“It’s coming up from under the water!” Gabby said tightly. “It didn’t sail in at all.”
“Get down,” Steve said, and we crouched at his sides. “That’s a submarine.”
The man on the beach waved one lantern overhead now, the green one. Their fire gusted in the wind and the bright light bounced off yellow coats, emerald pants.
“So that’s how they get past the coast guard,” Gabby said.
“They go under them,” Steve agreed, awe in his voice.
“Do you think the San Diegans see it?” Mando said.
“Shh,” Steve hissed again.
One of the submarine’s lights came on, illuminating a narrow black deck. Figures came out of a hatch onto this deck, and in the water beside it they inflated big rafts. Others piled out of the submarine into the rafts. The scavengers’ firelight reflected off the oars as the rafts were rowed to the beach. Two scavengers welcomed the raft by wading into the water up to their waists, and pulling it up the beach beyond the white wavefoam. Several men jumped out of the raft, and a couple more of them lifted packages and wooden boxes out of it. Scavengers handed them jars of amber liquid that glistened in the firelight, and as the Japanese visitors drank we could just hear the scavengers’ greetings, raucous and jovial. The Japanese all looked very round, as if they were wearing two coats each. One of them looked just like my captain.
I pulled back from the crack. “We’ll be too far from them when the ambush starts,” I told Steve.
“No we won’t. Look, here’s another raft full of them.”
I said, “We should get out of this latrine and get in the trees behind. Once they figure out where the firing is coming from, we’ll be stuck here.”
“They won’t figure it out—how are they going to do that in the dark?”
“I don’t know. We should be out of here.”
One more raft was filled, rowed to shore, pulled up the beach. The thick Japanese men stepped out, looked around. The light on the submarine went out, but its dark bulk remained. Boxes were lifted out of the last raft, and some of the scavengers gathered around the boxes as they were pried open. One in a scarlet coat held up a rifle from a box for his fellows to see.
Crack! crack! crack! The San Diegans opened fire. Shot after shot rang out. From my crouch, looking past Steve’s leg, I could see only the response of our victims on the beach: They fell to the sand, the lanterns were out in an instant, the fire knocked to sparks. From then on I couldn’t see much, but already spits of flame showed they were firing back. I aimed to fire, and at the same moment there was a flat whoosh-BOOM, and we were in a cloud of oily gas, coughing and choking, gasping, crying—my eyes burned so badly I couldn’t think of anything else—I feared the gas was eating them out of my head. As the wind swept the cloud out to sea there was another boom, and another, and the popping sound of our ambush was overwhelmed by tremendous long bursts of gunfire spraying off the beach. Through eyes burning with tears all I saw was the whitish flame spurting from the Japanese guns. I coughed and spit, feeling sick, raised my gun to shoot it for the first time (Steve was already shooting). I pulled the trigger and my gun went click, click, click.
A searchlight speared the darkness, originating on the submarine and lighting somewhere south of us, near the wall hiding the San Diegans. The whole area down there exploded. Gunfire ran in the street behind us, and another cloud of poison gas mushroomed over the beach. The Japanese and the scavengers trapped on the beach stood and marched toward us through the gas, wearing helmets and firing machine guns. Blocks of our latrine fell on us. “Let’s get out of here!” Steve cried. We leaped over the latrine’s back wall and ran for the trees backing the beach. Once on the trash-blocked street flanking the strand, we ran—hopped, rather—struggled over piles of soggy wood and old brick, tripped and fell, got up again. My nose was streaming snot from the poison gas; I threw away my pistol. In an eyeblink the whole area was bright as day, bright with a harsh blue glare, the shadows solid as rocks. In the sky over us a flare was sputtering light, revealing the tiny parachute holding it up. The whole unit quickly tumbled off to sea, lighting the harbor so that for an instant between trees I could see the submarine, and men on it firing a mounted gun at us.
“The bridge!” Steve was shouting. “The bridge!” I read his lips more than heard him. It was astounding how loud the gunfire was, I wanted to collapse and clamp my hands over my ears. We scrambled over rubbish, fallen trees, driftwood from storm tides; Mando caught his foot and we pulled him loose. Bullets whanged over us, tearing the air zip, zip, and I ran hunched down so far my back hurt. Another flare burst into life, higher and farther inland. It floated over us like a falling star, making our way plain but also showing us to everyone so we had to crawl, foot by foot. Rips of machine gun fire came from the sea side of us, and behind us were explosions at frequent intervals: with a blinding flash and a crack to break the ears a building down the street fell all over the rubble. We got up from a tangle of planks and ran again, crouched over. Another flare lit the sky above. We fell and waited for the wind to take it to sea. A wrecked building up the hill exploded, then a trio of redwood trees were knocked down. The flare blew away and we stumbled through the shadows for a good way before another flare burst into life, and we lay flat in a copse of eucalyptus.
“Do you think—” Gabby gasped. “Did the San Diegans get away?” No one answered. Mando was still carrying his pistol. We were just a ways from the bridge, and I wanted to get over it before the submarine blasted it into the river. Dana Point still rang with gunfire, it sounded like a real battle was going on, but they could have been fighting shadows. I wasn’t sure the San Diegans would have run like we had. We got up again and scurried over the trash in the streets. A waft of the poison gas. Another fire sparked, but this one plunged fizzing into the marsh. I fell and cut my hand and elbow and knee. We made it to the bridge.
No one was there. “We’ve got to wait for them!” Steve shouted.
“Get across,” I said.
“They won’t know we’re here! They’ll wait here—”
“They will not,” Gabby said bitterly. “They’re over it and long gone. They told us to wait here so we’d slow down the Japs.”
Steve stared at Gab open-mouthed. Another flare burst right above us and I crouched by the rail. Looking between the concrete rail posts I saw several of the flares tailing out to sea, making a ragged string that fell closer to the water, until the ones farthest out lit patches of water. The latest one sailed offshore and over the submarine.
“Go before they put up another one,” Gabby said furiously. He stood and ran across the bridge without waiting for us to agree. We followed him, but another flare sparked the sky, lighting the bridge in ghastly detail. There was nothing to do but keep running, and run we did, because the submarine commenced shooting at us. The railing clanged and the air ripped like stiff cloth, like the first tearing sound of thunder. We got to the far side of the bridge and threw ourselves flat behind a stretch of canted asphalt. The submarine pummeled the bridge. From the hills inland a siren howled, low at first and then rising fast. Scavengers, sounding the alarm. But who were they fighting? Darkness, distant explosions, siren howls. The submarine stopped firing but my head rang so I couldn’t hear. Little bangs ahead of us in San Clemente, felt more than heard. Steve put his face to my ear. “Go back through streets—” and something I didn’t catch. The shooting to the south meant the San Diegans were already down there, I decided, and I cursed them for leaving us. We ran again, but the submarine must have seen us through its night glasses, because it fired again. Down we went. Crawled and hopped, ran doubled over through the ruins on the coastal road. The submarine stayed in the rivermouth, pounding away. We got off the coastal road, back against a low cliff, through trees and on another road. Into the wreck of San Clemente, the maze of trash. Mando was falling behind, limping. I thought it was his foot. “Hurry up!” Steve screamed.