Islands in the Stream (49 page)

“OK. I just want to kill them. Is that all right?”

“It’s better than the massacre thing. But I want prisoners from a U-boat operating in these waters who can talk.”

“That last one you had didn’t talk much.”

“No. Neither would you if you were up the creek like he was.”

“OK,” Willie said. “Can I draw a slug of the legal?”

“Sure. Get on dry shorts and a shirt and don’t make trouble.”

“With nobody?”

“Grow up,” Thomas Hudson said.

“Drop dead,” Willie said and grinned.

“That’s the way I like you,” Thomas Hudson told him. “Keep it that way.”

That night there was heavy lightning
and thunder and it rained until about three o’clock in the morning. Peters could get nothing on the radio and they all slept hot and muggy until the sand flies came out after the rain stopped and wakened them, one after the other. Thomas Hudson pumped Flit down below and there was coughing and then less restless moving and slapping.

He waked Peters by Flitting him thoroughly and Peters shook his head with the earphones on and said softly, “I’ve been trying hard, Tom, all the time. But there’s nothing.”

Thomas Hudson looked at the glass with a torch and it was rising. That will give them a breeze, he thought. Well, they can’t say they haven’t had luck again. Now I must figure that.

He went back to the stern and sprayed all the Flit he could into the cabin without waking the people.

He sat in the stern and watched the night clear and flitted himself occasionally. They were short of repellent but had plenty of Flit. It burned where a man had been sweating but it was better than sand flies. Their effect differed from mosquitoes in that you could not hear them before they hit and there was an instant itching from the bite. The bites made a swelling about the size of a very small pea. In some places on the coast and on the keys, they were more virulent than in others. At least their bites seemed to be much more annoying. But, he thought, that could be the condition that our hides are in and how much they are burned and toughened. I do not know how the natives stand them. They have to be hardy people to live on this coast and in the Bahamas when the trades aren’t blowing.

He sat in the stern watching and listening. There were two planes, high in the sky, and he listened to the throbbing of the motors until they no longer could be heard.

Big bombers going to Camag
ü
ey on the way to Africa or going straight through to somewhere and nothing to do with us. Well, he thought, they are not bothered by sand flies. Neither am I. The hell with them. The hell with them and the hell I’m not. But I’d like to get some daylight and get out of here. We’ve checked all the way up to the end of the point, thanks to Willie, and I’ll run the little channel right along the edge of the bank. There’s only one bad place and with the morning light I can see it OK even in a calm. Then we’ll be at Guillermo.

They were underway at daylight and Gil, who had the best eyes, was watching the green shore line with the twelve-power glasses. They were close enough to shore for him to see a cut mangrove branch. Thomas Hudson was steering. Henry was watching out to sea. Willie was backing up Gil.

“They’re past this part, anyway,” Willie said.

“But we have to check,” Ara said. He was backing up Henry.

“Sure,” Willie said. “I was just commenting.”

“Where’s that Dawn Patrol from that damned Molasses ship at Cayo Francés?”

“They don’t patrol on Sundays, do they?” Willie asked. “This must be a Sunday.”

“There’s going to be a breeze,” Ara said. “Look at the cirrus.”

“I’m afraid of one thing,” Thomas Hudson said. “That they’ve gone in through the pass at Guillermo.”

“We’ll have to see.”

“Let’s hook the hell up and get there,” Willie said. “This is getting on my nerves.”

“That’s the impression I get sometimes,” Henry said.

Willie looked at him and spat over the side. “Thank you, Henry,” he said. “That’s the impression I wish to give.”

“Break it up,” Thomas Hudson said. “See that big coral head to starboard that’s just awash? That’s what we have to not hit. On the inside, gentlemen, is Guillermo. See how green she is and full of promise?”

“One more goddam key,” Willie said.

“Can you make out any smoke from charcoal burning?” Thomas Hudson asked.

Gil swept it very carefully and said, “No, Tom.”

“The way it rained last night there wouldn’t be any smoke,” Willie said.

“You’re wrong for once, boy,” Thomas Hudson said.

“Maybe.”

“No. It could rain like hell all night and not put one of those big burnings out. I’ve seen it rain three days and hardly bother one.”

