25. BUTCH
Jim looked visibly shaken when he returned to the beach.
“Anything?” Martigan asked.
Jim shook his head mutely. His mouth was dry, and he was hard to understand at first, but he spoke.
“He not at the village. He ran north,” Jim said, pointing, “where the...things live.”
Martigan clapped the Filipino on the shoulders, maybe hoping to make him relax, although Jim only seemed to tense up under the touch of another.
“Good work, Jim. Men, we are not welcome here. The natives have made it clear that if we stay...it’s war. We have to put out by sunset.”
The clamor was immediate and intense. Butch knew the mood of the men fairly well, and she knew they had all been looking forward to a few weeks to relax and recover from their ordeal, not to mention a number of them were lo
