Islands in the Stream (55 page)

Then he saw there were no birds rising from the mangroves as the dinghy went into the narrow brush river of the channel.

While he steered he spoke into the tubes to Henry in the forward cockpit, “We may get jumped in this channel. Have your .50’s ready to fire from either bow and abeam. Keep behind the shield and watch for the flashes and pour it onto them.”

“Yes, Tom.”

To Antonio he said, “We may get jumped here. Keep well down and if we are fired on, aim below the flashes and pour it on. Keep way down.”

“Gil,” he said. “Put your glasses away. Take two frags and straighten the pins and put them there in the rack by my right hand. Straighten two pins on those extinguishers and then put your glasses away. They’ll probably hit us from both sides. That’s how they ought to.”

“Tell me when to throw, Tom.”

“Throw when you see the flashes. But loft it plenty because it has to fall through brush.”

There were no birds at all and since the tide was high he knew that the birds had to be in the mangroves. The ship was entering the narrow river now and Thomas Hudson, bareheaded and barefooted and only wearing a pair of khaki shorts, felt as naked as a man can feel.

“You lie down, Gil,” he said. “I’ll tell you when to get up and throw.”

Gil lay on the floor with the two fire extinguishers that were loaded with dynamite and a booster charge and were fired by the detonating assembly of a regulation frag, with its charger hacksawed off at the juncture of the fuse and a dynamite cap fitted and crimped on.

Thomas Hudson looked at him once and saw how he was sweating. Then he looked at the mangroves on either side.

I could still try to back her out, he thought. But I don’t believe I could, the way the tide is flowing.

He looked ahead at the green banks. The water was brown again now and the mangrove leaves were as shiny as though they were varnished. He looked to see where any had been cut or disturbed. But he saw nothing but the green leaves, the dark branches, and the roots that were exposed with the suction of the ship. There were a few crabs that showed when their holes under the mangrove roots were exposed.

They went on and the channel narrowed but he could see it opening wider ahead. Maybe I just had the jitters, he thought. Then he saw a crab come sliding out fast from the high mangrove roots and plop into the water. He looked hard into the mangroves but he could see nothing beyond the trunks and branches. Another crab came out very fast and went into the water.

Just then they opened on him. He did not see the blinking flash and he was hit before he heard the stutter of the gun and Gil was on his feet beside him. Antonio was firing tracers where he had seen the gun flash.

“Where the tracers are going,” Thomas Hudson said to Gil. Thomas Hudson felt as though someone had clubbed him three times with a baseball bat and his left leg was wet.

Gil lobbed the bomb with a high overhand motion and Thomas Hudson saw its long brass cylinder and conic nose shining in the sun. It was spinning, not going end over end.

“Down, Gil,” he said and thought he ought to drop himself. Then he knew he shouldn’t but should hold the ship as she was. The twin .50’s had opened up and he could hear them pounding and he felt the jolt of them through his bare feet. Very noisy, he thought. That will keep the bastards down.

He saw the blinding burst of the bomb before the roar came and the smoke started to rise. He smelled the smoke and the smell of broken branches and burned green leaves.

“Get up, Gil, and throw two frags. One on each side of the smoke.”

Gil did not lob the frags. He threw them like the long throw from third base to first and in the air they looked like gray iron artichokes with a thin trickle of smoke coming from them.

Before they burst cracking white in the mangroves Thomas Hudson said into the tube, “Shoot the shit out of it, Henry. They can’t run in there.”

The smoke from the frags smelled differently from the bomb and Thomas Hudson said to Gil, “Throw two more frags. One beyond the bomb and one in this side close.”

He watched the frags go and then hit the deck. He did not know whether he hit the deck or the deck hit him because the deck was very slippery from the blood that had been running down his leg and he fell hard. At the second burst he heard two fragments tear through the canvas. Others hit the hull.

“Help me up,” he said to Gil. “You threw that last one close enough.”

“Where are you hit, Tom?”

“A couple of places.”

Ahead he saw Willie and Ara coming up the channel in the dinghy.

He spoke in the tube to Antonio and asked him to hand up a first aid kit to Gil.

