Sergeant Cullen trotted over and squatted beside Ross. "Lieutenant, is it my imagination or is the bombing getting closer?"
Andrew listened closely. "I think you're right, gunny. Think we should move?"
"Where?"
"You're right," Andrew said. "We can't run but maybe we can hide. I think we should start making our foxholes a little deeper."
He paused. The bombs were falling closer, but it seemed like the intensity was fading, like a summer storm. What they should really do, he decided, was to contact Washington and get their suggestion as to where the hell would be safest for them.
Miami would be nice.
The Cuban soldier thought he heard something. Curious, he began to poke at the bushes around him. He was not going to call his sergeant. The last time he did that, it had turned out to be some kind of large insect or lizard and his sergeant had cursed him fluently in both Spanish and English.
No, he would solve his own problems. He would not cry for help like a baby, which is what his sergeant had said he was the last time he'd called for help and awakened the fat prick. So what if he wasn't comfortable with the slight rustlings in the dense foliage. He was from the city, not the jungle. Maybe all these insects and little animals making noise was normal.
He jabbed at a bush with the bayonet on the end of his old rifle. Ironically, bush jabbing was better with the old, long Springfield rifle then with a new but shorter-barreled AK47.
He never saw the broad bladed knife emerge from a bush and ram into his throat, severing his spinal cord. His last expression was one of total astonishment. A black arm pulled back and the Cuban soldier dropped forward. His throat was destroyed and his body flopped lifelessly. Blood gushed out and over the black arm. In a minute, the Cuban was dead.
"Damn," said Master Sergeant Wiley Morton in an angry whisper at the mess on his uniform.
He wiped the knife on the grass and cleaned himself off as best he could. He dragged the dead Cuban into the jungle. With a little luck he wouldn't be missed for a while. With more luck, he'd be considered a deserter and quietly disappear while the animals and insects devoured his remains, which would be too bad for the young soldier. He'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Morton quickly searched the dead man's pockets and gear for anything useful. Food would have been nice, but no, the man hadn't been carrying his pack. Damn shame. He and the colonel were getting hungry. Morton sneaked a look at the Cuban camp less than a hundred yards away. A half dozen of the dead man's comrades rested around a small fire. They were cooking something and the smell was intoxicating.
Romanski slithered up to Morton. "Got a plan?"
"We got a little while before they miss their little hombre, colonel, but I don't want to push our luck. Still," he mused, "I surely would like to get some rations."
Two of the soldiers got up and walked away. In a moment, two more followed. "Wonder where they're going?" Romanski asked.
"Don't care, sir. But they did just give us an opportunity."
Morton crawled through the grass, conscious of the fact that it was only a little bit higher than his butt. Sunlight was fading which provided long shadows that he hoped hid him. He froze as a voice yelled. One of the two remaining soldiers swore, yelled a response, and got up. He said something to the last Cuban who grinned. Morton understood enough Spanish to know that the soldier had been told to watch the camp. The Cuban thought he was lucky.
The Cuban was fixated on the fire and saw nothing. He was also totally destroying his night vision with his contempt for his surroundings. Morton decided he must be thinking that they were safe because they were in Cuba. He neither saw nor sensed Master Sergeant Wiley Morton moving up behind him.
Morton's strong left hand clamped over the Cuban's mouth while the knife in his right, the blade that had killed his comrade, sliced across his throat. This time the blood gushed on the ground and not on Morton.
He grabbed the Cubans’ packs and anything else that looked interesting. One of them had left an AK47 and he took that as well, along with a couple of clips of ammunition. He took them to where Romanski was covering him with his rifle.
Morton ran back to the dead Cuban. He dragged him away and into the brush with the first dead one. A last trip to the camp site to kick dirt over the blood on the ground and both he and the colonel were satisfied. They dragged the corpses deeper into the jungle.
"They'll miss them immediately," Romanski said, "but I'm guessing it'll take them at least an hour to find the bodies and even then they'd have to be real lucky. By that time we'll be well away. Maybe they'll even think their buddies had deserted and stolen their gear."
"My thoughts exactly, colonel," Morton was rummaging through the packs. There was some food but not as much as they'd hoped. There’d be enough to keep hunger away for a while, though.
Explosions rumbled in the distance. They two men looked at each other. "Methinks it's going to get a little interesting around here," Romanski said while chewing on a piece of stale bread.
Within a couple of days after the establishment of the prison camp, American warplanes began overflying it. They would fly as low as they dared and waggle their wings to give encouragement to the marines and sailors below who would wave and cheer while their Cuban guards glared at them. They were not alone, and the flyboys wanted them to know it.
However, as the days became weeks, the POWs began to lose their enthusiasm. Flyovers were nice, but when the hell was something going to happen? After a while, the planes became a nuisance, a reminder of a world outside that was maddeningly beyond their reach. The men stopped waving and cheering. Instead, they cursed and gave the pilots the finger. Of course, nobody in the planes knew this and they continued to fly over the camp and the Cuban city of Santiago.
"Here comes another one, sir," said Captain Tom Keppel, USMC and Hartford's second in command.
Major Hartford shielded his eyes with his hands. "Oh joy."
"I am just so fucking sick and tired of them doing nothing but fly around all day and then return to a carrier and a nice hot meal."
Hartford glared at him in mock anger. "You don't care for the food our hosts have provided?"
Keppel grinned. Actually the food still wasn't all that bad. It just wasn't very good, either. Some of the men were calling it Spanish hospital food. They had no idea whether a steady diet of beans and bread was nutritious or not. At least it kept them regular.
They reluctantly agreed that the commandant, General Cordero, had actually done a decent job in seeing that they were cared for. Regardless, there were two thousand men in the camp who'd kill for a hamburger, French fries or onion rings, and a nice, cold beer. Keppel's preference was for a Midwestern brand called Strohs, while Hartford wish was for Budweiser. Keppel wanted mayo on his medium rare burger. Hartford called him a barbarian and said that mustard was the civilized condiment, especially for officers who needed to maintain standards for the enlisted men. It was a standing joke.
"Christ!" Keppel said and jumped up. "Look!"
Hartford's eyes followed in disbelief. Bombs were falling from the wings of the planes flying over Santiago. A Cuban gunboat in the harbor was bracketed with plumes of water that rose far higher than the little craft. It rocked violently and immediately began to sink. The sound arrived seconds after the explosions and washed over two thousand now wildly cheering prisoners. The guards in the towers and at the gate appeared stunned.
Additional bombs sought out targets in and around the city spread out below them. A fuel dump was hit and clouds of flame soared upward. Finally, they exulted, things were beginning to happen. Was the end in sight? Hartford thought of what Churchill had said: It wasn't the beginning of the end, but it was the end of the beginning, or something like that. Whatever, it felt very, very good.