Free The Marines of Autumn: A Novel of the Korean War by James Brady

stuff no one understands.” Then, brighter, as though he didn’t want her to think him a total bore, he said, “But sometimes at night, very late, if you twist the dial, you pick up dance music, American bands, from a long way off.”
    “Oh? You can?”
    “Yes, it’s something called the Heaviside layer,” he said, cribbing from Tate. “It’s an effect that fetches radio waves from a long way off. Perth, Australia, Honolulu, I’ve picked them up. And one night San Francisco. An orchestra playing at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. . . .”
    “Dance music.”
    “Yes, dance music.”
    She took his hand and shook it. “Thank you, Captain, for reminding me. It would be nice to hear dance music again some night.”
    “I’ll try to let you know, Miss Higgins, the next time it comes through.”
    “The Heaviside layer?”
    “Yes, the Heaviside layer.”
    A light colonel made his way over. “What was that all about, Tom? You seemed to have fascinated
la belle
Higgins.”
    “Dull dog like me?”
    But he grinned as he said it. And when he went back to the house he shared with Tate and Izzo he was still grinning.
    “Anything interesting on the air, Gunny?”
    “No, sir. Not much. A little music came in for a few minutes. Tinny and lots of static. But it was American music.”
    “You turn in,” Verity said. “I’ll listen for a while.”
    He wasn’t sleepy and stayed with the radio until 2:00 A.M. but didn’t get much, and there was no more music that night. He wondered what perfume Maggie Higgins had been wearing andwhether there had really been an army general down at Pusan and disliked himself for wondering.
    He’d not made love to a woman since Elizabeth.
     
    There were chaplains, of course, traveling with the army and praying over the men. Verity, who did not attend church in peacetime, wondered about their value; didn’t all this piety cause men to ponder and, perhaps, reduce the thirst for battle?
    Regardless of denomination, every chaplain was called Padre. Even the rabbi.
    Izzo, who was forever looking for an edge, attended services regularly, whatever the sect or theology. “Look, Gunny, who knows what’s gonna happen? You get ready; you make friends in high places, right?” And during the singing, if he knew the words, he shouted the hymns with enormous fervor.
    He also kept close watch for when, before a Catholic mass, the priest would offer the men general absolution. “You can save up the sins and then get rid of them all at once without saying nothing. You know, ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I got laid twice; I whacked off three times; I got drunk once.’ Who needs that when you can be just as sorry without blabbing it out?”
    Izzo said sinners were also expected to resolve not to commit the same offenses again.
    “But you always do, don’t you?” Tate inquired.
    “Yeah, Gunny, but I always promise not to. Otherwise it’s negative thinking, ya know?”
    Tate, a Presbyterian, limited himself at times of stress to the quiet recitation of Scottish psalms.
    Tom Verity wished he were able to share their faith. It seemed such a consolation. And as Izzo remarked on leaving a Jewish service, “Ya can’t be too careful, Captain.”
     
    There was plenty of gossip that did not involve Marguerite Higgins. Except in the military it was called rumor.
    The war was nearly over. No, it wasn’t; the Chinese were comingin. Not only the Chinese, the Russians. No, they weren’t. A deal had been worked out at the UN, brokered by the Indians. The French. By the king of Denmark. By Emperor Hirohito. Half a million Chiang Kai-shek regulars were on ships heading for Wonsan and would take over. The Marines would be back at Camp Pendleton before Christmas. Before Thanksgiving. Before Election Day.
    “Tom? Tom Verity?”
    It was Bjornsen, whom he’d known in the War, a career forest ranger from Nevada up near the California line above Reno.
    “What do you hear, Bob?”
    “War’s