Just then he saw Willie drop flat in the bow of the dinghy and start firing into the mangroves on the right. He could hear the dat-dat-dat of his Thompson gun. Then there was a longer burst. He put in both his motors and headed for them with all the speed the channel would allow. His idea of this speed was not completely accurate because he felt very sick. He felt sick into his bones and through his chest and his bowels and the ache went into his testicles. He did not feel weak yet but he could feel the first onslaught of weakness.

“Get your guns to bear on the right bank,” he said to Henry. “Willie’s found more of them.”

“Yes, Tom. Are you all right?”

“I’m hit but I’m all right. What about you and George?”

“We’re fine.”

“Open up any time you see anything.”

“Yes, Tom.”

Thomas Hudson stopped his engines and commenced to go astern again slowly to hold the ship outside the angle where Willie was firing. Willie had a clip in now with tracers in it and he was trying to spot the target for the ship.

“You got it, Henry?” he asked through the tube. “Yes, Tom.”

“Work on it and around it with short bursts.”

He heard the .50’s start slamming and he waved Ara and Willie in. They came in as fast as the little motor would bring them. Willie was firing all the time until they were under the lee of the ship.

Willie jumped aboard and came up on the flying bridge while Ara made the dinghy fast.

He looked at Tom and at Gil who was putting a tourniquet on his left leg as close to the crotch as he could tighten it.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “What you got, Tommy?”

“I don’t know,” Thomas Hudson said. He did not know, either. He could not see any of the wounds. All he saw was the color of the blood and it was dark so he did not worry. But there was too much of it and he felt very sick.

“What’s in there, Willie?”

“I don’t know. There was a guy with a burp gun fired on us and I got him. Or I’m pretty sure I did.”

“I didn’t hear it with the noise you made.”

“You guys sounded like an ammunition dump going up. Do you think there’s anything still back there?”

“Still, maybe. We gave it the treatment.”

“We’ll have to work it out,” Willie said.

“We can let these sons of bitches hang and rattle,” Thomas Hudson said. “Or we can go in now and finish it.”

“I’d rather take care of you.”

Henry was probing with the .50’s. He was as delicate as he was rough with a machine gun and with a pair of them all his qualities were doubled.

“Do you know where they are, Willie?”

“There’s only one place they can be.”

“Then let’s go in blasting and blow the shit out of them.”

“Spoken like an officer and a gentleman,” Willie said. “We sunk their skiff.”

“Oh. We didn’t hear that either,” Thomas Hudson said.

“It didn’t make much noise,” Willie said. “Ara chopped her open with a machete and cut the sail up. Christ couldn’t repair her in a month the best day he was in that carpenter shop.”

“You get up forward with Henry and George and have Ara and Antonio on the starboard side and let’s go in,” Thomas Hudson said. He felt very sick and strange, although there was no dizziness yet. The dressings Gil had put on contained the bleeding too easily and he knew it was internal. “Put lots of fire on and you signal me how to go. How close are they?”

“Right up against the shore behind the little rise of ground.”

“Can Gil reach it all right with the big ones?”

“I’ll shoot tracers to show him the target.”

“They’ll still be there?”

“They got no place to go. They saw us break up the skiff. They’re fighting Custer’s Last Stand in the mangroves. Christ, I wish I had some Anheuser Busch.”

“Ice cold in cans,” Thomas Hudson said. “Let’s get in.”

“You’re awfully white, Tommy,” Willie said. “And you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“Let’s take her in fast then,” Thomas Hudson said. “I’m still all right.”

They closed fast with Willie with his head up over the starboard bow sometimes waving a correction.

Henry was traversing before and behind the rise that showed by the higher trees and George was working on what should be the lip of the rise.

“How is it, Willie?” Thomas Hudson said into the tube.

“You got enough hulls up here to start a brass foundry,” Willie answered. “Lay her goddam bow up against the bank and swing her broadside so Ara and Antonio can bear.”

Gil thought he saw something and fired. But it was the low branch of a tree that Henry had cut loose.

Thomas Hudson watched the bank come closer and closer until he could see individual leaves again. Then he swung her broadside until he heard Antonio firing and saw his tracers going in a little to the right of Willie’s. Ara was firing now, too. Then he came a little astern on his motors and swung her close to the bank but not so close that Gil could not throw.

