"Some Came Running" is taken from the Gospel of St. Mark (Chapter 10:17), which author James Jones used as an epigraph before the beginning of the novel. It reads: "And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" Jones also used the image of running to begin the novel's prologue, as Dave Hirsh remembers German soldiers attacking during the Battle of the Bulge; "They came running through the fog across the snow, lumbering, the long rifles held up awkwardly high..."