Cole let go of the skillet, letting it clatter to the floor. As far as he was concerned, he was done with Tater.
But the others were just getting started.
To Cole's surprise, the other kitchen staff that Tater had tormented moved in. He caught sight of two of the African-American cooks, one carrying a big two-pronged fork used for handling chunks of meat. Both men had murder in their eyes. Before Cole could open his mouth to speak, the fork jabbed down, again and again, as if Tater was a juicy roast beef. Tater cried out in agony as the fork plunged into his plump bits. Two more cooks jumped in, kicking and stomping the fallen bully for all they were worth.
"All right, that's enough," Cole said half-heartedly. "Don't go killing him."
Nobody was listening. The blows continued. Cole shrugged. Nobody could say that Tater didn’t have it coming.
That's when the mess chief walked back in. He stared in astonishment at the violent scene before him. His mouth fell open and his cigar actually fell out. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. For once, he seemed to be caught speechless.
The beating continued until the chief managed to boom at the top of his lungs, "Knock it off!"
Cole wiped his hands on the apron and picked up the mop. When Tater finally came around, Cole figured his days in the mess tent would be over.
Somebody ran to fetch a medic.
Staring down at the groaning mess, Cole said, "Looks to me like Tater has done been mashed." He then went back to mopping the floor, humming tunelessly to himself.
Chapter Seven
Cole's only respite from working in the kitchen was the pup tent that he shared with the kid, Tommy Wilson. Pomeroy snored something awful, and Cole was a light sleeper, so he had made sure that he was in a different tent. Pomeroy’s tentmate was a former artilleryman who was deaf as a post.
The tent that Cole shared with the kid wasn't much more than basic shelter, formed by two canvas shelter halves that buttoned together along the ridge line. There wasn’t any floor. When they were on the march, each man carried one half of the tent with him, including one of the three-piece wooden tent poles and a handful of tent pegs. There wasn't any floor, so they had dug a shallow trench around the tent to keep the water out when it rained. The interior smelled strongly of canvas, waterproofing wax, mildew, and both bedding and bodies that needed a wash. Home sweet home.
The battle over these Korean hills had reached the point where it was actually more of a siege over the past few weeks, so some of the support structures — like the mess hall — were semi-permanent. Even some of the officers had wall tents that were roomier and thus moderately more comfortable. Some of the officers had actual stoves to heat their tents. The men in Cole's unit made do with their Army pup tents.
It was getting too cold to sit outside, and worse than that, there was always the danger of an enemy sniper. The enemy occasionally crept within range to harass the American troops, keeping them on edge. This was yet another way that the enemy was trying to wear them down.
Cole was beginning to think that the Chinese snipers were as bad as the Germans in that regard. More than a few GIs had been picked off while lighting up a smoke or simply walking too close to the battlefield. Consequently, Cole kept to the tent. It beat getting frostbite — or ending up in somebody's crosshairs.
There really wasn't room to sit upright inside the tent, but you could sort of prop yourself up on an elbow to read or maybe write a letter, which was exactly what the kid was doing now.
It just so happened that a few days before, Cole had received a letter of his own from back home. He was fairly certain who it was from. Much as he would have liked to know what it said, the envelope remained shoved deep into his pocket. Cole could tell time by the sun, start a fire with nothing more than a bit of flint and his knife, field strip a rifle, and shoot anything that his keen eyes could see, but he couldn't read or write more than a handful of basic words.
Heaving a sigh, the kid put aside his pencil and paper in frustration.
"I don't know what to write to my parents," the kid said. "How many times can I write home that everything is fine, when it's not? I feel like I'm just lying to them."
Cole thought about that.
"Kid, your folks just want to hear that you are OK," he said. "Put in there that the food is great and that you like the scenery. Telling a few white lies like that in a letter home never hurt no one."
"I suppose you're right. I'm also going to send a letter to this girl I knew back home. We went to the fortnightly dances together a few times." He sighed. "I never know what to write to her, either. What should I say?"
Cole considered this new question. "Tell her what a good time you had when you went out, and what you love about her."
"Like about her," the kid said, correcting him. Even in the dim light inside the tent, it was clear that his face was turning red.
Cole smiled. "You made love to her yet?"
"What? You mean like—" the kid paused, aghast at the thought. He turned an even deeper shade of red. "When would I have done that? There were chaperones at all the dances."
Cole shook his head. "We're a funny society, kid. We think it's all right to send our teenage boys to war, maybe bayonet somebody to death, but God forbid they should kiss a girl at a dance. Ought to be the other way around, if'n you ask me. When you get back, you can do things the right way."
"Why don't you ever get any letters?" the kid asked. "I've never seen you write one, either."
Cole grunted.
He wondered if maybe he had made a mistake tenting up with the kid rather than Pomeroy, who seemed to know better than to ask a lot of questions. Mostly, Pomeroy just crawled into the tent and went to sleep. Then again, there was that godawful snoring.
It just so happened that a few days before, he had, in fact, received a letter from back home. Unopened, this was the letter that now felt like a hot coal burning a hole in his pocket.
Should he tell the kid about it?
Receiving mail was something of an unusual event for Cole. He knew who this letter was from. He could make out enough words to recognize the return address in Gashey's Creek. He could also puzzle out the name: Norma Jean Elwood. It was Norma Jean whom he had rescued from a couple of hard cases, resulting in them getting shot and Cole reenlisting to avoid being sent to prison.
There wasn't nothing happy about that story, he reflected.
She had written him once before, thanking him for his actions and wishing him good luck, and also stating that she would like to see him when he got home from the war. This last possibility intrigued Cole, but he had not written back. Mostly because he didn't know how.
He had gotten the kid to read that letter to him, claiming that he was too seasick to read it. Cole was a confident man in most regards, afraid of nothing and no one, but he felt embarrassed about his lack of education. There hadn't been much in the way of school back home in the mountains, and no one much cared if he went or not, anyhow. Back then, book learning hadn’t meant a hill of beans to Cole, but he was starting to change his mind about that.
Meanwhile, the letter in his pocket felt like it was burning hotter.
To hell with it, he thought, and dug the letter out of his pocket.
"What's that?" the kid asked, clearly surprised by the sight of the envelope in his hands.