“Throw an extinguisher,” he said. “Where Willie’s been shooting.”

Gil threw and again Thomas Hudson marvelled at the throw and at the shine of the brass cylinder whirling high through the air to drop almost exactly where it should. There was the flash and the roar and then the rising smoke and then Thomas Hudson saw a man walking toward them out of the smoke with his hands clasped over his head.

“Hold up the fire,” he said as rapidly as he could into two tubes.

But Ara had already fired and he saw the man slump forward into the mangroves on his knees with his head forward.

He spoke again and said, “Resume fire.” Then he said to Gil, very tiredly, “Put in another one about the same place if you can. Then put in a couple of frags.”

He had had a prisoner. But he had lost him.

After a while he said, “Willie, you and Ara want to have a look?”

“Sure,” Willie said. “But keep some fire on while we go in. I want to go in from the back.”

“Tell Henry what you want. When do you want it off?”

“As soon as we clear the entrance.”

“All right, jungle man,” Thomas Hudson said and for the first time he had time to realize that he was probably going to die.

He heard the noise of a grenade
bursting behind the small ridge. Then there was no more noise and no firing. He leaned heavily on the wheel and he watched the smoke of the grenade thin out in the wind.

“I’m going to take her on through as soon as I see the dinghy,” he said to Gil.

He felt Antonio’s arm around him and heard him say, “You lie down, Tom. I’m taking her.”

“All right,” he said and he took a last look down the narrow, green-banked river. The water was brown but clear and the tide was flowing strong.

Gil and Antonio helped him to lie down on the planking of the bridge. Then Antonio took the wheel. He went astern a little more to hold her against the tide and Thomas Hudson could feel the sweet rhythm of the big motors.

“Loosen the tourniquet a little,” he said to Gil.

“We’ll get the air mattress,” Gil said.

“I like it on the deck,” Thomas Hudson said. “I think it is better if I don’t move much.”

“Get a cushion under his head,” Antonio said. He was looking down the channel.

In a little while he said, “They’re waving us in, Tom,” and Thomas Hudson felt the motors go ahead and the ship slide forward.

“Anchor her as soon as we’re out of the channel.”

“Yes, Tom. Don’t talk.”

Henry came up and took the wheel and the controls when they anchored. Now that they were in the open again, Thomas Hudson felt her swing into the wind.

“There’s lots of water in here, Tom,” Henry said.

“I know. All the way to Caibarién and the two channels are clear and well marked.”

“Please don’t talk, Tom. Just lie quiet.”

“Have Gil get a light blanket.”

“I’ll get it. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much, Tommy.”

“It hurts,” Thomas Hudson said. “But not too bad. It doesn’t hurt any worse than things hurt that you and I have shot together.”

“Here’s Willie,” Henry said.

“You old son of a bitch,” said Willie. “Don’t talk. There were four in there with the guide. It was the main party. Then there was the one Ara got by mistake. He feels awful about it when you wanted a prisoner so much. He’s crying and I told him to stay below. He just loosed off like anybody would.”

“What did you throw the grenade at?”

“Just a place I didn’t like the look of. Don’t you talk, Tom.”

“You have to go back and detrap that hulk.”

“We’re going right away and we’ll check the other place. I wish the Christ we had a speed boat. Tommy, those goddam fire extinguishers are better than an .81mm mortar.”

“Not the same range.”

“What the hell we want with range? That Gil was throwing them into a bushel basket.”

“Get going.”

“How bad are you, Tommy?”

“Pretty bad.”

“Think you can make it?”

“I’m going to try.”

“Keep perfectly still. Don’t move for anything.”

They were not gone long but it seemed a long time to Thomas Hudson. He lay on his back in the shade of a canopy Antonio had rigged for him. Gil and George had unlaced the canvas from the windward side of the flying bridge and the wind came fresh and friendly. It was not as strong as it had been yesterday but it was steady from the east and the clouds were high and thin. The sky was the blue sky of the eastern part of the island where the trades blow strongest and Thomas Hudson lay and watched it and tried to hold his pain in control. He had refused the hypodermic of morphine that Henry had brought him because he thought he might still have to think. He knew he could always take it later on.