Cunningham, Jock "Warden of the Zone"
Gung-ho World War 2 Adventure tag line: “For years Ramos had hated his neighbors to the north but now he could smile through the pain of his wounds and all the bitterness was gone from his heart. ‘I guess I don’t hate Americans after all,’ he said. ‘Sure I’ll fight for them – any time!” Cunningham’s novelette is set in the Panama Canal and features a sabotage effort by a gang of Nazis operating underground and in cahoots with a corrupt American engineer. Enter Ramos and his longtime friend Sardenis, two Panamanians who very nearly give their lives in order to protect the Canal and its shipping. What changes Ramos’ mind about the American way of life? – a very real encounter with Nazidom! Along the way Cunningham, who was evidently posted to the Canal during the early days of the War, does a nice job in describing the waterway during wartime, including this evocative squib on a ship transiting the Canal:
“The big tanker, squeezing along the Canal, was like a big, fat woman – blind drunk and staggering, being pulled and prodded through a door to bed by her tough little children, the towcars.”