Islands in the Stream

  “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. Sh
e’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.”

  “Our last prisoner didn’t last very long.”

  “I’ll try and bring a good, strong, healthy one. Go on down and see everything is secured. I want to watch the flamingoes for a little while.”

  He stood on the flying bridge and watched the flamingoes. It is not just their color, he thought. It’s not just the black on that rose pink. It is their size and that they are ugly in detail and yet perversely beautiful. They must be a very old bird from the earliest times.

  He did not watch them through the glasses because he did not want details now. He wanted the roseate mass on the gray brown flat. Two other flocks had come in now and the banks were colored in a way that he would not have dared to paint. Or I would have dared to paint and would have painted, he thought. It is nice to see flamingoes before you make this trip. I better not give them time to worry or to think too much.

  He climbed down from the bridge and said, “Gil, get up there and keep your glasses on the key. Henry, if you hear a lot of noise and then the turtle boat should come out from behind the key, shoot her fucking bow off. Everybody get up and glass where the survivors are and you can hunt them tomorrow. Plug the dinghy where she is shot up and use her. The turtle boat has a skiff and you can plug her up and use her too if we don’t damage her too badly.”

  Antonio said, “Do you have any other orders?”

  “Just keep your bowels open and try to lead clean lives. We’ll be back in a little while. Come on, you two gentlemen bastards. Let’s go.”

  “Grandmother always claimed I wasn’t a bastard,” Peters said. “She said I was the nicest-looking, most legitimate little baby in the county.”

  “Mother claimed I wasn’t a bastard, too,” Willie said. “Where do you want us, Tom?”

  “She trims best with you in the bow. But I’ll take the bow if you like.”

  “Get in and steer her,” Willie said. “You got a really good ship now.”

  “I got my finger on my number,” Thomas Hudson said. “I’m working up. Come aboard, Mr. Peters.”

  “Happy to be on board, admiral,” Peters said.

  “Good hunting,” Henry said.

  “Drop dead,” Willie called. The motor caught and they were off toward the silhouette of the key that was lower in the water now because of their lack of altitude.

  “I’m going alongside and we’ll board her without hailing.”

  The two men nodded, one amidships and one in the bow.

  “Get your junk hung. I don’t give a shit if it shows,” Thomas Hudson said.

  “I don’t know where I’d hide it,” Peters said. “I feel like one of grandma’s mules now.”

  “Then be a mule. It’s a fucking good animal.”

  “Tom, do I have to remember all that shit about the pilot?”

  “Remember it but use your head.”

  “Well,” said Peters. “We haven’t any fucking troubles anymore.”

  “We better all pipe down,” Thomas Hudson said. “We’ll all three board at the same time and if they are below, you ask them in Kraut to come out with their hands up. We have to stop talking because they can hear voices a long way above the noise of an outboard.”

  “What do we do if they don’t come out?”

  “Willie throws in a grenade.”

  “What do we do if they’re on deck?”

  “Sweep the deck according to our sectors. Me the stern. Peters amidships. You the bow.”

  “Then do I throw in a grenade?”

  “Sure. We ought to get woundeds that we can save. That’s why I brought the kit.”

  “I thought that was for us.”

  “Us too. Now let’s pipe down. Do you have it clear?”

  “Clearer than shit,” Willie said.

  “Has there been an issue of asshole corks?” Peters asked.

  “They dropped it from the plane this morning. Didn’t you get yours?”

  “No. But grandma always said I had the slowest digestion of any baby in the whole of the South. They got one of my diapers in the Smithsonian Institute of the Confederacy.”

  “Cut out the shit,” Willie said, leaning back in order not to talk loudly. “Are we doing all this in daylight, Tom?”

  “Now.”

  “I’ll be a sad son of a bitch,” said Willie. “I have fallen among thieves and bastards.”

  “Shut up, Willie, and let’s see you fight.”

  Willie nodded his head and looked ahead with his good eye toward the green mangrove key which lay tiptoed on its brown red roots.

  He only said one more thing before they rounded the point, “They’ve got good oysters on those roots.”

  Thomas Hudson nodded.

  XVI

  They saw the turtle boat when they rounded the point of the key and passed through the channel which separated it from another small key. She was lying with her bow close in to shore and there were vines hanging from her mast and her deck was covered with new-cut mangrove branches.

