Andrew's Secret Weapon
~HH~
Andrew Carter was alone policing the parade grounds at the far end of camp. He liked it back there. He was alone…except for the guards in the towers, and he never even thought about them anymore. He hummed as he picked up the stray trash and cigarette butts that littered the ground.
He was startled by a couple of guys from one of the other barracks. Parrish and Mannix were two men he didn't know well, but he did know two things: that he had promised Col. Hogan he would stay out of trouble, because he was needed for a mission later that night, and that his odds of keeping that promise had just dropped somewhere between distant and dismal. Because these two loved to make trouble. Carter knew they were on Col. Hogan's transfer list. He sighed, hoping maybe they would just go away if he ignored them. He continued humming under his breath.
Parrish nudged Mannix. "You hear that? Little boy's singin' a song. Must be missin' his mommy."
Mannix laughed. "Hey, kid. Ain't that a church song or something? I thought you were some Indian chief or something."
Andrew sighed. He shut his eyes for just a moment, trying to decide how to handle the situation. It was not often the subject came up quite so directly, and frankly, he wasn't sure he even wanted to talk about his faith with these men. But wasn't that what it was all about?
He turned and looked them in the eye. "Everyone always wonders how I stay so innocent and happy all the time around here. I'm not innocent, and I am certainly not happy. Not always. But the difference is, I do have hope. And that song is what that hope is all about. I guess you could say it's my secret weapon."
He saw that he had their attention, so he took a deep breath, and began to sing:
At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!
The two men stared at him in silence, and Andrew smiled at them. "If you guys ever wanna talk about it, you know where I live."
And he began picking up the litter once more.
~The End~
A/N: *Ralph Hudson wrote this song in 1885 as the refrain to "Alas and Did my Savior Bleed"
