After May Sue went home to raise his boy, Jim stayed away from women. He was not exactly what they referred to as a straight arrow around Army camps, but he was close.

He learned real soon the way a man kept out of trouble was to live by the book. Making up a decent bed was almost past him, so he took a blanket and wrapped himself on the floor to sleep. Once a week, he paid a girlish‑looking man a dollar to fix his bed so's it would pass inspection.

He lived a Spartan life more adventurous than his deer and rattlesnake hunt with Charles Ray. Instead of staying in the barracks sacking out on his days off, he hunted and fished.

Officers and other enlisted men were always surprised by what he brought into camp with him. Once he spent a weekend pass catching water moccasins in the swamps of Louisiana. He tried to tan the skin and make belts, but all he did was make a stench.

While May Sue was making love with his best friend, he spent extra time running obstacle courses. He learned quickly a soldier who read manuals was much better equipped than one who didn't. In some ways he had a better education than college boys who came into the unit.

On the way over to Korea on the troopship, he learned about the vast ocean they were sailing across. While other men were gambling or praying, he sat in some isolated space studying the horizon while he read books about the Pacific.

Most men were afraid in combat; he was more curious than anything else. It was like a lesson in geography when he marched northward never faltering or wondering what he was fighting about. He knew.

It happened after they secured a village and halted until they were ordered to go on farther north into North Korea, an order that never came.

For the first time since he joined, he began to wonder. That was after a telegram notified him of the birth of a daughter he could not of fathered.

Alone on guard duty, he saw her. Morning Dawn, fair as a lily in bloom. Soft. Pliable. Dainty, she was like the blossoms along the way. Desirable‑ he wanted her.

She approached him while he made a patrol around the village. Her people needed food. He waited until after another guard relieved him. Then he went back with a leg of lamb he paid five dollars for from a cook who knew no one would miss what he sold, or cared if they found out.

He approached the house with the stained‑glass windows with great caution. Some of the other men were killed on similar errands. He knew he was not on a mercy mission. May Sue could do it, by God, he could, also.