"It just so happens that I did get some mail." Cole paused. "I was wondering if you would read it to me."
"Read it to you? Why—" Realization dawned on Tommy's face. He seemed to know better than to push it. "Oh. Sure, I can read it to you if you want."
Cole handed over the letter.
"Norma Jean Elwood, huh? She's got nice handwriting.” "Just read it," Cole snapped.
Tommy cleared his throat and began reading:
Dear Caje,
I hope that you are doing fine. We read in the newspapers about all the trouble that the Army had fighting the Chinese at that frozen reservoir, so I hope that you weren't part of that mess. We are getting back into fall and the nights are getting cool. You can smell the smoke from chimneys and the leaves are changing colors. The other night I heard a Great Horned Owl out hunting, and it was such a lonely sound that for some reason made me think of you and write this here letter. Things has been quiet regarding that business we was involved in, so everything should be fine when you get home. You never wrote me back, so maybe you aren't interested, but I hope to see you when you get home from Korea.
Your friend,
Norma Jean Elwood
The kid was grinning. "I'll be darned. You've got a girlfriend back home. You never wrote her back?"
"How would I do that?"
"I have a pencil and paper right here. Why don't you let me do it, on account of your battle wounds."
"My what?"
"You'll see."
With the kid's help, Cole composed a letter home to Norma Jean. He provided the words, with a flourish or two from the kid. One of these flourishes included the fact that it turned out that Cole hadn't written back because he got frostbite in his fingers during that fight at the reservoir that Norma Jean had mentioned.
"That's a lie," Cole pointed out.
"A white lie. You just said that sometimes those are all right."
Cole shook his head. The kid had him, there, although that wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind when he had mentioned white lies.
The letter ended with the words he asked the kid to put down, I'll be sure to see you when I get home.
For some reason, those words made him know exactly how that lonely owl had felt.
The kid addressed the envelope and handed it to Cole. "You can send that out in the morning." He hesitated. "You can send mine, too."
Tommy hadn't said a word about it, but Cole sensed that the kid was anxious about something, and for good reason. In the morning, the unit was slated to go back on the line. They had been out there before, keeping a wary eye on the enemy occupying Sniper Ridge, but rumors were flying that this was going to be different because an attack on the Chinese was being planned. To prepare, the kid began cleaning his rifle — or attempting to, anyway, because he was having trouble reassembling the M-1. He would have thought the kid would know that rifle inside out by now, but his fingers fumbled the task, either from cold or from the nervousness about what was to come tomorrow.
Cole watched him for a while. If the kid asked for help, he'd help him. Cole had helped him with that rifle as far back as boot camp. But sometimes, you had to figure things out for yourself, because that was how you learned. Cole had always believed that if you wanted something done right, then you should do it yourself.
His own well-oiled rifle lay next to his sleeping bag, where he had left it days ago. There wasn't much need for a rifle in the kitchen.
While the rest of the unit would be heading into combat, Cole had orders to stay behind in the kitchen. He was just fine with sitting out this fight, anyhow. To his surprise, the mess hall chief must have liked the job that Cole was doing. The sergeant didn’t even seem to suspect that Cole had been the one who had beaten the hell out of Tater. Or maybe he did know, and figured that Tater had it coming.
Finally, Tommy tossed away the pieces of the rifle in frustration.
"Goddammit!" the kid muttered, which was unusual. He didn't swear much, at least not by Army standards.
"Give it here a minute," Cole said, holding out his hand.
The kid handed over the rifle, and Cole deftly clicked the stock, barrel, and trigger mechanism into place. He took the kid's oily rag and gave the weapon a good wipe down.
"Thanks, Cole," Tommy said, watching Cole’s expert hands. "You're good at that."
"This ain't my first rodeo, kid."
"I know that you were in the last war, too. Hell, you were at D-Day. Tell me about it."
"It ain't exactly a bedtime story," Cole said. He continued wiping down the rifle, doing so almost lovingly. "Besides, there ain't much to tell."
"Were you scared?"
Cole glanced at him. So that's what was eating at the kid. Cole could understand — going into battle was not an experience that any man took lightly. "Hell, kid, only a fool ain't scared. But you know the drill. It ain’t your first rodeo, either.”
“It’s not something I’ll ever get used to.”
“Just keep your head down and listen to what Sergeant Weber tells you. Most of these young officers have got their heads up their ass, Lieutenant Ballard included, but Weber knows what's going on."
"Good advice."
Cole handed back the rifle and clapped him on the shoulder. "You'll be all right, kid."
"If you say so. What was it like for you, the first time? Bet you weren't even scared."
"Just to be clear, we are talking about battle, right, and not about something else?"
The kid blushed again. "Battle."
Cole nodded, thinking it over. In a sense, he had gotten his baptism by fire long before the war.
As a boy, Cole had once hunted down and killed a bootlegger who was trying to do the same to him, but he knew that wasn't what Tommy meant. The kid was asking him about Omaha Beach at H-hour on June 6, 1944.
"I reckon I wasn't scared as much as I was angry at them Germans," he said, leaving out the part where a German machine gun had killed his buddy from boot camp, Jimmy Turner, within minutes of them hitting the beach. It was Jimmy who had first painted a Confederate flag on his helmet. Cole had one painted on his helmet here in Korea as a good luck charm.
The kid didn't need to hear all that. "I was mad as hell at the Germans for shooting at us. Don't make much sense now that I'm saying it, but there you have it. Got my dander up."
The kid grinned. "I'd like to see that."
"You might not."
"Did you shoot anyone right away?" Tommy asked, his grin fading.
"Everybody was shooting," Cole replied. "It would have been hard not to shoot someone."
"Cole, I saw you on the range back at boot camp. You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn door. Everyone in the squad knew that. But you got to Korea and you became the best shot in the unit. Like you had done this before. What was that all about?"
Earlier, Cole had managed to hide his past as a sniper from the others in the unit. To them, he was just the hillbilly who worked in the kitchen. Circumstances had put a rifle back in his hands. But now, Lieutenant Ballard had sent him back to the kitchen.
Something in Cole's eyes made the kid look away. His stare sent shivers down the kid’s spine.
"I wish you were going with us tomorrow," the kid said.
"You'll be fine," Cole said, wishing that he believed it.
Chapter Eight
For Pomeroy and Tommy Wilson, morning came far too soon, after a restless and fitful night. Even exhaustion proved itself to be a poor balm against the rough edges of fear that haunted their dreams. They were up before dawn, eating a hurried breakfast of cold rations, and then herded into position. Cole had already gone off to the mess tent, far from the front line.
Pomeroy and the kid weren’t quite so lucky. They were going into battle.