![]() They ward off evil spirits.” Someone had thrown his shirt over the head of one of the beasts. There was a nisei in their platoon, Sato, whose older brother had fought with the 442nd Infantry Regiment in World War II. The whip-crack of the shots had flayed the outermost layer of courage from their backs they were closer now to their bones.Ī pair of stone lions guarded the entrance to the pagoda, lichen-clad beasts with square heads and heavy paws. ![]() Earlier that day, searching an abandoned village, they had taken sniper fire. He passed olive shirts and trousers drying on rocks and bushes, spread like the skins of killed beasts. He walked up the hill toward the accordion-roofed temple where they were billeted. His bare feet stood white-toed on the curved backs of the stones, eon-smoothed, so like the ones on the mountain of his home. Rory stood from the pool, feeling the cool water stream like a cloak from his form. Their dog tags jingled at their necks, winking under the Korean sun. Still, the Marines washed quickly, feeling like prey without their steel helmets and green fatigues, their yellow canvas leggings that laced up at the sides. Howitzers were perched on the hills around them, like guardian monsters. They crouched in their skivvies, soaping and scrubbing the August grit from the creases and crannies of their bodies. The platoon had dammed a pool in the stream. There was the stone pagoda, three-tiered, built on a small hill over a stream that shone like pebbled glass. ![]()
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