Islands in the Stream (50 page)

Thomas Hudson hugged the starboard bank as though he were parking a car against a curb. It did not look like a curb, though, but like the indented muddy terrain of an old battlefield, when they fought with great concentrations of artillery, that had suddenly been revealed from the bottom of the ocean and spread out, like a relief map, on his right.

“How much mud are we throwing?”

“Plenty, Tom. We can anchor when we get through this cut. This side of Contrabando. Or in the lee of Contrabando,” Antonio suggested.

Thomas Hudson turned his head and saw Cayo Contrabando looking small and green and cheerful and he said, “The hell with that. Sweep that key and the channel that shows for a turtle boat, please, Gil. I see the next two stakes.”

This channel was easy. But ahead he could see the sandbar on the right that was beginning to uncover. The closer they came to Cayo Contrabando, the narrower the channel became.

“Hold her to port of that stake,” Antonio said.

“That’s what I’m doing.”

They passed the stake which was only a dead branch. It was brown and blowing in the wind and Thomas Hudson thought that with this wind blowing up they would have much less than the Mean Low Water depths.

“How’s our mud?” he asked Antonio.

“Plenty, Tom.”

“Do you see anything, Gil?”

“Only the stakes.”

The water was beginning to be milky now from the sea that had risen with the wind and it was impossible to see the bottom nor the banks except when the ship sucked them dry.

This is no good, Thomas Hudson thought. But it is no good for them either. And they have to tack in it. They must really be sailors. Now I have to decide whether they would take the old channel or the new one. That depends on their pilot. If he is young, he would probably take the new one. That is the one the hurricane blew out. If he is old, he will probably take the old channel from habit and because it is safer.

“Antonio,” he said. “Do you want to take the old canal or the new one?”

“They’re both bad. It doesn’t make much difference.”

“What would you do?”

“I’d anchor in the lee of Contrabando and wait for the tide.”

“We won’t get enough tide to make it in daylight.”

“That’s the problem. You only asked me what I would do.”

“I’m going to try to run the son of a bitch.”

“It’s your ship, Tom. But if we don’t catch them, somebody else will.”

“But why isn’t Cayo Francés flying patrols over all this all the time?”

“They made their patrol this morning. Didn’t you see it?”

“No. And why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you saw it. One of those baby seaplanes.”

“Shit,” Thomas Hudson said. “It must have been when I was in the head and the generator was running.”

“Well, it doesn’t make any difference now,” Antonio said. “But, Tom, the next two stakes are out.”

“Can you see the next two stakes, Gil?”

“I can’t see any stakes.”

“The hell with it,” Thomas Hudson said. “All I have to do is hug that next chickenshit little key and keep off the sand-spit that runs north and south of it. Then we’ll case that bigger key with the mangroves and then we’ll try for the old or the new channel.”

“The east wind is blowing all the water out.”

“The hell with the east wind,” Thomas Hudson said. As he said the words, they sounded like a basic and older blasphemy than any that could have to do with the Christian religion. He knew that he was speaking against one of the great friends of all people who go to sea. So since he had made the blasphemy he did not apologize. He repeated it.

“You don’t mean that, Tom,” Antonio said.

“I know it,” Thomas Hudson said. Then he said to himself, making an act of contrition and remembering the verse unexactly, “Blow, blow, thou western wind. That the small rain down may rain. Christ, that my love were in my arms and I in my bed again.” It’s the same goddam wind only with the difference in latitude, he thought. They come from different continents. But they are both loyal and friendly and good. Then he repeated to himself again, Christ, that my love were in my arms and I in my bed again.

The water was so muddy now that there was nothing to steer by except the ranges and the suction the ship made of water from the banks. George was in the bow with the lead and Ara had a long pole. They measured their depths and called back to the bridge.

Thomas Hudson had the feeling that this had happened before in a bad dream. They had run many difficult channels. But this was another thing that had happened sometime in his life. Perhaps it had happened all his life. But now it was happening with such an intensification that he felt both in command and at the same time the prisoner of it.

“Can you make out anything, Gil?” he asked

“Nothing.”