“You know more about them than me,” Willie said. “OK, there could be smoke. I hope there is.”

“That’s a bad shoal,” Henry said. “I don’t believe they could run in those squalls along here.”

In the morning light they could see four terns and two gulls working around the shoal. They had found something and were diving. The terns were crying and the gulls were screaming.

“What are they into, Tom?” Henry asked.

“I don’t know. It looks like a school of bait fish that is too deep for them to work.”

“Those poor bastard birds have to get up earlier in the morning than we do to make a living,” Willie said. “People don’t appreciate the work they put in.”

“How are you going to run, Tom?” Ara asked.

“Just as close in to the bank as I can and right up to the head of the key.”

“Are you going to check that half-moon key with the wreck?”

“I’ll make a turn around it close in and everybody glass it. Then I’ll anchor in the bight inside the tip of Guillermo.”

“We’ll anchor,” Willie said.

“That’s implied. Why do you get so ornery this early in the morning?”

“I’m not ornery. I’m just admiring the ocean and this beautiful coast Columbus first cast his eyes on. I’m lucky I didn’t serve under that Columbus.”

“I always thought you did,” Thomas Hudson said.

“I read a book about him in the hospital at San Diego,” Willie said. “I’m an authority on him and he had a worse fucked-up outfit than this one.”

“This isn’t a fucked-up outfit.”

“No,” said Willie. “Not yet.”

“OK, Columbus boy. Do you see that wreck that bears about twenty degrees to starboard?”

“That’s for your starboard watch to see,” Willie said. “But I can see it OK with my one eye that works and there is a booby bird from the Bahamas perched on it. He’s probably come to reinforce us.”

“Good,” said Thomas Hudson. “He’s what we need.”

“I probably could have been a great ornithologist,” Willie said. “Grandma used to raise chickens.”

“Tom,” Ara said. “Do you think we can work a little closer in? The tide is high now.”

“Sure,” Thomas Hudson answered. “Ask Antonio to get up in the bow and let me know how much water I have.”

“You’ve got plenty of water, Tom,” Antonio called. Right in to shore. You know this channel.”

“I know. I just wanted to be sure.”

“Do you want me to take her?”

“Thanks,” said Thomas Hudson. “I do not.”

“Now we can see the high ground beautifully,” Ara said. “You take all of her, Gil. I’ll just back you up. Glass her really well.”

“Who takes the first quarter of the sea?” Willie asked. “How come you switched on me, anyway?”

“When Tom asked you to look at the wreck. We switch automatically. When you went to starboard I went to port.”

“That’s too nautical for me,” Willie said. “When you want to be nautical, be right or not at all. Why don’t you say right or left the same as in steering?”

“It was you who said the starboard watch,” Henry said.

“That’s right. And from now on I’m going to say downstairs and upstairs and the front and the back of the boat.”

“Willie, get over with Gil and Ara and glass the beach, will you please?” Thomas Hudson said. “The beach and carry it up to the first third of the key.”

“Yes, Tom,” Willie said.

It was easy to see if there was anyone living on Cayo Guillermo on this which was the windward side for nearly all of the year. But there was nothing showing as they moved close in along the coast. They came abeam of the point and Thomas Hudson said, “I’ll circle the half-moon key as close as I can and you all glass it. If you notice anything we can stand by and put the dinghy in.”

The breeze was starting to rise and the sea was beginning to move but it did not break yet on the shoals because of the high tide. Thomas Hudson looked ahead at the small rocky key. He knew there was a sunken wreck at the western end of it but it showed only as a red brown bulge with this high tide. There was a shallow bank and a sandy beach on the inside of this key but he would not see the beach until he had rounded the wreck.

“There’s somebody living on the key,” Ara said. “I see smoke.”

“Right,” said Willie. “It’s on the leeward side and the wind is carrying it to the west.”

“The smoke is about at the center of where the beach should be,” Gil said.

“Can you see a mast?”

“No mast,” Gil said.

“They could step the goddam mast daytimes,” Willie said.

“Go to your stations,” Thomas Hudson said. “Ara, you stay here with me. Willie, tell Peters to get hooked up to talk whether anybody can hear him or not.”

“What do you think?” Ara asked when the others were gone.

