Antagonistic Socks

Some things are imperative to get both feet in the game

Sergeant James' feet were an unhealthy bluish-white. He could feel them, but he wished he couldn't; they felt like they were being stung all over by small vengeful bees. The stinging was bad enough, but they itched like bugs were crawling on them.

He knew he wasn't the only one. One look up and down the line showed James men of every rank huddling their feet under whatever dry cover they could find.

"We're never gonna get outta here," he grumbled under his breath.

"Wh-what's that, S-S-Sergeant?" asked a young private, plagued with malnutrition and terror as well as frostbitten feet.

"I said' When we get outta here,' private. And when we do get outta here, I'm gonna grill up a nice fat steak and rest my fuckin' feet on it to warm them up!" He grinned, gritting his teeth against the pain.

The boy nodded back, encouraged, and hobbled back to his position. Sergeant James' smile faded, and he looked back down at his feet. He picked up the fraying remnants of his socks. They were the last pair he had. He'd set his other pair across his weapon to dry two nights before, and it has frozen solid to the barrel. When he tried to pull them away, they had disintegrated.

They had all started out with three pair--part of the standard gear. Most of the Marines were down to one, just like the sergeant.

Why the fuck am I thinking about socks? he wondered. The damn things hate me, that's what it is. Tired of being walked all over, walking all over, sleepwalking, frozen in time, frozen over--

"Sarge? Hey, Sarge! Wake up, move around, Marine."

James looked up and saw the corpsman standing over him. It took him a minute to recognize the other man. "What the hell, Doc?" His voice was slurry.

"Get up and move around, Sarge--"

"Damn it, Doc, were not in the Army. It's 'sergeant.'"

The corpsman gave a curt nod. "That's better. Keep talking. Get up and--"

Sergeant James sourly held up his partially frozen wet socks and raised his discolored foot. He grimaced at the corpsman.

The Christian nodded. "Alright, fine. But massage your legs and feet. And don't drift off. We're all tired, but you'll go hypothermic. Set the example, Sergeant James. Help me keep your men alive."

With that, the corpsman moved down the line, treating men with the worst wounds, the ones that just continued to crack and fester, and rousing the men who were slowly freezing to death. Sergeant James followed Doc's directions, massaging his legs and rocking back and forth. He was moving, if not walking, and his thoughts were clearer. Was I dreaming about my socks? he wondered.

He turned and looked over his shoulder. His platoon had been decimated, literally. One in every ten men was wounded or dead. He knew a few of them were on the trucks which were rumbling off and on, keeping the oil from freezing and seizing the engines. They were mostly Army trucks; they'd left most of their shit behind when they bugged out. Now, after that cataclysmic battle at the edge of the reservoir, Fox Company was finally heading out of the Chosin region, bringing their own equipment and much of the Army's along with them. But it was a long trek, and the enemy still prowled the crags around them.

He realized he was getting foggy again. He slowly, painfully drew his socks on again and stood up with a grimace. He made sure to keep it to himself; like Doc said, set the example. He walked— hobbled— toward one of the trucks just to be moving. As his head cleared a little, he realized the rumble he heard was not the truck's engine; it was coming from the other direction. And it was less of a rumble than a series of crump sounds—

"Arty! Incoming!" James threw himself on the ground. After a few interminable seconds, he felt the ground heave and shake beneath him. He heard a few men scream. They weren't screams of pain; worse, they were screams of panic.

He crawled down the line, dragging his tattered boots and keeping a low profile. He stopped at each man's position. They could do little more than hide behind their packs; the ground was mostly rock and completely frozen. He offered each man a word of encouragement or a bit of guidance on how best to stay calm and deploy his weapon. He thought about his wife and how they used to dance, wincing every time his toes brushed the frozen rubble.

Suddenly, he heard the right flank go silent. He turned in that direction and saw a corporal—What's his name, dammit, what's his—? Toomey, that's right—desperately working the lever of his machine gun. Without the automatic weapon, the whole company was subject to a flanking maneuver by the enemy. James stood and agonizingly ran in a hunch over to the gun. "What the fuck, Toomey?! We need this bitch humming. You need more ammo?"

"The son of a bitch won't clear, Sergeant!" he shouted above the noise of rifle fire and shouting.

James leaned down over the weapon, tugging on the breach to open it, but it seemed frozen shut. "God dammit," he muttered. He ducked low and heard rounds whizzing by them: the enemy always shot at the automatic weapons first. He pulled out his knife and struck the machine gun with the pommel over and over again, cursing the cold with every blow. The side of his hand was bleeding when the breach finally opened, and Toomey was able to clear the jam. He snapped the cover back in place, sighted in, and began to support the flank once more, backing the enemy up and cutting them down like so much wheat. Sergeant James knocked on Toomey's helmet encouragingly and gave him a savage smile and a thumbs-up.

He crawled away toward the radio operator, where the de facto command post would be clustered. As he passed one of the now-empty trucks, a round landed directly on the other side and set the whole thing ablaze. "God dammit!" he screamed to no one in particular. He rolled away from the burning truck and into one of the shallow frosty craters. He ducked low, reaching down to his feet; he needed his damn boots to run!. But before he could even set his boots down, he felt a sharp hammer blow to has back, just below his shoulder blades. The intense pain disappeared almost instantly, and he was suddenly lying on his back, unable to roll over. As darkness crept in from the edges of his sight, slowly consuming the hateful white freezing sky, Seargent James thought how wonderful it was that his feet didn't hurt anymore.

@---@---@

The battle was brief but intense. The Marines' rifles and machine guns mowed down wave after wave of regular Chinese soldiers. The enemy casualties were staggering; but they kept coming. They almost broke through the lines, but Toomey's machine gun saved the day, flanking the last wave with withering fire. The Chinese commander pulled his troops back...for now.

Platoon sergeants took stock of their men and equipment, and organized parties to get the wounded and dead loaded onto the remaining trucks. As they checked each ditch and depression, they found the result of outstanding training and guidance; there were mercifully few bodies: three privates, one corporal... and one sergeant.

They lifted his bulk up onto the truck, carefully laying him next to the other men of his platoon. He was one more casualty, and no one really noticed that, his hand frozen in rictus around his boots, Sergeant James had died in nothing but his socks