And then, like a wraith or a shadow, she was gone and I stood like an adolescent lover on the dirt road following her body with my imagination. The strains of the lovely old song, "On the Street Where You Live" raced through my mind.
It was with great reluctance that I turned to retrace my steps to the ledge above the Marine encampment.
Light was just beginning to filter down on the mountains when I made it back to the lookout point Elicia had shown me. I snuggled close to the ground and watched the encampment as dawn increased. When there was sufficient light, I took my binoculars from my knapsack, studied the layout of the Marine detachment and could find no indications of which company was bivouacked where. Sergeant Pequeno had told me that he was in the Baker Company of the second battalion. I would do everything possible to avoid that battalion: even if I could pass as the dead sergeant, I had no intentions of being shot for desertion. Luis was already several hours AWOL.
But the uniform and my use of Spanish would at least get me into the encampment without drawing undue suspicion. After that, I should have no trouble finding out precisely where the guerillas were encamped, no trouble walking there to make discreet enquiries about one Antonio Cortez.
Or so I thought.
I again hid my knapsack at the lookout, chose a sector that seemed to have the least concentration of troops, picked out trails leading in that direction, and set off to find it on foot. The sun was coming up over the eastern mountains by the time I crossed the river and neared the edge of the camp. Campfires that had warmed them at night had gone out: new ones were being built to cook the morning meal. Only the sleepy guards and the cooks were up and about. I picked out a particularly sleepy-looking guard who was slouched against a tree. The makeshift sign just in front of his post announced: HQ-Zed Compania — Headquarters of Z Company.
"Atención," the guard said as I approached. He came to attention himself, more or less.
I put on my most sheepish grin, honed up a slurred, drunken Spanish, and told the guard that I was Sgt. Luis Pequeno of B Company, returning from a marvelous night with a local talent on one of the peasant farms. I said I was trying to get to my home company before reveille and would appreciate it if he didn't make a fuss and get me in difficulty with my lieutenant.
He grinned back his understanding and passed me on without missing a yawn. I was in.
I found B Company's headquarters' sign two hundred yards farther up the valley, adroitly circumvented it by crossing a high slope, and came into the purview of J Company up near the entrance to the main trail to the mountain, to Alto Arete. I loitered in the area for some time, taking in the terrain and the probable intelligence and alertness of the guards at the gate there, then was circling back to the area of Z Company where I hoped to forage for food. The smell of cooking up and down the narrow hollow was wrinkling my stomach and making me drool. It occurred to me that I hadn't eaten since noon yesterday. I had been busy during the dinner hour keeping watch over my quarry, Sergeant Pequeno, whom I had followed from that canteen in the capital to the home of Jorge and Melina Cortez — and to Elicia.
I stepped brazenly up to the three wiry cooks who were working at a primitive table, chopping up chicken and vegetables and tossing them helter skelter into a huge black pot over a blazing fire. With a few well-chosen lies, some sly winks and comments about the drawing power of the local lasses, I managed to cadge food. The first lie concerned my alleged special mission from Colonel Vasco. The cooks were mightily impressed with my status, so I ate well, crouched against a tree where I kept a wary eye out for scorpions. I should have been keeping a wary eye on the cooks; one of them disappeared while I dined on the stew and I never even noticed that he was gone.
"Atención!" It was a sharp command, sharply given. I locked up into the face of a man who had obviously done brutal things in his approximately forty five years of existence on earth. He was tall and broad, with an immense shock of black hair that was giving over grudgingly to gray. His broad chest was bedecked with enough medals to give an ordinary man fatigue just from carrying them around. "Su nombre y jefe, por favor."
I stood and, even though I'm a tall man well over six feet, I found myself looking up at the rough, scarred, pockmarked face of the officer. From his insignia, I guessed him to be Colonel Ramon Vasco. And he had demanded my name and the name of my commander.
"Sergeant Luis Pequeno," I responded swiftly, standing at attention. "My commander, Captain Rodrigues, has sent me from the guerilla encampment to warn that an American may have infiltrated his encampment."
The colonel studied me for a moment, trying to satisfy himself if I were an imposter, or merely stupid. I had tried to convey the idea of stupidity, had obviously succeeded. The thinnest part of my story concerned Captain Rodriguez. I knew no such man and was only guessing that, in a detachment of a thousand Cuban Marines, there had to be a captain named Rodrigues.
"What is Rodrigues doing with the guerillas?" the colonel asked. "He belongs with Q Company, right down the mountain there."
"He was sent with a few of us to investigate some unrest among the conscripted peasants," I said quickly, counting on the story about Antonio to be a common one.
"I have no memory of authorizing such a change in the captain's assignment." The colonel was still studying me, still convinced that he was witnessing stupidity, but perhaps also seeking a rat in disguise.
"I believe it was your adjutant who authorized the change," I said. I wasn't even sure the colonel had an adjutant.
"All right," he said finally. "Tell Captain Rodrigues that his message has been delivered. We know there's an American on the island, but he was last seen in the capital. There's no possibility of him showing up here — and certainly he will never find the guerilla encampment. Get back to your post now."
I moved away, swiftly, wanting to put a lot of distance between me and the strong, surly and obviously vicious colonel.
"Atenci6n, Pequeno!" the colonel snarled.
I was torn between standing at attention and running like a castrated wildcat.
"Not that way, stupido," Colonel Vasco said, laughing at my now obvious stupidity. "That way lies the lower minefield. Go back the way you came, over there."
Thank God, he was pointing off to his right, or I would have taken off in another wrong direction. Thanks to the colonel, though, I was finally on the way to the Guerillas. It could very easily have gone sour, though, gone all wrong. Sometimes, a little stupidity can work miracles.
But the misdirection wasn't what was making me sweat so much as I walked away over the small rise. I was sweating because I had just come through that section which the colonel had said was the lower minefield. The main miracle was that I hadn't stepped in the wrong place and been blown to bits.
Even so, the way to the guerilla encampment wasn't as simple as the colonel had made out. Within two hundred yards up a narrow trail leading from the main hollow, I was hopelessly lost. The trail ended and I stood gazing at walls of jungle. Vines riddled the high trees, creating a network of obstacles. Underbrush added spice to the sealed wall of green.
I was about to turn back, to seek another trail through, when a section of jungle shook, rattled and then moved aside. A grizzled man in peasant clothes and a Russian rifle slung over his bony shoulder, stepped into the opening and grinned at me.
"Are you lost, sergeant?" he asked in Spanish.
"No," I said, thinking fast. "I've been serving as courier most of the night and was on the trail when today's password was given out. I was afraid I'd be shot if I called out to you."
I knew enough about military operations to know about passwords and the daily changing of them. And I knew that this was a checkpoint where a password would be required.