  Willie leaned back and with his voice almost against Peter’s ear, said in a low voice, “Her skirl’s missing. Pass the word.”

  Peters leaned his blotched, freckled face back and said, “Her skiff’s missing, Tom. There must be some ashore.”

  “We’ll board her and sink her,” Thomas Hudson said. “Same plan. Pass the word.”

  Peters bent forward and spoke into Willie’s ear and Willie’s head started to shake. Then he held up his hand with the familiar zero. Zero as in asshole, Thomas Hudson thought. They came up on her as fast as the little coffee mill of an engine would take them and Thomas Hudson put her smartly alongside without bumping. Willie lifted the grapple over the gunwale of the turtle boat and pulled it fast and the three of them were on the deck almost at the same time. Underneath their feet there were mangrove branches with their dead fresh smell and Thomas Hudson saw the vine draped mast as though now it were a dream again. He saw the hatch open and a forward hatch open and covered with branches. There was no one on deck.

  Thomas Hudson waved Willie forward past this hatch and covered the other one with his submachine gun. He checked that the safety lever was on full automatic. Under his bare feet he could feel the hard roundness of the branches, the slipperiness of the leaves, and the heat of the wooden deck.

  “Tell them to come out with their hands up,” he said quietly to Peters.

  Peters spoke in rough, throaty German. Nobody answered and nothing happened.

  Thomas Hudson thought, grandma’s boy has a good delivery, and he said, “Tell them again we give them ten seconds to come out. We will treat them as prisoners of war. Then count ten.”

  Peters spoke so it sounded like the voice of all German doom. His voice holds up magnificently, Thomas Hudson thought, and turned his head fast to see if the skiff were in sight. He could only see the brown roots and the green of the mangroves.

  “Count ten and put one in,” he said. “Watch that fucking forward hatch, Willie.”

  “It’s got those fucking branches covering it.”

  “Push one in with your hands when Peters goes. Don’t throw it.”

  Peters reached ten and standing there, tall, loose-jointed like a pitcher on the mound, holding his submachine gun under his left arm, he pulled the pin of the grenade with his teeth, held it spurting smoke a moment as though he were warming it, and tossed it with the underhand motion of a Carl Mays into the darkness of the hatch.

  As Thomas Hudson watched him, he thought, he’s a great actor and he doesn’t think there is anything down there.

  Thomas Hudson hit the deck, covering the mo
uth of the hatch with his Thompson. Peter’s grenade exploded with a flashing crack and a roar and Thomas Hudson saw Willie opening the brush to drop a grenade in the forward hatch. Then to the right of the mast, where the vines hung, he saw the muzzle of a gun come up from between the branches on the same hatch where Willie was working. He fired at it but it fired five quick flashes, clattering like a child’s rattle. Then Willie’s grenade went with a big flash and Thomas Hudson looked and saw Willie, in the scuppers, pull the pin on another grenade to throw in. Peters was on his side with his head on the gunwale. Blood was running from his head into the scuppers.

  Willie threw and the grenade had a different sound because it rolled further into the boat before it burst.

  “Do you think there are any more of the cocksuckers?” Willie called.

  “I’ll put one more in from here,” Thomas Hudson said. He ducked and ran to get out of any fire from the big hatch and pulled the pin on another grenade, gray, heavy, solid, and notched in the grip of his hand, and crossing forward of the hatch he rolled it down into the stern. There was the crack, boom, and smoke where pieces of the deck came up.

  Willie was looking at Peters and Tom came over and looked at him too. He did not look very different than usual.

  “Well, we’ve lost our interpreter,” Willie said. His good eye was twitching but his voice was the same.

  “She’s settling fast,” Thomas Hudson said.

  “She was aground already. But she’s going over on her beam ends now.”

  “We’ve got a lot of uncompleted business, Willie.”

  “And we traded even. One for one. But we sunk the damned boat.”

  “You better get the hell back to the ship and get back here with Ara and Henry. Tell Antonio to bring her abreast of the point as soon as he gets the tide.”

  “I have to check below first.”

  “I’ll check.”

  “No,” Willie said. “That’s my trade.”

  “How do you feel, kid?”

  “Fine. Only sorry to hear of the loss of Mr. Peters. I’ll get a rag or something to put over his face. We ought to straighten him out with his head uphill now she’s careening like this.”

  “How is the Kraut in the bow?”