She shook her head. Her body began to shake and tears ran down her cheeks. "Andrew, I can't believe what has happened to me, to us. My home has been destroyed, my best friend blown apart by a bomb or a shell, and," here she paused, wondering quite what to say, "I saw a very good friend of mine raped by a Cuban soldier."
She let go of his hand, got up and walked the few steps to her room and turned. Privacy did not include a door. A blanket was hung in the doorway. "Tell you what, Andrew, I'll take you up on that dinner."
Any thoughts the American prisoners had regarding the possible omnipotence of the Cuban military after the sudden Cuban victory ended when they met Colonel Humberto Cordero.
The Cuban colonel knew when he was out of his depth, which was now. More than that — he was drowning. He was overwhelmed at the thought of administrating to a couple of thousand surly American POWs. Only a couple of days ago, he'd been the chief jailor in the city of Santiago, Cuba. He'd commanded a dozen guards and controlled maybe fifty or so inmates, most of whom were there because of petty thefts, drunkenness, or the occasional stabbing, along with the periodic wife-beater who he quickly released. Cuban men did not consider wife-beating a crime unless, of course, it went too far and the wife was either killed or had broken bones.
Nor was Cordero truly an army colonel. He was a fifty-year old and grossly overweight nobody and he was quickly realizing that he'd like those days back.
But they weren't coming back. El Presidente, Fidel Castro, had given him the rank of colonel, assigned him several hundred ill-trained militia, and told him to guard over two thousand American prisoners of war, all of whom would have liked to cut off his balls and stuff them down his throat.
The prison camp was located in a large field outside Santiago, which was about fifty miles from Gitmo. Construction workers had hurriedly thrown up a couple of hundred tents and surrounded the whole thing with a double fence made of barbed wire, with rolls of concertina wire inside the two fences. Watchtowers had been built and machine guns installed. It looked impressive. Cordero knew it was a shell, a sham. The watchtowers would have to be reinforced. They'd been built so hastily that they swayed in a breeze.
Major Sam Hartford understood Cordero's dilemma. In a fundamental sort of way, he even sympathized with the little fat man, and when it became evident that Colonel Cordero could be manipulated, he did so with a vengeance.
First, he convinced Cordero that it would be foolish and inefficient to separate the enlisted men from their officers, which was ordinarily done with POWs. Hartford told him that keeping the officers and men together would facilitate the administration, feeding, housing, disciplining, and controlling the prisoners. In return for that, Hartford promised that he would keep his men on their best behavior. If it occurred to Cordero that it would enable Hartford to organize the prisoners as a resistance and espionage force, he didn't seem to mind. Nor was he concerned that Hartford might lie to him, and that puzzled Hartford, but he let it go. He would not look a stupid Cuban gift horse in the mouth.
Hartford had quickly decided that Captain Tom Keppel, the man who'd shared the command bunker with him, would be his administrative officer.
"Tom, while you are getting everyone a place to sleep and something to eat, I want you to also take an inventory of a few things."
Keppel smiled wickedly. "Let me guess. You'd like to know who speaks Spanish."
"You're reading my mind, captain, but that's only a start. I want to know who managed to bring in a radio, and maybe some batteries. Then I want to know who has a weapon. I don't think anybody managed to smuggle in a Garand or a carbine, but maybe somebody has a pistol hidden in his shorts, and I'm sure there's a ton of knives out there."
Keppel agreed. The searching of the prisoners had been cursory at best. Hartford had complained vehemently to Cordero when some of his pea-brained guards had started to steal watches and cigarette lighters from the men. To his credit, Cordero had put a stop to it. Cubans did not steal, he said stiffly. At least not when someone was watching, Hartford thought.
"There's more, Tom. I want to know who has anything unusual in the way of a skill. Like building a two-way radio from scratch, or how to make a bomb, or how to dig a tunnel without killing himself. And, goodness, you're not making any notes, are you? Why not, captain?"
Keppel grinned. He knew he'd just passed a test. "Written notes have a bad way of being found by the bad guys, major. I read that in a novel once."
"Must've been a good book, Tom. And last, at least last for this meeting, I want to know how much money we have. Or anything else we can use for barter or trade. I don't expect the men to give up anything precious, like a wristwatch from gramps for graduation, or a wedding ring, but I would like to know what favors and information we can buy."
"Or steal?"
Hartford slapped Keppel on the shoulder. "I'm beginning to like the way you think."
At least Hartford now knew that the Red Cross had a comprehensive list of prisoners, which meant that his family had been notified that he'd survived the battle. That was one less thing to worry about. Now if he could only figure out a way to screw up the Cubans.
The military had promised him a plan and now they were ready to show him what they'd come up with. A very large map of Cuba hung on one wall of the Cabinet Room. President Kennedy thought Cuba looked like a squashed snake. He wished it'd been squashed.
Marine General Shoup would be the presenter. "Where do you want me to begin, Mr. President?"
"At the beginning, general. Assume nothing."
Kennedy wondered if the selection of the fifty-eight year old four star marine general was meant to intimidate him. And why wouldn't it? Shoup's record as a combat veteran was a mile long and included the Medal of Honor for heroism fighting the Japanese on Tarawa. Of course he was intimidated. All he'd done was gotten a Silver Star for losing PT-109. Maybe the critics were right. Maybe he should have been court martialed.
Shoup nodded agreement. Only a fool assumes anything, he thought. Shoup began with basic geographical facts. Cuba was seven hundred miles long and two hundred miles wide at its widest point. The island ran roughly from the northwest, Havana, to the southeast, Guantanamo Bay. The city of Mariel was just to the west of Havana and that was the presumed main location of the Soviet forces in Cuba.
A little to the west of Guantanamo and also on the southern coast of Cuba was the port city of Santiago.
Shoup jabbed his pointer at the map. "People like to say that Cuba is only ninety miles from the United States, but that's at its closest point and only important if you plan on swimming from Havana to Key West. In reality, the majority of the island, including Guantanamo, is hundreds of miles farther away, which does create a logistical problem for our land based planes. Simply put, they will not be able to spend as much time over the Guantanamo area as carrier based planes. Nor do we have the option of putting planes on the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico. The facilities for them just aren't there. The best we can do is move planes south to Miami."
Shoup jabbed again. He seemed to enjoy it. "We see no need to reinvent the wheel, sir. We have taken the liberty of alerting those forces that were going to be involved in attacking Cuba just two months ago as outlined in Operation Plan 316, or, more simply, OPLAN 316, along with some other units that we’ve decided to add. As before, Admiral Robert L. Dennison, Commander In Chief U. S. Atlantic Command, will have overall command of the operation which will be called Joint Task Force 122, or JTF 122, as it was in October. It originally called for a naval force centered on the nuclear carriers Enterprise and Independence, plus a number of other ships including the cruisers Newport News and Canberra, and these and other ships are en route. Three other carrier groups are beginning to make the journey.