“Even if they do land somewhere in here,” Jennings said, “they’ll have to go by us over there if they’re going to go up the valley to see the mission like we think they are.”
“Like you think they are,” Danforth said.
“Don’t you agree?”
“Maybe.”
Jennings said, “Well either way, if we’re over there we’ll have them. They’ll come by us wherever they land—they won’t be going up those cliffs.” He waved at the north end of the channel. “If we stay here and they land on that beach, they’ll be able to run inland. We want to trap them against water.”
“That’s true,” Ben said.
Danforth nodded. “Let’s get back there, then.” Everyone heard him, of course, and we tramped back through the thick shrubs cursing and struggling. Back on the road that led to the bridge, the Mayor called us together.
“We’ve got to be well hidden, because the scavengers might come to greet this landing, and they’ll be coming from behind us. So I want us all in buildings or thick trees, or some such shelter as that. We’re assuming they’re going to land at this beach here, but it’s a good long stretch, so we may have to move after we sight them. If there’s a group on the beach to greet them, we’ll be able to adjust sooner, but we’ll have to be very quiet about it.” He led us from the road onto the beach. “Don’t walk where fresh tracks will show! Now. Main force, over here behind this wall.” Several men followed his pointing finger, and walked over to a low tumbled-down wall of broken brick. “Get tucked in there good.” He walked south down the beach. “Another group in that clump of trees. That will make a good crossfire. And you Onofre men…” He came back north, passed the first wall, came to a pile of cement blocks. “In here. See, this was a latrine. Clear some of these out and hunker down in here. If they try slipping around into that harbor swamp, you’ll be here to stop them.”
Mando and I put down our guns, and we climbed into the blocks and weeds and tossed some blocks out to make more room for us.
“That’s good,” Danforth said. “We don’t want to make too much of a disturbance, they may have landed around here before, in which case we don’t want to change anything much. Get in that, let’s see how well hidden you are.” We climbed over the junk in the doorway and stood inside. Two of the walls didn’t meet anymore, and we had a good view through the crack of the beach and the water. “Good. One of you stay where you can see down the beach.”
“We can see through this break,” Steve said, looking through the crack.
“Okay. That might be a good slot for shooting through, too. Stay out of sight, remember. They’ll have night glasses, and they’ll have a good look around before they land.”
The rest of the San Diegans had disappeared in their various blinds. The Mayor looked around and saw they had dispersed; he checked the watch on his wrist and said, “Okay. It’s still a couple hours before midnight, but the scavengers may come earlier to greet them, and they may land early anyway. When you see them come in, stay down. Don’t even release the safeties of your guns until we fire on them, understand? That’s very important. When we fire is your signal to fire too. Don’t waste bullets. Lastly, if anything happens and we get separated in the fighting, we’ll all meet on the bridge we crossed, and go back through San Clemente together. You know where I mean?”
“Sure,” Steve said. “The big bridge.”
“Good men. I’m going to join the main group. Keep quiet, and keep one man looking hard.” He shook each of our hands in turn, leaning into the latrine to do it. Once again he crushed my hand. “One more thing—we’ll hold our fire until they’re all on the beach. Remember that. Okay? Okay, then”—clenching a fist and swinging it overhead—“now’s our chance to get them!” Then he was off, limping across the soft sand to the broken wall down the beach.
No one in sight. Steve stood at the big crack facing the water and said, “I’ll take the first lookout.”
We each slid into the best seat we could make, and began to wait. Gabby settled down on a pile of disintegrating cement blocks. Mando and I got as comfortable as we could, sitting on each side of him. There was nothing to do but listen to the wind batter the ruins. Once I stood and looked over Steve’s shoulder at the slice of the sea visible through the crack. Waves broke and sluiced up and down the beach; the offshore wind threw back a little spray, in white arcs barely lit by the starry sky. Whitecaps flecked the surface farther out to sea. Nothing else. I sat back down. Counted the bullets in my leather pouch. There were twelve of them. The gun was loaded, so theoretically I could kill eighteen Japanese. I wondered how many there would be. With my fingernails I could pluck the loaded bullets from their chambers and slip them back in, so I figured reloading wouldn’t be a problem. Mando saw me and began fiddling with his gun, too.
“Do you think these things shoot straight?” he said.
“If you’re close enough,” said Gabby.
We waited some more. Leaning back against the cement wall I even dozed a bit, but I had one of those waking dreams, a quick vision of a green bottle tumbling my way, and I jerked awake again, my heart pumping. Still, nothing was happening, and I almost drifted off again, thinking in a disconnected dreamy way about the bricks of the latrine. Who had made such once-perfect bricks?
“I wish they’d get here,” Mando said.
“Shh,” Steve said. “Don’t talk. It’s getting close to time.”
If they come at all, I thought. Overhead the stars flickered in the velvet black sky. I shifted to the other side of my butt. We waited. Off on the bluffs a pair of coyotes matched yowls. A lot of time passed, heartbeat by heartbeat, breath by breath. Nothing slower than time passing, sometimes.
Steve jerked and reached a hand back to snap in our faces. He leaned over, hissed “scavengers” in a whisper. We jumped to our feet and looked through the crack, peering around Steve.
Dark. Then against the white gleam of the shorebreak I made out figures moving down the beach. They stopped for a while near the wall where the San Diegans were hidden, then moved north, until they were between us and the water. Their voices were almost loud enough to be understood. They clumped together and then moved south again, stopping before they had come even with the San Diegans. One of them leaned down and struck a lighter near the sand, and by its tiny flame several pants legs were illuminated. They were dressed in their finery: in the little circle of light were flashes of gold, ruby, sky-blue cloth. The man with the lighter lit five or six lanterns and left them on the sand with several dark bags and a couple of boxes. One of the lanterns had green glass. Another scavenger took that one and a clear one, went to the water and swung them overhead, crossing them once or twice. By the lanterns’ light we could make out parts of the whole crew, silver flashing from their ears and hands, wrists and waists. Several more appeared, carrying dry brush and some bigger branches, and with difficulty they started a fire. Once it was going the kindling burst into flame, and the bigger pieces crackled and spit burning pitch into the sand. Now in the bouncing light they were all clearly visible: fifteen of them, I counted, dressed in yellow and red and purple and blue and green, and weighted down with rings and necklaces of silver and copper.
“I don’t see any boat out there,” Steve whispered. “You’d think if they were signaling we could make out the boat.”
“Too dark,” Mando whispered. “And the fire cuts what we can see.”
“Shh,” Steve hissed.
“Look,” said Gabby in an urgent whisper. He pointed past Steve’s shoulder, but already I saw what he meant: there was a dark bulk rising out of the water, just off the end of the jetty. Waves rolled over this dark shape, defining it.