Islands in the Stream

XVIII

They were lying on the hot deck watching the line of the key. The sun was strong on their backs but the wind cooled them. Their backs were nearly as brown as the sea Indian women they had seen this morning on the outer key. That seemed as long ago as all his life, Thomas Hudson thought. That and the open sea and the long breaking reefs and the dark depthless tropic sea beyond were as far away as all of his life was now. We could have just gone up the open sea with this breeze and made Cayo Francés and Peters would have answered their blinker and we all would have had cold beer tonight. Don’t think about it, boy, he thought. This is what you had to do.

“Henry,” he said. “How are you doing?”

“Splendidly, Tom,” Henry said very softly. “A frag couldn’t blow up from getting too hot in the sun could it?”

“I’ve never seen it. But it can increase their potency.”

“I hope Ara’s got some water,” Henry said.

“Don’t you remember them putting it in?”

“No, Tom. I was looking after my own equipment and I didn’t notice.”

Then against the wind they heard the noise of the outboard on the dinghy. Thomas Hudson turned his head carefully and saw her round the point. The dinghy was riding high and Ara was in the stern. He could see the width of his shoulders and his black head at this distance. Thomas Hudson turned his head again to watch the key and he saw a night heron rise from the trees in the center and fly away. Then he saw two wood ibis rise and wheel and fly off with quick-flapping, then coasting, then quick-flapping wing beats downwind toward the little key.

Henry had watched them, too, and he said, “Willie must be getting pretty well in.”

“Yes,” Thomas Hudson said. “They came off the high ridge in the center of the key.”

“Then nobody else was there.”

“Not if it was Willie who scared them.”

“That’s about where Willie would be by now if he didn’t have too bad going.”

“Keep down low now when Ara comes.”

Ara brought the dinghy along the careened lee of the turtle boat and put the grapnel aboard against the gunwale. He climbed carefully aboard with the ease of a bear. He had a water bottle and a bottle of tea in an old gin bottle each tied to a piece of heavy fishing line that suspended them over his neck. He crawled up to lie beside Thomas Hudson.

“What about some of the damn water?” Henry asked.

Ara laid his stuff down beside Thomas Hudson’s, untied the water bottle from the fish line and crawled carefully along the slanted deck above the two hatches to where Henry was stationed.

“Drink it,” he said. “Don’t try to bathe with it.”

He slapped Henry on the back and crawled back to lie beside Thomas Hudson.

“Tom,” he said, speaking very low. “We saw nothing. I landed Willie on the far side almost directly opposite us and went out to the ship. There I went aboard on the lee side away from the key. I explained everything to Antonio and he understood well. Then I filled the outboard with gas and filled the reserve can and brought out the iced tea and the water.”

“Good,” said Thomas Hudson. He dropped down the deck a little way and took a long pull at the bottle of iced tea.

“Thank you very much for the tea.”

“It was Antonio thought of it. We forgot certain things in our hurry at the start.”

“Move down toward the stern so you can cover it.”

“Yes, Tom,” Ara said.

They lay there in the sun and the wind and each one watched the key. Occasionally a bird, or a pair of birds would fly up, and they knew these birds had been frightened either by Willie or by the others.

“The birds must make Willie angry,” Ara said. “He didn’t think about that when he went in.”

“He might just as well be sending up balloons,” Thomas Hudson answered.

He was thinking and he turned to look over his shoulder.

He did not like any of it now. There were too many birds getting up from the key. And what reason now had they to believe that the others were in there now? Why would they have gone in there in the first place? Lying on the deck he had a hollow feeling in his chest that both he and Willie had been deceived. Maybe they haven’t sucked us in. But it does not look good with so many birds getting up, he thought. Another pair of wood ibis rose not far from the shore and Thomas Hudson turned to Henry and said, “Get down in the forward hatch, Henry, please, and keep watch inland.”

“It’s awfully messy in there.”

“I know.”

