The Shadow Men, it gave us a shiver to note, left no footprints. Nor had they in any way affected the landing craft. After the starlit funeral, we re-formed as we had been before the sudden appearance of the Shadow Men. "Mother of God!" cried Krane, the trumpeter. "It's starting again. But this time it's different!" We all whirled to look. Coming out of the northwest was a group of scarecrow figures. They didn't look like our Shadow Men. I didn't recognize them at first, though I could hear their hoarse panting, their rasped words. They staggered like men far gone in hunger and thirst. One of them fell on his face, struggled to his knees, came on. "Japs!" cried Haggerty. "Japs! Attacking, too, and this is nineteen forty-nine!" It couldn't be true, yet it was. There were rusty rifles in the hands of the Japanese, rifles that plainly would not work. As if to emphasize this, they began to throw them away. One of them called out to us, in English: "Water! Food! We surrender! We surrender!" Japs? Surrendering? In Cuba--or thereabouts!--in 1949? I was tempted to laugh, until I remembered something that was absolutely no comfort whatever: in other parts of the world, a long way from Cuba, Japs still were holding out against patrols that hunted them down, Japs who somehow hadn't got the word that the war was over, or else refused to believe it. * * * * * I was proud of the marines when the Japs asked for food and water. Not one of them spoke up and said, "You don't need either one here." I knew then that every marine regarded it as at least _possible_ that what was happening to us was a top-brass secret, or series of secrets, of our own government. I doubted it because of what happened to Yount. The government doesn't risk human lives on a whim. But the possibility was there. I hadn't expected Yount to tackle me, either, or to hurl himself into the shadow which slew him. We all had canteens, none of which had been emptied. And no landing would have been properly simulated without food. We let the Japs come among us, then Hoose, who spoke some Japanese, and Matzuku, a Jap corporal who spoke some English, got together. The Japanese were seated with their backs against an LCVP and canteens were passed to them, together with our special rations. They drank as if they had forgotten the glory of water, ate as if they had forgotten how. I gave them a little time. We did not pull in our defensive rings, even though it could be seen that they were not especially useful. When the Japs seemed more or less sated, I got Matzuku and Hoose together and began asking questions. KING: "Where have you been for the past four years?" MATZUKU: "Hiding out in the hills. What place is this? I know the whole island, but I don't remember this desert area." KING: "_What_ island?" MATZUKU: "Guam, of course, as you Americans call it."