"¡Hey, Familia! ¡Ora, UTEP! ¡Ora, MEChA!

"Still happy with the faulty notion that There's really Nobody Large and in Charge?"

"You sure? Well, then: dig this!"

Source: Keating, Bern. The Mosquito Fleet. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1963.

Scenario: World War II, Pacific Theater. Most likely in 1944. U.S. Navy PT Boats operating in two-boat teams are on the prowl for Japanese targets in the dead of night. PT boat crews liked to sneak up on Japanese transports and then go all bipolar. Best of all, going all bipolar actually worked!

Pages: 204-206

"That split-second timing, the business of opening fire simultaneously with the bursting of the star shell, was drilled into gunners repeatedly by dummy attacks on floating logs.

"Twenty-five miles short of the patrol area, the [American PT] radar man found a target five miles off the beach. The two skippers were jubilant; here was a target made to order -- too far out to sea to run for the beach, out of the range of protecting [Japanese] shore batteries, in water deep enough for a high-speed strafing run by the PTs, with no chance of hitting a rock. The [two] boats went to general quarters and closed the target.

"Lieut. Jones took the unnecessary precaution of warning his gunners.

Look alive, now -- open fire the instant the flare goes off.

"At 200 yards the skippers could make out a dim shape, but details of the target were hidden in the darkness. Lieut. Jones gave a last warning to gunners to be quick on the trigger, and fired his flare. Twenty-four [machine] gun barrels swung to bear on target.

"The flare burst.

"Lieut Jones continues:

There was the perfect target, a Jap barge loaded with troops -- you could see their heads sticking up over the gunwale.

Open fire! Open fire! I screamed in my mind, but no words came out of my mouth.

What was the matter? Why weren't the guns firing? Thousands of tracers should be pouring into that enemy craft, but no gun on either PT fired. The flare died and I ordered another.

Why was I doing this? Why wasn't the barge sinking now, holed by hundreds of shells? Why hadn't the gunners opened fire as ordered when the flare went off? And what was the matter on the Jap barge? Why weren't they tearing us up with their guns, for the flare lit us up as brightly as it illuminated them?

We closed to 75 yards, still frozen in that strange paralysis under the glare of the dying starshell.

My helmsman spoke up, They're not Japs, sir, they're natives.

I flipped on the searchlight, and our two boats circled the canoe, searchlights blazing, guns trained. That eerie scene will remain in in my memory as long as I live. Thirty natives -- some of them boys -- sat rigidly still, staring forward unblinkingly. I don't know if it was native discipline or sheer terror that held them. Even the children didn't blink an eye or twitch a finger.

We shouted to them that we were Americans, but we gave up trying to get through to them for they refused to answer or even to turn their heads and look at us. We left them rigidly motionless and staring straight ahead at nothing.

Back at the base we discussed our strange paralysis. Everybody agreed he had first thought it was a Jap barge when the flare burst, and nobody could give a reason for not shooting instantly. If even one gunner had fired the whole weight of our broadside would have come down on that canoe.

We'll never understand it, but we are all grateful to Whoever or Whatever it was that held our hands that night and spared those poor natives. And what woolly stories those Halmaherans must be telling their children about that night. I'll bet by now we are part of the sacred tribal legends of the whole Moluccan Archipelago."