GIs’ Spirits Rise on 2 Reports of Iraqi Defectors : Morale: Dug-in troops take heart in knowing that the enemy may be more miserable than they are.

EASTERN SAUDI ARABIA —  Far from home in the cold winter desert, where you sleep in wet foxholes and in hooches along noisy flight lines, few things brighten the mood more than proof that your enemy is more miserable than you, so miserable he is ready to quit.

For that reason the men and women of Operation Desert Storm hang on every report of enemy defection--and a pair of tantalizing, if isolated, accounts of defections spread through the war zone Sunday.

An A-6E Intruder flying from the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt sighted an apparent request to surrender. The pilot, flying over a small island called Maridum, looked below and saw there, written in stones, the message in misspelled English, “SOS We Serrender.”

The exact location was not given, but the ship’s intelligence officer, Cmdr. Mark Lawrence, 38, of Syracuse, N.Y., said the Iraqis had placed 20 to 30 men on the island as forward observers but were unable to resupply the island for at least a week.

Lawrence said no U.S. ships or aircraft immediately contacted the Iraqis. But, he added, “We will probably go and pick those guys up.”

Then, in an area on the ground near Saudi Arabia’s border with Kuwait, a military officer told a group of journalists that hunger and low morale were behind the defection of 31 Iraqis over a period of days. In groups of three and four, they approached American positions waving white T-shirts. The 31 are cooks but had no food, the military officer said.

“Most of them are in very bad shape. Most haven’t eaten in two or three days,” he said.

All across the theater, military officials continued their planning to handle thousands of Iraqi prisoners. On Sunday, a contingent of Britain’s Coldstream Guards was seen deployed in the region, each soldier carrying a supply of plastic handcuffs.

Coalition armies are actively trying to encourage defections. And every now and then, reporters are exposed to the allies’ psychological warfare efforts, or “psyops.” Last week, correspondents deployed with a British brigade reported that a U.S. psyops team was broadcasting messages across the Kuwaiti border using giant loudspeakers.

The content of the messages was not disclosed, but U.S. team members said the desert conditions, the bane of so much of the military ground effort in Saudi Arabia, are ideal for booming messages to enemy troops.

Meanwhile, on the front lines, contact of a different type was reported--the deadly cat-and-mouse game between opposing reconnaissance patrols. With the Delta Dogs--the Delta Company of the 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade--word comes down to watch but not engage enemy patrols.

“They’re trying to figure out where we’re at,” a senior officer said. “I have told my guys to avoid them, just observe them.”

The Iraqis seem willing to go along. “You know that they’re there. You know that they know we’re here. So we’re keeping a low profile,” said Capt. Mike Lerario, a company commander from Damascus, Md.

Now that the opposing armies are so close to a possible flash point, a new urgency infects age-old tasks, like digging-in.

“I’m going to dig more and more until I can’t dig no more,” said Pvt. Gergory White, 20, of Los Angeles, who has been in Saudi Arabia six days and now serves with the 82nd Airborne.

“Infantrymen have been digging in for hundreds of years,” said Maj. Carl Horst, 35, operations officer for the 2nd Brigade. “We’re continuing in the fine tradition of our brothers.”

This account was prepared in part from pooled dispatches reviewed by military censors.