They worked their way back up the trail to the top of the bluff. There they lay on their stomachs and watched the activity below in the submarine base. The crew of the U-boat disembarked, the officers first, then the enlisted men. The officers were taken to one of the smaller buildings.
“Headquarters,” Hooker guessed.
The enlisted men from the sub joined the men from the base and headed for a long building with smoke curling out of a tin chimney at one end.
“Mess hall,” Buzz suggested.
While they watched from up on the bluff, a long, deadly-looking cylinder was carried out of one of the buildings. Then another, and another, until eight of them were lined up outside. There they were strapped on to low-wheeled carts and rolled out onto the dock, where men from the base began to load them gingerly aboard the submarine.
“Torpedoes,” Buzz said. He instinctively spoke in a whisper, though there was no possibility that their voices could carry to anyone down below.
“Yeah,” Hooker agreed unhappily.
“That must be the ordnance building where they got them. All we have to do is hit that place and torch the tanks while they’re pumping diesel fuel into the sub, and the whole place goes.”
“That’s all we have to do, is it?” Hooker said dryly.
“Quit sulking, Hooker,” Connie said.
He glared at her for a moment, then said, “All right. Let’s keep our eyes open and watch for the best way to move in. We’d better plan to do it about sundown.”
Buzz grinned at him. Hooker tried to hold onto his frown but eventually had to give up and grin back.
After all eight torpedoes were loaded aboard the submarine, a heavy hose was unreeled from the onshore diesel tanks and fed out along the dock. The nozzle end was shoved into the fuel port in the deck of the submarine.
“They’ll probably get underway sometime tonight,” Hooker said.
“It doesn’t look like they worry much about security,” Buzz said. “There’s no observation posts, no fence around the base, and only one sentry that I’ve seen.”
They watched the lone man strolling around the perimeter of the base. He carried a rifle slung comfortably over one shoulder and seemed more interested in the submarine than in walking his post.
“They’re not expecting an attack from the jungle,” Hooker said. “The camouflage will hide them in the unlikely event that a plane flies over. They haven’t got a worry in the world, which should make it easy for us to take the sentry.”
“How do we do it?” Buzz asked.
“We know his route now. How about if you and I get down there in that clump of palmettos, and when he comes by, I distract him and you take him out?”
“Sounds okay.”
“Wait a minute,” Connie said.
The men looked at her.
“What am I supposed to do? Stay home and knit sweaters?”
“You’ll cover our rear,” Hooker said.
“Oh?” She did not sound convinced.
“You can watch from behind that big rock halfway down the trail and see that nobody surprises us from behind.”
“What am I supposed to do if I see somebody?”
“Use your initiative.”
“You’re just getting me out of the way, aren’t you, Hooker?”
He took Connie by the shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. “What I’m asking you to do is very important. If anything happens to Buzz and me, we need somebody to tell the story back in civilization. That has to be you. I know it isn’t easy to be the one who waits. It’s probably the hardest job of all, but I think you can do it.”
She searched his face. “All right, Hooker. I’ll do the waiting. But if I ever find out you were just trying to get me out of the way …”
He pulled her to him and kissed her hard on the mouth. “It’s time we all get moving, honey.”
When they reached the boulder halfway down, Connie took her place behind it. They whispered good-bys, and Hooker and Buzz eased carefully on down the trail to the bottom. They concealed themselves as comfortably as possible behind the palmettos and waited for the lone sentry to come around.
“Will she really do us any good back there?” Buzz asked.
“Nah. I just wanted her out of the way.”
• • •
Ten slow minutes ticked by. Buzz moved one of the palmetto leaves a fraction of an inch and peered through.
“Where is that son of a bitch? He should have been here by now.”
“Probably down looking at the submarine, listening to sea stories.”
Kaplan let go the leaf and eased back down beside Hooker. “Here he comes,” he whispered.
“You know what to do?”
“What am I, an amateur?”
Being as quiet as he could, Hooker crawled to the far edge of the palmetto clump, a few feet away from where Buzz waited, muscles tensed. As the casual sentry drew near, Hooker stepped out into his path.
“Hi, Fritz. What’s new in Berlin?”
The German stopped and stared, forgetting even to reach for his rifle.
“How’s all the little Katzenjammers?” Hooker said.
The German was young. He had cropped brown hair, hazel eyes, and a bad complexion. “Wer ist Sie?” he demanded when he found his voice. He had the rifle off his shoulder now.
Hooker saw Buzz come up out of the palmettos behind the sentry. He was holding a rock the size of a grapefruit.
“Sorry,” Hooker said, spreading his hands so the young sentry could see they were empty. “No comprendo.”
Buzz moved surprisingly fast on his wooden foot and smashed the rock against the side of the sentry’s head before the young German could bring his rifle around to a challenge position. He fell hard and without a sound.
Hooker stepped forward quickly and picked up the rifle. He cranked the bolt back and peered into the chamber.
“Shit.”
“What’s the matter?” Buzz asked.
“It’s empty.” He pitched the rifle off into the palmettos.
“Those sons of bitches,” Buzz said. “Can you imagine sending a kid out to walk sentry with an unloaded gun?”
“You can’t trust anybody,” Hooker said.
Kaplan looked down at the young German. Blood trickled from his ear. His breathing was very shallow.
“Should I kill him?”
Hooker considered. “I wouldn’t bother. If he comes to again, we’ll either have finished the job or we’ll be dead.”
“I suppose,” Kaplan agreed. He tossed the rock away and limped alongside Hooker toward the German base.
When they came close to the building they figured to be the mess hall, they dropped down and crawled on their bellies. From inside, they could hear much laughter and loud talk in German.
“Must have brought out the schnapps,” Hooker said.
At the sound of booted feet approaching, Hooker and Buzz rolled into the deepening shadows alongside the mess hall. They saw the officers from the submarine and those from the base coming down the path from the headquarters building. They clomped up the wooden steps and into the mess hall.
“Fun’s over for the troops,” Hooker said. “I guess we better get to work, too.”
“Which one do you want?” Buzz asked. “The munitions or the fuel tanks?”
“You know more about explosives than I do,” Hooker said. “I’ll take the tanks.”
“Okay. Afterwards, we’ll all meet back up where we left the raft.”
“Sure, afterwards,” Hooker said.
The two men clasped hands for a moment, then started away in opposite directions.
“Hahlt!”
The command rang out like a gunshot in the gathering darkness. At the same instant, a light hit Hooker in the eyes. It switched for a moment to Buzz, then back to Hooker.
“Kommen Sie hier!”
Hooker stared into the light. He could make out the dark shapes of at least three men and the definite glint of two rifle barrels. He was willing to bet these were loaded. Neither Hooker nor Buzz moved.
“Englanders?” said the voice behind the light. “Amerikaners, maybe? Move closer together and take two steps this way.” The accent was heavily Teutonic.
Hooker and Buzz glanced at each other and did as they were told. The light played over their faces.
“Ja, Americans, I think.” The light lingered on Buzz. “And a Jew, nicht wahr?”
“Fuck you,” Buzz said.
“Americans,” the voice confirmed. “You will march to the small building you see to your right. Go.”
The voice of the unseen man with the flashlight snapped a command in German, and two husky young men with rifles prodded Buzz and Hooker along the path toward the building they had picked out as the base headquarters.
“Satisfied now?” Hooker said.
“So something went wrong. No plan is perfect.”
“You call that a plan?”
“Silence!” said the voice behind them. “March!”
They marched.