Shells began bursting around the places where muzzle flashes revealed the Mexican guns. The other members of the flotilla were firing, too. The bigger cannons on the ships could reach the shore, even if the guns on shore couldn’t touch the ships. Through binoculars, Sam could easily tell the difference between bursts from the four-inch guns on the destroyer escorts and the light cruiser’s six-inchers.

Plucky if outranged, the Mexicans defiantly shot back. “I wouldn’t do that,” Cooley said. “It just tells us we haven’t knocked ’em out. Now more’ll come down on their heads.”

“They’re making a point, I suppose.” Sam peered through the binoculars again. “Our gunnery needs work. I’d say that’s true for every ship here. I can’t do anything about the others, but by God I can fix things on this one.”

“Uh, yes, sir.” Cooley looked at him, plainly wondering whether he knew any more about that than he did about conning a ship.

Sam grinned back. “Son, I was handling a five-inch gun on the Dakota about the time you were a gleam in your old man’s eye.”

“Oh.” The exec blushed between his freckles. “All right, sir.” He grinned, too. “Teach me to keep my mouth shut-and I hardly even opened it.”

One of the bursts on shore was conspicuously bigger than the others had been. “There we go!” Sam said. “Some of their ammo just went up. I don’t know whether they’ve got real dumps there or we hit a limber, but we nailed ’em pretty good either way.”

“Blew some gunners to hell and gone either way, too,” Cooley said.

“That’s the point of it,” Carsten agreed. “They won’t care if we rearrange the landscape. After they bury Jose and Pedro-if they can find enough of ’em left to bury-they’ll get the idea that we can hurt them worse than they can hurt us. It’s about people, Pat. It’s always about people.”