of patience—and a sniper. The first evidence of his presence was the thud of his bullet smashing into the chest of the Marine sitting eating his lunch ration in a carefully selected spot which he had thought was safe. Corpsmen and comrades worked over him immediately and desperately, for he was sinking very fast, and none knew, when he was carried over the rim of the hill and down onto the safer slopes below, how long he would last. An Ambulance jeep—carrying others of the wounded over the road to the rear—struck a cleverly planted land mine, which exploded, blowing men and machinery in every direction. Three of the wounded were wounded again. Another, a man who had gone along just to help his buddy, the driver was killed. Wounded by the blast, but hurt forever by the loss of his friend, the driver sat crying by the side of the road where he had landed. He rightfully knew that his buddy was now dead only because he had accompanied him on his job, to help him with his work—but he unjustly blamed himself for running over the hidden mine that killed him. And, perhaps, here too was one of the secrets of the Marine Corps . . . the indifference of a man to his own wounds, while openly and brokenheartedly mourning the loss of another man with whom possibly years of hardship had been shared—or possibly only a couple of nights in a foxhole while awaiting the enemy’s attacks—but a man, for sure, who would have given his own life in order that he, his buddy, might live. Another ambulance jeep came down the road. The wounded were loaded aboard and it started slowly, again, for the aid-station in the rear. Wounded and broken, each lost in his thoughts, each still alive, that isolated group of shabby men represented all other men, perhaps civilization itself. For it must have been the same when early men banded together at the mouth of their cave to stop the attacks of hungry beasts—and some had been killed, but They had lived . . . and the cave and its secrets and all the families and their dreams had been made safe . . . the Group had survived. Slowly drifting streamers of smoke and morning mist still veiled most of Seoul 이것이 전쟁이다! Ⅴ. The City l 125
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