“Do you want Willie up here?”

“No. I see whatever Willie would see.”

“I think he ought to be up anyway.”

“As you wish, Tom.”

Ten minutes later they were aground.

They were aground on a patch of mud
and sandy bottom that should have been marked with a stake, and the tide was still falling. The wind was blowing hard and the water was muddy. Ahead was a medium-sized green key that looked set low in the water and there was a scattering of very small keys to the left. To the left and the right there were patches of bare bank that were beginning to show as the water receded. Thomas Hudson watched flocks of shore birds wheeling and settling on the banks to feed.

Antonio had the dinghy over and he and Ara ran out a bow anchor and two light stern anchors.

“Do you think we need another bow anchor?” Thomas Hudson asked Antonio.

“No, Tom. I don’t think so.”

“If the wind rises it can push us against the flood when it comes.”

“I don’t think it will, Tom. But it could.”

“Let’s get a small one out to windward and shift the big one further to leeward. Then we don’t have anything to worry about.”

“All right,” Antonio said. “I’d rather do that than run aground again in a bad place.”

“Yeah,” Thomas Hudson said. “We went into all that before.”

“It’s still the right thing to anchor.”

“I know it. I just asked you to put out another small one and shift the big one.”

“Yes, Tom,” Antonio said.

“Ara likes to lift anchors.”

“Nobody likes to lift anchors.”

“Ara.”

Antonio smiled and said, “Maybe. Anyway I agree with you.”

“We always agree sooner or later.”

“But we mustn’t let it be when it is too late.”

Thomas Hudson watched the maneuver and looked ahead at the green key that was showing dark now at the roots of the mangroves as the tide fell. They could be in the bight on the south side of that key, he thought. This wind is going to blow until two or three o’clock in
the morning and they could try to break out and run either of the channels in daylight when the flood starts. Then they could run that big lake of a bay where there is nothing to worry about all night. They have lights and a good channel to get out with at the far end. It all depends on the wind.

Ever since they had grounded he had felt, in a way, reprieved. When they had grounded he had felt the heavy bump of the ship as though he were hit himself. He knew it was not rocky as she hit. He could feel that in his hands and through the soles of his feet. But the grounding had come to him as a personal wound. Then, later, had come the feeling of reprieve that a wound brings. He still had the feeling of the bad dream and that it all had happened before. But it had not happened in this way and now, grounded, he had the temporary reprieve. He knew that it was only a reprieve but he relaxed in it.

Ara came up on the bridge and said, “It’s good holding-ground, Tom. We have them in there good with a trip line to the big one. When we raise the big one we can get out fast. We buoyed both the stern anchors with trip lines.”

“I saw. Thank you.”

“Don’t feel bad, Tom. The sons of bitches may be just behind that other key.”

“I don’t feel bad. I just feel delayed.”

“It’s not like smashing up a car or losing a ship. We’re just aground waiting for a tide.”

“I know.”

“Both wheels are sound. She’s just in mud up to her ass.”

“I know. I put her there.”

“She’ll come off as easy as she went in.”

“Sure she will.”

“Tom. Are you worried about anything?”

“What would I be worried about?”

“Nothing. I only worried if you were worried.”

“The hell with worry,” Thomas Hudson said. “You and Gil go down. See everybody eats well and is cheerful. Afterwards we’ll go in and check that key. That’s all there is to do.”

“Willie and I can go now. We don’t have to eat.”

“No. I’m going in later with Willie and Peters.”

“Not me?”

“No. Peters speaks German. Don’t tell him he’s going in. Just wake him up and see he drinks plenty of coffee.”

“Why can’t I go, too?”

“The dinghy is too damn small.”

Gil left him the big glasses and went down with Ara. Thomas Hudson studied the key carefully with the big glasses and saw that the mangroves were too high for him to learn anything about what was inside. There were other trees mixed with the mangroves on the solid part of the key and they brought the height up even more so that he could not possibly see if there was any mast showing in the horseshoe-shaped shelter on the far side. The big glasses hurt his eyes and he put them in their case and hung the strap of the case on a hook and laid the glasses flat on the frag rack.

