As bombs begin to fall on Pearl Harbor, nineteen-year-old PFC Richard Mask is wearing a pistol, a .45 caliber automatic that makes him feel connected to the army of the Wild West and Custer's Cavalry. In the chaos of his first days and weeks of the war, as Mask and his company move from Schofield Barracks to the beaches of Oahu, then to a remote mountain pass, a struggle over the pistol dominates this novella's action, providing the pathos and savagery of the story.