"Time to head back, kid," Cole announced.
He hadn't so much as taken another shot the rest of the day. The truth was that his heart just hadn't been in it. Not that many targets had presented themselves. The enemy soldiers had sense enough to keep out of sight.
Now that it was dark enough to move under cover of night, he and the kid slipped out of the trench and began to make their way back toward headquarters.
"It wasn't such a good day, was it?" the kid said.
"I reckon not," Cole said.
"There's always tomorrow," the kid added, but Cole didn't answer. They hiked the rest of the way down from the ridge in silence. Once they had reached the camp, Cole sent the kid off to the mess tent to get himself something to eat. He had one more stop to make first, and truth be told, Cole needed some time alone just to think.
He slung his rifle over his shoulder and headed in the direction of the field hospital. On the way, he wondered if maybe he had lost his touch with the rifle.
Because you couldn't hit a bottle? Who gives a damn? But the other fella didn't seem to have that problem. Cole shook his head and walked on.
He had hoped to find Pomeroy that evening and tell him that he had bumped off the enemy sniper and gotten even. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, but Cole still owed Pomeroy a visit. Hell, he had gotten shot helping Cole. It was the least that he could do.
He pushed through the tent flaps and walked into the oppressive smell that all field hospitals have, a medley of alcohol and urine, and the vague sweetness of rotting meat. Cole tried to tell himself that there were worse places to be — like maybe hell itself.
He walked on down the rows, shaking his head at how many wounded there were, bandaged and beat to hell in just about every way, shape, and form imaginable. The wounded just seemed to keep piling up steadily day after day.
He reckoned that's what happened when you had two armies trading hilltops. The wounded tended to stack up, along with the dead. And for what? Some godforsaken hill? Cole tried not to think too much about the answer. He hadn't invented war and he supposed that it never made a whole lot of sense in the end.
After a while, walking up and down the rows of wounded, Cole realized that he couldn't find Pomeroy. He seemed to have the right row of hospital beds, but his old friend was nowhere to be found. Maybe there had been some sort of mix-up or Cole just hadn't remembered right. After all, if you'd seen one hospital cot, you'd kind of seen them all.
Finally, Cole tracked down an orderly and approached him. "Say buddy," he drawled, "I'm lookin' for a friend of mine. He was right here just yesterday."
"What was his name?" the orderly asked.
Cole told him and the orderly checked a chart.
"Pomeroy… Oh yeah, he got evacuated today," the orderly said. "Your friend is a lucky bastard. He's probably on a plane to Tokyo by now."
"You mean he's gone?"
"Yep, that's about the size of it," the orderly said. "Unfortunately, we've got plenty of others to take his place."
"Lucky bastard," Cole echoed faintly and then retreated from the field hospital.
Outside, glad of the fresh air, the realization struck him like a blow that he was unlikely ever to see Pomeroy again. He hadn't had a chance to say his goodbyes, not realizing that he wouldn't get the opportunity. Cole had thought that being shown up by the Chinese sniper was the worst thing that had happened to him today, but the news that Pomeroy had been flown out without a proper farewell was a close second. It just didn't set right with him.
Walking back through the camp, Cole felt like a kicked dog.
Chapter Twenty
Cole spotted Lieutenant Ballard and ducked his head, hoping to avoid giving a run-down of what had happened up on the ridge. Once he heard how Cole had screwed up and let the enemy get the best of him, Ballard just might put him back to washing dishes and peeling potatoes.
He had planned to pay a visit to the mess tent to see what he could scrounge up in the way of hot food, but now he wasn't so hungry.
Instead of the mess area, he headed off to find the pup tent that he shared with the kid, in hopes of getting some sleep. Suddenly, he felt deeply exhausted. He didn't even bother to clean his rifle, which he usually did the way that some men said their prayers at night.
He had never been so down. It wasn't in his nature to admit defeat, but it hadn't been an easy couple of days. First, he had seen those American soldiers killed by the Chinese sniper and then he had lost a shooting match, which wounded his pride deeply. He had also lost Pomeroy. Cole took some comfort in the fact that the SOB was still alive and on a plane away from the fighting, but it was unlikely that Cole would see his old friend again anytime soon.
He crawled into the pup tent and found that the kid was already there, fast asleep, after having hit the mess tent. The kid stirred just long enough to open one eyelid at Cole's arrival.
"There you are," he said. "Lieutenant Ballard was looking for you."
"What the hell did he want?"
"Didn't say," the kid said. "And I didn't ask. I was too busy eating at the time, but I thought that I'd pass along the message."
He rolled over and promptly fell back asleep.
Cole had no idea what Ballard could have wanted with him, but he was sure that it wasn't good. His stomach had rumbled at the mention of food, but he welcomed the pang of hunger. It took him back to his boyhood, and all the nights that he had lain awake, hungry in the dark, before heading out to hunt in the morning.
There was nothing like hunger pangs to motivate you. How many times had he gone into the woods with no more than a single bullet or shotgun shell because that was all there was to spare. Somehow, he had almost always managed to come back with something to help feed his family while his pa was on a bender or off in the hills, cooking his shine.
There had been a cloak of responsibility weighing on his young shoulders to provide for his ma and his brothers and sisters. But it had also been a point of pride that he could help fill their bellies.
His thoughts wandering now, Cole realized that he probably wasn't going to fall asleep, tired though he was. Enviously, he listened to the even breathing that the kid made beside him. Whatever happened in the days ahead, he had to make sure that the kid survived. Hell, he owed him that much. After all, being Cole's spotter was starting to get dangerous.
The kid had mentioned trying for the enemy sniper again tomorrow, but Cole wasn't so sure about that. He was already down. How many times did he want to get kicked?
Not wanting to toss and turn and wake the kid, he took his blanket and carried it outside. He wanted to glimpse the stars in the night sky.
It was a clear, crisp autumn night and somewhere riding the breeze, he could smell wood smoke from some soldier's campfire. He wasn't sure if it came from the American side or from the Chinese side, but no matter; it was a comforting smell all the same.
He looked up at the sky and saw the glittering pinpricks of the stars. His father had taught him the constellations as a boy and even here in the sky of Korea, he could recognize some of them. There was Cassiopeia, in all her mythic beauty, and also low on the horizon crouched Orion, the Hunter, recognizable by the three stars in a row that made up his belt.
A hunter in the sky and one below watching him. Cole took that to be a good omen.
Nonetheless, it took a long time for sleep to find him.
It was only after he pulled his rifle closer, smelling the familiar gunpowder and the gun oil, that he was finally able to sleep.
In the morning, the squad was rotated out for sentry duty and Cole joined them rather than return to the ridge to face the enemy sniper again.