Jock was the next man over, tens of yards away. They had two other sentries on the opposite corners of the square, a couple down the road, and two more at the entrance, as well as men on the rooftops.

The next time Lett turned around, the carabao was gone. He hadn’t even heard it.

Jock’s head rose, and Lett saw billows of dust rise from far down the narrow entrance road. They straightened up. A sedan was coming, a prewar Dodge but in fine shape. It passed through the courtyard and rolled to a stop before the two-story building.

An Army captain in summer dress stepped out from the front seat of the car and came around to meet the two men exiting the rear seats. The two were Japanese in civvies, but they rose from the car glaring at the scene around them and assumed that erect stance of military men—or at least proud men. Two more Americans in summer dress came out to meet the car: an Army colonel and a captain. Seeing the two American officers, the Japanese men’s shoulders dropped, and they pulled off their hats and held them in their hands before them and their heads went down as the two Americans addressed them on the front steps. Within that minute, the Japanese visitors went from looking like thugs to royalty and then back down to prisoners. Their American masters waved them inside, and the two shuffled along like donkeys dragging a load.

Lett wondered whose staff the officers in khaki were. They wore actual insignia, but Lett was too far away to make out any more than rank. He saw Jock show him a little shrug from across the way.

Then he heard a strange thrashing sound, coming closer, underscored by a droning noise. It was coming from the sky. Coming right at them.

Lett crouched. The rest did, too. He wondered if his friend the carabao had heard it. He must have thought it was a giant insect. It looked like a massive dragonfly.

It was a helicopter. Lett had heard of them but had only seen a couple in pictures and a newsreel once. It was the Sikorsky model, he believed—Army olive drab with a stout nose of glass panels. The thrashing became thumping as it hovered over them, the palms and branches flapping and waving all around, the dirt and dust swirling below.

They stayed in a crouch as it set down, hands over their eyes until those giant revolving rotors slowed and relaxed, sagging as they stopped.