124 l Ⅴ. The City out alone, because the enemy had cut back around the base of the hill in such numbers that only runners and emergency ammunition teams could worm their way through from the rear by daylight—nothing went through at night. The nights were the worst, filled with explosions and rifle fire and determined enemy troops trying to charge, then later infiltrate the Marines’ positions. Just at dusk of the third night, machine-gunner Corporal Leonard Hayworth had been first embarrassed, then good-naturedly shy when shown his pictures made earlier in the month down along the Naktong River. Surrounded by his buddies—it was nearly dark—he said nothing. Then another, much older man stood on tiptoe to peer over his shoulder—for Leonard Hayworth was a very tall man—after which he turned away, snorted, and said, “Lousy goddamned picture. Hell! We all cry sometime.” At dawn the next morning, firing his machine-gun. Caporal Leonard Hayworth was shot and instantly killed while stopping the Reds’ last attempt to overrun and take the hilltop. During the daylight hours—and they were long and hot, as the ones of the nights had been long and cold—the Marines in the firing line around the top of the hill were kept constantly alert by Communist soldiers flitting toward them across the fields and along the embankment below. They knew that every enemy soldier who slipped through would be just one more soon to be shooting at them, and one more to be stopped in the next night’s attacks. And even as they aimed and fired into the fields, and at the shadowy figures dodging along the embankment below, children appeared among them—children gentle and tiny and wide-eyed as they fastened themselves to the men who first ignored them . . . then dug them their own little foxholes and expertly adapted helmets to fit their baby heads. No one ever knew where they came from, or later, after the company came down off the hill to attack the city itself, where they went—but while they were atop the hill, holding their ears against the racket of gunfire, they were members of the company—and welcome. At least one enemy soldier to filter through the screen of Marine fire was a man This is War!
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