Hall put his arm around Jerry. "The war has come to us," he said. "We don't have to look for it any longer."
"Citizens," Segador said. "Our city is in sight of a wolfpack of Nazi submarines of undetermined size. The lights of our city are therefore at the service of the fascist enemy. If you are on the streets, go into your houses, or into the nearest cafés or other buildings. If you are indoors, put out your lights, wherever you are. In five minutes, the street lights of the city will be turned off. This announcement is being recorded, and will be repeated for the next thirty minutes, or as long as one light remains lit in San Hermano. Our lights are the eyes of the submarines—we must blind their evil eyes.
"Soldiers on duty, remain at your posts and await further orders. Soldiers off duty, report at once to your commanding officer. Sailors off shore ..."
They stood together, watching the people hurry off the streets, watching the lights go out in the lamp posts, in the cafés, in the houses of the old Plaza. They remained near the loud speaker, listening to the announcement repeated, listening to the national anthem, listening, finally, to the dark silences of the night. They remained frozen to the cobbles of the Plaza de la Republica which had been born in the days of the empire as the Plaza de Fernando e Isabel and whose cobbles bore the shadows of the edifices of the Conquistador generations and the Segura generations and the democratic decade. Monuments of all manners of life rose in dark, brooding piles on all sides of the Plaza; the slave life and the life that was half slave and half free and the free life which now had to fight for its freedom. In the dark Plaza, they could almost hear the young heart of the city, of the Republic, beating slowly, steadily, confidently.
"Darling," she said, "I'm not afraid of anything any more. I'll never be afraid again."
"I know," he answered. "That's what this war is about, baby. It's the war of the people who are not afraid to live their own lives. Let's go back to the Bolivar, baby. Pepe and Vicente are still expecting us."
Pepe and Vicente were sitting in their lorry, waiting for them.
"Compañeros," Pepe said, "Duarte is waiting for you inside. You will all have to stay at the hotel tonight."
"That's all right, Pepe."
"We have to go back to our barracks," Vicente said. "We are called."