They get into their first serious firefight about half an hour later, against a platoon of Nipponese Air Force troops holed up in a stone bank at the vee formed by a couple of intersecting avenues. Lieutenant Morales comes up with an extremely complicated plan that involves breaking up into three smaller groups. Morales takes three men forward into the cover of a large fountain that sits in the middle of the square. There, they are immediately trapped by heavy fire from the Nipponese. They squat and huddle behind the shelter of the fountain for about a quarter of an hour, at which point an artillery shell glides in from the north, a black pellet easing downwards in a flawless parabolic trajectory, and scores a direct hit on the fountain. It turns out to be a high-explosive shell, which does not blow up until it hits something—the fountain, in this case. The padre gives Lieutenant Morales and his men last rites from a safe distance of a hundred yards or so, which is as good a place as any, since there is nothing left of their physical bodies.