~ * ~ * ~ * ~
The recruits were pouring into the village. One of the things I didn’t consider was how to feed all of them. We weren’t set-up to handle the feeding and housing for two thousand fighters.
“Chris, I have another shopping list for you. I need tents and food for my army.”
“Which one of us is going to explain Rick’s army to Brydon?” Chris asked me. “I know, since the army is named after you it should fall on your shoulders to explain it.”
“He was told twenty million plus expenses, these are expenses. Get a hold of Rusty for army tents. Have Brady fly back to our isle with a couple of Red Dog’s men. They are to buy lots and lots of food in bulk. Grab the big kettle pots from the galley on Dead Men’s Isle and shanghai a couple of the cooks to do the cooking. Have them bring the whole lot back on the two cabin cruisers.”
“Canvas tents are heavy Rick. Rusty may have to make two trips to get everything to us.”
“Have him do whatever he has to do to get the tents to us. Right now I have about four hundred sleeping indoors and the rest are under the trees.”
We were sitting looking at the message traffic from the fort. We had it sorted by which day it was sent.
“It looks like Tuesday is the day they order their supplies. Are these supplies for the week or for the month?”
“I think perishable food is delivered weekly and the rest as needed but probably on a monthly basis,” Carlos replied.
“Is there a set schedule for what day of the week deliveries are made to the fort?” the chief asked.
Francisco nodded his head. “Normally the deliveries are made on Friday afternoons.”
“Look, here’s a report on their casualties. They lost over a hundred men in the fight. You were able to inflict all of that damage with just ten men and no one was hurt on your team?” Carlos said while looking at us in awe. “Can you teach our men to fight like that Rick?”
“We’ll teach your men what we can with the time we have. You have to realize it took years for these men to become the fighters they are.”
“I understand, we’ll take all of the help you can give us,” Carlos said. “Already I have seen improvement in our men. The hand to hand combat training you are doing is building confidence in our men.”
“That’s what we want. You’ve already lost the battle if you enter it thinking you’re going to lose.”
“Another week and we should have all of the information we need about their message traffic. Sam is done building the tower and has it in place on the ridge,” the chief added.
“How is Juan dealing with losing his mother Carlos?” I asked worried about the little guy.
“He’s doing as well as can be expected. Francisco’s wife is helping him deal with his pain. He’s been spending his days at my brother’s home while I deal with what we must do. At night he is with me at our home.”
“When you and Juan are ready to go back to the United States let me know. I can make your journey easier. Francisco, I’m making the same offer to you and your family.”
“Thank you my friend,” Carlos said sincerely. “I will take you up on that offer.”
“I will have to talk to my wife but I think we will go too,” Francisco said to me.
“Do we have a power source for us to run the radio with when the tower is erected?” I asked the Estaban brothers.
“We do now. The closest power source to it was a house a hundred yards away. We ran power from the house to the shack we built to keep the radio equipment dry in.”
“Is the rifle range all setup? The new rifles will be here tomorrow and we can start training the men on how to aim and fire them and the proper way to care for them.”
“The range is setup over there,” Francisco said, pointing. “It is behind a hill that should block the sound of the shots. The fort is over five miles away so they shouldn’t hear anything.”
“The prevailing wind is from the direction of the fort so that will help them from hearing us too,” I reasoned.
I glanced at my watch. “It’s getting late, I’m going to go get Karen and call it a night. Tomorrow we should be at the rifle range.”