“I think if I were fishing and drying fish that I would have come off here from Guillermo when the calms came and brought the mosquitoes.”

“Me, too.”

“They aren’t burning any charcoal on this key and the smoke is small. So it must be a fresh fire.”

“Unless it is the end of a bigger one.”

“I thought of that.”

“Then we’ll see in five minutes.”

They rounded the wreck, which had another booby bird sitting on it, and Thomas Hudson thought, our allies are checking in fast. Then they were coming up into the lee of the key and Thomas Hudson saw the sand beach, the green behind it, and a shack with smoke coming from it.

“Thank God,” he said.

“Equally,” Ara said. “I was afraid of the other thing, too.”

There was no sign of any boats.

“We’re really close to them, I think. Get in fast with Antonio and tell me what you find. I’ll lay her in right along the bank. Tell them to stay at their stations and act natural.”

The dinghy spun and moved in to the beach. Thomas Hudson watched Antonio and Ara walking toward the thatched shack. They were moving as fast as they could without running. They called to the shack and a woman came out. She was dark as a sea Indian and was barefooted and her long hair hung down almost to her waist. While she talked, another woman came out. She was dark, too, and long-haired and she carried a baby. As soon as she finished speaking, Ara and Antonio shook hands with the two women and came back to the dinghy. They shoved off and started the motor and came out.

Antonio and Ara came up onto the flying bridge while the dinghy was being hoisted aboard.

“There were two women,” Antonio said. “The men are outside fishing. The woman with the baby saw a turtle boat go into the channel that goes inside. It went in when this breeze came up.”

“That would be about an hour and a half ago,” Thomas Hudson said. “With the tide falling now.”

“Very strong,” Antonio said. “It is dropping very fast, Tom.”

“When she is down, there is not enough water to carry us through there.”

“No.”

“What do you think?”

“It’s your ship.”

Thomas Hudson swung the helm hard over and put in both motors up to twenty-seven hundred revolutions and headed for the point of the key.

“They may run aground themselves,” he said. “The hell with it.”

“We can anchor if it gets too bad,” Antonio said. “It’s a marl bottom if we run aground. Marl and mud.”

“And rocky spots,” Thomas Hudson said. “Get Gil up here for me to watch for the stakes. Ara, you and Willie check all the weapons. Stay up here, please, Antonio.”

“The channel is a bastard,” Antonio said. “But it is not impossible.”

“She is impossible in low water. But maybe the other son of a bitch will ground, too, or maybe the wind will fail.”

“The wind won’t fail, Tom,” Antonio said. “It’s firm and solid now for the trade wind.”

Thomas Hudson looked at the sky and saw the long white hackles of clouds of the east wind. Then he looked ahead at the point of the main key, at the spot of key and the flats that were beginning to show. There he knew his trouble would start. Then he looked at the mess of keys ahead that showed like green spots on the water.

“Can you pick up the stake yet, Gil?” he asked.

“No, Tom.”

“It’s probably only the branch of a tree or maybe a stick.”

“I can’t see anything yet.”

“It ought to be dead ahead as we go.”

“I see it, Tom. It’s a tall stick. Dead ahead as we go.”

“Thank you,” Thomas Hudson said.

The flats on either side were white yellow in the sun and the tidal stream that came pouring out of the channel was the green water of the inner lagoon. It was not fouled nor cloudy from the marl of the banks because the wind had not had time to raise a sea that would disturb them. This made his piloting easier.

Then he saw how narrow the cut was beyond the stake end and he felt his scalp prickle.

“You can make it, Tom,” Antonio said. “Hang close to the starboard bank. I’ll see the cut when it opens up.”

He hung close to the starboard bank and crawled along. Once he looked to the port bank and saw it was closer than the starboard and he inched over to the right.

“Is she throwing any mud?” he asked.

“Clouds.”

They came to the wicked turn and it was not as bad as he thought it would be. The narrow part they had come through was worse. The wind had risen now and Thomas Hudson felt it blowing strongly on his bare shoulder as they ran broadside to it through this cut.

“The stake is dead ahead,” Gil said. “It’s only a branch of tree.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Hold her hard against the starboard bank, Tom,” Antonio said. “We have this one beat.”