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    Cade yawned. He wondered how far south he’d have to get before he found UN troops. If the Chinese and North Koreans had driven their foes back to the Pusan perimeter again and collapsed it this time…Well, in that case he was completely screwed, so he saw no point in worrying about it. Instead, he rolled over and fell asleep.
    He remembered what a tough time he’d had on maneuvers in basic when he had to curl up on the ground in a sleeping bag. He didn’t have that kind of trouble now. He didn’t have a sleeping bag, either. Just him and the ground, as if he were a stray dog. He was stray, all right, strayer than dogs ever got. And he fell asleep instantly. He didn’t bother turning around three times first.
    When he woke, it was so dark he had to look hard to find the mouth of the cave. Stars blazed down from a black, black sky. Something way off to the east was blazing, too. A house? A barn? A tank? He had no way of knowing. He hoped an American air raid had blown a bunch of Red Chinese to hell, but hope was all he could do. The fire didn’t matter enough to make him go find what it was about.
    His watch’s luminous dial told him it was half past ten. The Army timepiece was Zippo-tough. He’d banged it around like nobody’s business, but it kept ticking. The moon was getting close to last quarter. It would rise soon. When it did, he’d start moving.
    Not many people would be out and about in the dead of night. You had to be crazy to travel then, crazy or desperate. He figured he qualified on both counts.
    He scooped up snow and ate a few mouthfuls. Each one turned to a small swallow of cold water. He would have killed for coffee, or even the tea he was more likely to find here.
    Maybe he wouldn’t have to. If he was where he thought he was, and if he remembered his maps right—two good-sized ifs—there ought to be a village not too far south of here. If it hadn’t been too badly picked over, he might find some tea.
    He moved slowly, warily, sliding from one moonshadow to the next. Anyone who glimpsed him might have imagined he was an owl gliding from perch to perch. A low rumble made him dive for cover. As it got louder, he realized it had nothing to do with him. It came from the air, not the ground. It was a formation of B-29s, flying north by night to drop some hell on the enemy’s heads.
    “Luck, guys,” he whispered. The sounds of English startled him. He hadn’t said anything at all for a few days. Making noise, especially a kind of noise the locals didn’t make, had to be the quickest way to get yourself killed.
    He found the village about three in the morning. He really was where he thought he was—or this was a different village. Different or not, it was good-sized: on the way to being a town. It wouldn’t make townhood now. It must have changed hands three or four times. The buildings were chewed-up ruins. The carcass of a Pershing tank sat in the village square. Open hatches were more likely to mean the Koreans or Chinese had cleaned out the tank than that the crew had pulled off a getaway.
    Guessing the houses near the square would have been looted first and hardest, Cade went to the ones on the southern outskirts. Damned if he didn’t find some tea. He’d chew it if he couldn’t brew it the ordinary way. Hidden under the floor of the house next to the one with the tea in it, he also found a sack of rice cakes, a sack of sun-dried plums, and a jug of kimchi.
    He started to leave that behind. The fiery pickled cabbage had such a stink, the enemy wouldn’t need a bloodhound to track him if he ate it. But, he decided, so what? What would he smell like? A Korean. They gobbled the shit every chance they got. Most Americans turned up their noses at it. Cade didn’t turn up his nose at anything even vaguely foodlike, not any more. He’d eaten slugs and snails. He might have let a cockroach go, but he also might not.
    Food in hand, submachine gun slung on his back, he