The lieutenant nodded in the sergeant’s direction. “Men, this is Sergeant Weber. Better to listen to him. He has saved my ass more than once.”
Now, the lieutenant came closer, seeming intent on talking to some of the men individually. He approached Tommy Wilson, on Cole's left. "Can you hit anything if you’re not wearing those glasses, son?"
"No, sir. Not really."
"We’ve got a war to fight and the best they can do is send us four-eyed soldiers.” The officer sounded disgusted. “Keep your head down and do what your sergeant tells you, and you might just get back home. And whatever you do, don’t lose those goddamn glasses."
"Yes, sir!"
Next, the lieutenant moved down the line. Cole stiffened. He found the lieutenant stopping right in front of him. "What’s your story, soldier? You’re not wearing glasses, but can you hit what you shoot at?"
"I try, sir."
"You sure as hell better do more than try, soldier! You sound like a goddamn hillbilly. You make moonshine or whatever back in those hills?"
"I reckon some do, sir."
"You reckon? Dear God, you really are a hillbilly. What do you think about that?"
"Whatever you say, sir."
The lieutenant clapped Cole on the shoulder. "You've got the right idea, son. Whatever I say. I've got to say, that being a bad shot is a disappointing quality in a hillbilly. I would have thought you’d have grown up shooting squirrels or possums. A soldier has got to shoot. You're going to get a lesson in that soon enough."
Cole felt relieved when the lieutenant moved on. He spoke with a few more men in the front row, and then returned to where he could address the entire unit. "This may seem like a big war, with artillery and planes and a hundred thousand Chinese troops massed on the border that we hope to hell decide to keep out of the war, but that doesn’t seem likely. For you men, it all comes down to one man with a rifle. Corporal Heywood, step up here."
A man approached from the handful of staff that had been looking on as the captain greeted the green troops. He was stout and sturdy, about five feet eight, and he moved with the natural ease of an athlete. What Cole noticed about the man was his rifle. Instead of the standard issue M-1 like the rifle that Cole and the other fresh troops carried, this soldier held a bolt-action Springfield equipped with a telescopic sight. Cole was more than a little familiar with such a weapon because he had carried one from D-Day to the fall of Berlin — and beyond.
The captain spoke again. Cole had the feeling that this was not happenstance but that the sniper had been paraded in front of new troops before. The whole thing had an orchestrated feel. "This man here is a sniper," the captain said. "All of you have had rifle training on the range, but I doubt any of you can shoot the eye out of a Commie at two hundred yards — all while he's shooting back. Corporal Heywood here can do that. Isn't that right, Heywood?"
"Yes, sir."
"How many Commies have you shot, Heywood?"
"At least twenty, sir."
Several of the soldiers around Cole gave a low whistle of astonishment. Most of them hadn't shot anyone — not yet.
"I can tell you one thing, men. It is true that we have those big guns and planes and napalm, but it is Heywood here who strikes fear into their hearts. Never underestimate the value of your rifle. The truth is, we are going to win this battle — hell, we are going to win this war — one bullet at a time. Make each shot count. And yes, I'm looking at you, Hillbilly."
Several of the men around Cole gave a low laugh, but Cole stared straight ahead, stone-faced. Sure, this sniper had shot sixty Chinese. How many Germans had Cole killed? Twice that. Maybe three or four times that. Each time, Cole had worked the bolt, chambered a fresh round, put the crosshairs on some man's head or chest, squeezed the trigger, watched him go down. Some men did that once during the war and felt haunted by it. Cole had done it again and again and again.
Enough times to keep him wide awake some nights, thinking about the enormity of ending so many lives.
No, Cole didn't laugh with the others. A few of the other veterans were just as grim. Those who had killed in the last war weren’t so eager to do it again.
"Dismissed!"
They slogged back down the hill toward their new quarters.
Tommy had been standing beside Cole. Oddly, the kid seemed energized by the captain's pep talk.
"Maybe they'll put us in the line tomorrow morning," Tommy said. "I wouldn't mind having a chance to shoot some of the enemy. Combat can't be so bad."
"You'll see," Cole said.
Another soldier nearby overheard and spoke up, sounding annoyed: "What do you know about it?"
Cole didn't reply, but the kid did. "Cole was at D-Day on Omaha Beach," Tommy said. "He knows what he's talking about."
The other soldier snorted in disgust. "If you were at D-Day, and now you're here, then you are one unlucky bastard," he said.
Finally, here was something that Cole could agree with today. He laughed mirthlessly. "You got that much right."
"And you say that you’re no good with a rifle?"
"Nope. Can’t shoot straight."
"If you can't shoot and you're that goddamn unlucky to get sent here, then you'd better stay the hell away from me," said the soldier, whose name was Pomeroy. Cole knew that the man was also a veteran — he was also a loudmouth. He reminded Cole a lot of Vaccaro, who had served with him in Europe. He had been full of wisecracks, but you could count on him. Cole hoped the same was true of Pomeroy. When push came to shove, it never hurt to have someone you could count on to watch your back.
Cole glared at Pomeroy, who looked away from Cole’s strange, cut-glass eyes. That soldier wasn't the first person to find Cole's gaze unsettling. Cole's eyes were hard to read, but there was something of the wolf sizing up his prey in that measuring gaze.
Pomeroy didn’t buy it for a minute that Cole couldn’t shoot. He grunted, “Can’t shoot straight, huh? I call bullshit on that.”
As it turned out, nobody had to worry about being too close to Cole out in the field. Their new sergeant had overheard the exchange with Captain Ballard and caught on to the fact that the captain thought Cole was a dumb hillbilly who couldn't shoot straight.
When orders came around that the mess tent needed a few extra hands, the sergeant volunteered Cole. He'd come all this way to fight the Chinese and here he was, hauling buckets of chow in a field kitchen under the command of a grumpy cook with a vocabulary mostly made up of a word that started with "f" and rhymed with "luck."
If it had been Tommy sent to work in the kitchen rather than to be a warrior, the kid would have been disappointed. But mess duty was just fine with Cole. He wanted to serve out his tour and keep his head down and return home in one piece. In this war, he wanted to be as different from his old life as a sniper as possible.
Hell, working in the mess tent, Cole didn't even need his rifle. He left it in his tent every morning. It was against regulations, of course, because they were in a combat zone and every soldier was supposed to keep his rifle within reach. Cole didn't care. His weapon of choice was now a soup ladle and that was just fine with him.
Chapter Six
A few days later, Cole's unit moved out, heading north.
"Anybody know where we're going?" Pomeroy asked.
"Just shut up and march," Cole said. "That's all you need to know." It didn't take a general to figure out that to the north lay North Korea, and beyond that, Red China, but Cole didn't feel like explaining geography to Pomeroy.
“You sound like you’re from down South somewhere,” Pomeroy said. “Hillbilly country.”
“Yep, I am definitely a hillbilly. And you sound like you ain’t.”