nights like this in the war, particularly early on, on jungle-rich Guadal, where the Japs crept in through the shadowy trees and left a man or two with his throat slit every night. Earl had caught one once about to finish him after he'd finished another man in the gun pit, and Earl had kicked him in the balls, then beat him to death with an entrenching tool. It was not a pleasant memory, and as it stole over him now, waiting, he felt a sense of shame. He remembered the glee with which he'd whacked and whacked at the small, squirming yellow man, and the strange notes that came from his enemy's constricted throat, and the exultation when it was over, and he was blood- smeared, exhausted but alive for one more tropical sunrise and one more shot at survival.
He tried not to move his head, or let the pain stinging in his tensed legs get to him. He scanned without motion; his eyes simply rotated left and right, scoping the abstractions for a sense of movement, listening for a sound.
But nothing came. It was going to be at hey were fast and quiet. They were as good as the Japs. They rose soundlessly from nowhere and only passed through a tiny smear of light from a dim moon beyond the window to alert him, and they were on his bunk in split seconds; they made no noise at all, like expert jungle killers, men well experienced in mortal confrontations and well studied in the leverage of force against flesh.
He watched their arms blur as they struck again and again into the hump of knotted clothing that was a laundry bag he'd stolen in the dark.
In the next second, they realized they were stabbing at somebody's sweaty underwear, not a man, and in the next second after that, he was on them.
Earl was without mercy. He was not in a universe where mercy was allowable. Mercy equaled death. Yet even as far gone as he was toward savagery, he was not comfortable with what happened next, though he was its sole author. As he lunged, he swung the limb with the force of an ax, wishing for more weight up top. But it didn't matter, for his timing was exquisite and he struck one of his antagonists-too dark to tell which one?full in the face with it and felt the satisfying shudder up the shaft of the club and the length of his arms to signify a solid wallop. That man, stunned, loosened and slipped, gasping, his two hands flying to his injured face, which now must have worn a broken nose, a shattered cheek and a mouthful of broken teeth. He was out of the fight.
Earl was quick on the rebound, knowing he'd never get a full swing off again; instead, from the full extension of the first blow, he came driving back this time with the sharp point of his weapon, driving it hard into something soft and moist, a neck he presumed, that belonged to the second man. He drove this shaft like a piston, back and forth in cruel, savage strokes, at the same time shoving his body with all its strength against his antagonist's, and yet also keeping that now screaming man between himself and the other who was charging around to cut him.
Earl separated from the second bleeder to meet the rush of the knife man. He countered the blade with the stick, catching the last man's lunge, and spared himself a deep stab. But he knew also that he had not hurt the second man enough to put him out of the fight, and if the two of them got to him, and the fight went to the floor, as most fights do, they'd crush him beneath them, grapple him still, and gut him.
The other blade probed again, this time glancing off Earl's parry and slicing a bad wound across his forearm. The blood spurted, but there wasn't any pain, for his system was too aboil with blood chemicals to register hurt. He got a short stroke of the haft into the face of the other fighter, driving him back, and then the second man recovered enough to get him in a driving bear hug and slam him into a bunk, spilling two screaming sleepers from it.
Lanterns were lit somewhere, and in the pitching darkness, Earl saw that it was big Moon himself who had him crushed, while another man retrieved the knife to close on Earl. So Earl squirmed and improvised.
With his boot he crushed Moon's instep, and when the giant screamed and loosened his grip, Earl, head- butted him backward in the nose, breaking it. Then he spun, saw an opening, and nailed him with a hard jab to the lower side of the head, and felt the jaw he'd smashed snap and twitch; he'd broken it clean. He grabbed the injured heavyweight and pushed him in the direction of the knife fighter, deflecting him.
But not for long. The knife boy knew his stuff. He evaded Moon deftly, stayed balanced and without panic, went to a trapping backhand grip on his cutter, and his eyes were empty of emotion but full of skill. He was fast as he danced at Earl, and the knife then came at Earl's face so fast even a man as fast as Earl couldn't completely avoid it, and it sliced along the line of his skull, opening a squirting gash. But the point missed his eyes, which had been the idea behind the thrust, and Earl didn't panic when he was hurt as so many do. He closed faster than the man withdrew, knowing the closer he was the more he cut the power of the slabber. And before that one could get the knife back into play, Earl tattooed him with a left-right-left-right combo to the center of the body, knowing the satisfaction of punches well delivered. The other buckled and stepped back, and with hazy eyes flailed at Earl with the knife, which Earl evaded easily enough, and when the blade had passed, hit him a haymaker over the jaw, taking the consciousness away from him.
He twisted down in a heap.
The lanterns were fully on now. Moon was alone, his jaw disfigured, a great foam of redness spread across the heaving blackness of his chest from the many gougings Earl had applied with the back end of his club.
'Come on, big man. Let's finish it,' Earl shouted in full rage, blood and sweat streaming off him. He had surrendered fully to the warrior's madness. He wanted to kill and crush his antagonist, but Moon, rather than stepping forward, stepped back, raising a hand. He slinked away, trying to stem the blood from his wound. He was done for that night.
Earl staggered slightly, as the pains his adrenaline had kept him from feeling now announced their presence. His hands hurt the most and his knuckles were garlanded in red. He opened and closed his fists, feeling the pain as fire, hot and raw. But no bones were broken. When he turned he saw horror on the faces of the lantern-lit Negroes who stared at him as if he were some kind of rough beast, newly born among them. Then he realized he was bathed in blood.
He touched his head where the long slice had been opened up, and his fingers came away red. He looked at his left arm, where the other cut was. Both oozed. He went to his own laundry cache and pulled out a clean undershirt, broke the seams with his teeth and quickly improvised cotton bandages around them to stanch the blood flow. He knew he had not been hurt mortally but that the less blood he lost the faster he'd recover.
Too bad there wasn't fishing line about; he'd sew himself up.
Then he heard the commotion.
'Mama! Mama! I ain't goin' to de Screamin' House! Mama, don't let dem take me to de Screamin' House! Lord, Lord, ain't goin' to de Screamin'
House.'
He saw that it was the knife fighter, now conscious, now aware he was dying. Knocked out by Earl's blow, he had managed to twist on his blade.
He had buried it in his thigh, and the blood ran so swiftly and puddled so hugely that it seemed clear he would bleed out. Around him stood men watching, seemingly frozen in the drama of his exsanguination.
'Oh, God!' he screamed, waving his hands futilely, 'don't let me die like this. Please God, don't let them take me to de Screamin' House.'
No one seemed able to help. Memories danced through Earl's mind from the war: young men, blood, the shock of loss, the disbelief that oneself could be so badly hurt so quickly, the numbness of the survivors, their tentativeness. It was all too familiar.
Earl pulled himself up off the floor and went to and kneeled by the man.
'You deep cut, son,' he said.
'Don't let dem take me, boss. Please to the Lord, no.'
'You hold on tight now. The less you scream and move, the less blood you lose.'
Earl bent closer. It was a butcher knife with an old, worn haft.
'I'm going to pull it out, son. Coin' to hurt like Jesus.'
'Help me, boss.'
Earl called, 'Some you other fellows, you come here. Give this man something to hold on to. Someone else, you go get a cool cloth from the pump and wet his face. He has to be calm or he is a goner.'
The men shambled to do what he wanted.
When they had him secured, Earl leaned his strength against the meaty thigh with the wooden grip buried in a well of bubbly red, winked at the man?a boy, he now saw, just as so many of them had been in the war?and drew it out. The boy shuddered in the pain, though he didn't scream.
Immediately the blood flow increased.
