He looked up at the wooded slopes outside the town. “Let’s go after those bastards,” he said to Major Rafael Chavarria. “We’ll call in planes at dawn tomorrow and see if we can pin them down,” the major said evasively. “Dammit, we know where they are now,” Mike exploded. “Sitting up on that hill laughing at you.” “It would be a disaster for me to go in after them,” the major explained coldly. “My losses would be too high to be acceptable.” Mike understood the officer’s thinking. The major was not a coward, he was a career military man. As such, he always had to make himself look good, regardless of the outcome of the battle or campaign. Even if he succeeded in wiping out this pocket of guerrillas at the cost of high casualties to his men, back at military headquarters the casualties would be remembered rather than his victory. Nowadays, no officer, unless he was some kind of military genius at a time of full-scale war, could live with the reputation of using his men as cannon fodder.