He was happy to be alone again on the flying bridge and he relaxed for the short time of his reprieve. He watched the shore birds working on the flats and he remembered what they had meant to him when he was a boy. He could not feel the same about them now and he had no wish to kill them ever. But he remembered the early days with his father in a blind on some sand-spit with tin decoys out and how they would come in as the tide lowered and bared the flats and how he would whistle the flock in as they were circling. It was a sad whistle and he made it now and turned one flock. But they veered off from the stranded ship and went far out to feed.

He swept the horizon with the big glasses once and there was no sign of any boat. Maybe they have made it out through the new channel and into the inside passage, he thought. It would be nice if someone else caught them. We can’t catch them now without a fight. They will not surrender to a dinghy.

He had been thinking so long in their heads that he was tired of it. I am really tired finally, he thought. Well, I know what I have to do, so it is simple. Duty is a wonderful thing. I do not know what I would have done without duty since young Tom died. You could have painted, he told himself. Or you could have done something useful. Maybe, he thought. Duty is simpler.

This is useful, he thought. Do not think against it. It helps to get it over with. That’s all we are working for. Christ knows what there is beyond that. We’ve chased these characters quite well and now take a ten-minute break and then proceed with your duty. The hell with quite well, he thought. We’ve chased them very well.

“Don’t you want to eat, Tom?” Ara called up.

“I don’t feel hungry, kid,” Thomas Hudson said. “I’ll take the bottle of cold tea that’s on the ice.”

Ara handed it up and Thomas Hudson took it and relaxed against the corner of the flying bridge. He drank from the bottle of cold tea and watched the biggest key that was ahead. The mangrove roots were showing plainly now and the key looked as though it were on stilts. Then he saw a flight of flamingoes coming from the left. They were flying low over the water, lovely to see in the sunlight. Their long necks were slanted down and their incongruous legs were straight out; immobile while their pink and black wings beat, carrying them toward the mud bank that was ahead and to the right. Thomas Hudson watched them and marvelled at their downswept black and white bills and the rose color they made in the sky, which made their strange individual structures unimportant and still each one was an excitement to him. Then as they came up on the green key he saw them all swing sharply to the right instead of crossing the key.

“Ara,” he called down.

Ara came up and said, “Yes, Tom.”

“Check out three
niños
with six clips apiece and put them in the boat with a dozen frags and the middle size aid kit. Send Willie up here, please.”

The flamingoes had settled on the bank to the far right and were feeding busily. Thomas Hudson was watching them when Willie said, “Look at those goddam fillamingoes.”

“They spooked flying over the key. I’m pretty sure that boat or another boat is inside there. Do you want to go in with me, Willie?”

“Of course.”

“Did you finish chow?”

“The condemned man ate a hearty lunch.”

“Help Ara, then.”

“Is Ara going with us?”

“I’m taking Peters because he speaks German.”

“Can’t we take Ara instead? I don’t want to be with Peters in a fight.”

“Peters may be able to talk us out of a fight. Listen, Willie. I want prisoners and I don’t want their pilot to get killed.”

“You’re making a lot of conditions, Tom, with them eight or nine maybe and we three. Who the hell knows we know they have the pilot anyway?”

“We know.”

“Let’s not be so fucking noble.”

“I asked you if you wanted to come.”

“I’m coming,” Willie said. “Only that Peters.”

“Peters will fight. Send Antonio and Henry up, will you, please.”

“Do you think they are in there, Tom?” Antonio asked.

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Can’t I go with you, Tom?” Henry asked.

“No. She will only take three. If anything happens to us, try and nail her with the .50’s if she tries to come out on the first of the tide. Afterwards you’ll find her in the long bay. She’ll be damaged. She probably won’t even be able to make it out. Get a prisoner if you can and get into Cayo Francés and check in.”

“Couldn’t I go in instead of Peters?” Henry asked.

“No, Henry. I’m sorry. But he speaks German. You have a good crew,” Thomas Hudson said to Antonio. “If everything goes well with us I’ll leave Willie and Peters on board with whatever there is and bring a prisoner back in the dinghy.”