Free Pages of Promise by Gilbert Morris Page A

the dried mud cracked and fell to the frozen ground. Buttoning it up, he picked up his rifle and automatically searched the low-lying hills to the north. He saw campfires still there that, a couple of hours before first light, had looked like the eyes of some terrible, evil monster as they flickered and glowed. He pulled out his canteen and drank some of the cold water—it tasted bitter from the chemicals he added to it every day—and then put the top back on and hooked it on his belt. The rifle and the canteen, these were always at his side, and the dry socks. That was what the war was about. The newspapers might say other things, and the politicians might make glowing speeches, but here in the mud of Korea, it was the rifle, the canteen, and the dry socks that a man thought about.
    “What time is it, Streak?”
    Richard looked over to see Smith coming out of his bedroll. He reminded Richard, in his gyrations, of some sort of insect emerging from a cocoon. Smith had obtained a sleeping bag with a zipper on it, and once he was inside each night, he managed to zip it almost all the way up. He stuffed his clothes into the remaining crevice so that he was sealed off from the world. Despite Richard’s misery, a smile creased his lips, and as he watched the marine struggle out he said, “Some of these days you’re going to come out of that cocoon and find yourself facing a Chinese or a North Korean.”
    Not answering, Smith pulled himself free and lit a cigarette and began puffing at it, shivering in the cold morning wind. “Well,” he muttered, staring across to the north with half-shut eyes, “any business today?”
    “Not so far.”
    “That’s a miracle.”
    “Come on. Let’s go back and see if we can negotiate some breakfast.”
    “All right.”
    Smith picked up his rifle and shook his canteen; the two men then started toward the rear, their feet breaking through the crust of frozen mud. “I wish it’d either freeze hard enough to hold us up or it would get warm enough to thaw everything out.” It was a frequent wish on Smith’s part, and he crunched along beside Richard, limping slightly. He had taken a minor wound in the leg, and the medic had offered to report it, telling him he’d get a purple heart. Smith had simply grinned at him toughly, saying, “Give me a Baby Ruth, and pass the medal on to somebody else.”
    Richard thought Smith was a great marine. He complained and griped, as they all did, but when the fighting started, he was the one you wanted at your back, the best shot in Baker company, Richard figured. In the eleven months they’d served in combat together, he had seen Smith’s deadly fire.
    They approached the trucks and saw the smoke of cook fires rising into the air like wisps of gray ghosts. The two marines joined the line, and each was issued reconstituted powdered eggs, a hunk of cheese, and a canteen cup full of hot soup. They each got a brimming cup of black, scalding coffee and sat down on the log of a blasted tree. They ate mechanically at first, then hungrily, then went back for seconds on the eggs.
    “So these things are eggs?” Jack grinned at his companion. “The eggs of what, I wonder?”
    “Crocodiles,” Richard grunted. “Don’t ask questions.”
    “When I get home and marry Molly,” Smith said, “I’m never going to eat an egg again. Nothing but pancakes. That girl makes the best pancakes in Michigan.” He went on extolling Molly’s virtues, sipping the scalding coffee between speeches. He carried a picture of her, folded carefully in soft leather. Using one hand, he managed to pull it out and remove the cover. Staring at it fondly, he said, “Well, Molly, old girl, here’s another day I’ve got to spend away from you. Wait until I get back, sweetheart,” he said, kissing the picture. “You won’t get rid of me then.”
    Richard had grown accustomed to Smith’s habit of talking to the picture and kissing it. They all had developed little behaviors