Due to a terrific rising heat wave and a desire to escape the possibility of having to spend a night in the rebel stronghold, the lieutenant halted the company and prepared to temporarily billet his men in the deserted corral.
The place was surrounded by a low, thirty-inch wall of adobe, topped with palings. An old, iron gate, hanging off its hinges, was just in the center, behind which stood a nipa shack with a slanting roof of palm leaves. An overturned oxcart rested just to the right of the shack, half buried in mud caused by recent, heavy mountain rains.
After the lieutenant and his men had commandeered the corral, making fires, setting up their pup tents and fixing a place behind the house for the horses and pack mules, he sent for his top sergeant, and together they walked to the gateway, surveying the lay of the land.
“Sergeant, we’d be pinned in this place like rats in a trap,” Ranson speculated, “if Sandino or any of his men should suddenly turn up with a surprise attack.”
The bulky top kick, the same hard breathing, puffy Marine who, with a small company some weeks before, were the first to see the arrival of the flying squadron, looked over the situation with the trained eye of a seasoned campaigner.
He nodded his head in a grave manner and turned to his superior: “Yes, sir. We are right at the foot of them mountains, an easy target for an attack from that angle. Just ahead is the jungle that no white man could ever pass through alive. To the right is the road into town. If we retreated in that direction, we’d be bait for snipers on house tops and the charging greasers at our heels from the mountains.”
“Yes, and if we stay here long enough to be inspected by any of the post commandant’s aides, we’ll be court-martialed for billeting the men in such a hole,” the lieutenant added good-naturedly. “No fresh water within five miles of here and the surroundings are reeking with typhoid and malaria!”
“Well, if you ask me, sir,” the top kick drawled, “I prefer this hole to travelin’ with them damn horses, machine guns and mules in this heat!”
The lieutenant lighted a cigarette and nodded his head in affirmation. “I think you’re right, Cosgrove, in fact, I’m inclined to feel that way myself. Our water ought to last us another two days and, by that time, we should pass through some village where we can refill the canteens. The food is still plentiful and there is enough ammunition to cause plenty of damage if we have to use it.”
“With your permission, sir, I’m gonna put a machine gun right in front of this gate, loaded with a fresh magazine just in case,” the sergeant announced, “and I think we should double the guard, bein’ that we’re so near Ocotal!”