pit. In the deep jungle it was always as dark as the sky before a summer thunderstorm, and no air ever stirred. Everything was damp and rife and hot as though the jungle were an immense collection of oily rags growing hotter and hotter under the dark stifling vaults of a huge warehouse. Heat licked at everything, and the foliage, responding, grew to prodigious sizes. In the depths, in the heat and the moisture, it was never silent. The birds cawed, the small animals and occasional snakes rustled and squealed, and beneath it all was a hush, almost palpable, in which could be heard the rapt absorbed sounds of vegetation growing.
No Army could live or move in it. The men skirted the jungle forests, and moved through second-growth brush, past smaller woods of coconut trees. Even here they could never see for more than fifty or a hundred feet ahead, and the early stages of the operation were conducted by groping movements of tiny groups of men. The peninsula was only a few miles wide at this point, and the General had two thousand men stretched across it, but there was little connection between them. Between one company of a hundred and eighty men and another, there was room for any number of Japanese troops to slip through. Even when the terrain was comparatively clear, the companies would not often try to set up a partial line. After a week of fumbling through the jungle, the military concept of a connected line could seem no more than a concept. There were Japanese left everywhere behind the front troops, and all through the jungle, in every part of the area that the General had captured on the peninsula there were subsidiary ambushes and skirmishes, until the mouthpiece of the ocarina seemed covered with burs. There was an intense and continuous confusion.
The General had expected this, had even made his allowances for it. Two-thirds of his force of six thousand men were kept in the rear working on supplies, and threshing the jungle in security patrols. He had known from intelligence reports before the campaign began that the Japanese had at least five thousand men against him, and of these, his men had not come in contact with more than a few hundred. The Japanese commander, General Toyaku, was obviously holding them for a protracted defense. As if in assurance, the scattered air
Similar Books