“All right, Tom.”

“Leave your frags and clips. Just take a frag in your pocket and the nino.”

Henry eased himself down into the hatch and looked out toward the inside keys that masked the channel. His expression had not changed. But he was tight-lipped keeping it in order.

“I’m sorry about it, Henry,” Thomas Hudson said to him. “It’s just the way it has to be for a while.”

“I don’t mind it,” Henry said. Then the studied severity of his face cracked and he smiled his wonderful good smile. “It’s that it isn’t exactly the way I would plan to spend a summer.”

“Me either. But things don’t look so open and shut right now.”

A bittern came out from the mangroves and Thomas Hudson heard it squawk and watched its nervous swooping flight downwind. Then he settled down to trace Willie’s progress along the mangroves by the rising and the flight of the birds. When the birds stopped rising he was sure he was headed back. Then after a time they were being put up again and he knew Willie was working out the windward curve of the key. After three-quarters of an hour he saw a great white heron rise in panic and start its slow heavy wing-beats to windward and he said to Ara, “He’ll be out now. Better go down to the point and pick him up.”

“I see him,” Ara said in a moment. “He just waved. He’s lying down just in from the beach.”

“Go get him and bring him back lying down.”

Ara slid back down to the dinghy with his weapon and with a couple of frags in his pockets. He got into the stern of the dinghy and cast her off.

“Toss me the tea bottle, will you, Tom?”

Ara caught it using both hands for surety instead of the one-hand catch he would usually have made. He enjoyed catching frags one-handed and the hardest way possible just as he enjoyed crimping detonator caps with his teeth. But this tea was for Willie and he appreciated what Willie had been through, even though there were no results and he placed the bottle carefully under the stern and hoped it was still cool.

“What do you think, Tom?” Henry asked.

“We’re fucked. For the moment.”

In a little while the dinghy was alongside and Willie was lying in the bottom with the bottle of tea in both hands. His hands and face were scratched and bloody, although he had washed them with sea water, and one sleeve was torn off his shirt. His face was bulging with mosquito bites and there were lumps from mosquito bites wherever his flesh was bare.

“There’s not a goddam thing, Tom,” he said. “They never were on that key. You and I weren’t too damned smart.”

“No.”

“What do you think?”

“They went inside after they grounded. Whether for keeps or to make a recon of the channels I don’t know.”

“Do you think they saw us board?”

“They could have seen everything or nothing. They’re pretty low in the water to see.”

“They ought to have heard it downwind.”

“They should have.”

“So now?”

“You get out to the ship and send Ara back for Henry and me. They might still be back.”

“What about Peters? We can take him.”

“Take him now.”

“Tommy, you’re parapeted up on the wrong side,” Willie said. “We’ve both been wrong and I’m not offering any advice.”

“I know it. I’m going down in the afterhatch as soon as Ara loads Peters.”

“He better load him by himself,” Willie said. “They could see silhouettes. But they couldn’t make out an object flat on the deck without glasses.”

Thomas Hudson explained to Ara and Ara climbed up and handled Peters quite easily and impersonally but he knotted the cloth behind his head. He was neither tender nor rough and all he said as he lifted him and slid him head first into the dinghy was, “He is very rigid.”

“That’s why they call them stiffs,” Willie said. “Didn’t you ever hear?”

“Yes,” Ara said. “We call them fiambres which means cold meats as in a restaurant when you can have fish or cold meats. But I was thinking of Peters. He was always so limber.”

“I’ll get him right back, Tom. Do you need anything?”

“Luck,” Thomas Hudson said. “Thank you for the recon, Willie.”

“Just the usual shit,” Willie said.

“Have Gil put Merthiolate on the scratches.”

“Fuck the scratches,” Willie said. “I’m going to run as a jungle man.”

Thomas Hudson and Henry were looking out from the two hatches toward the broken and indented line of keys that lay between them and the long bay that formed the inland channel. They spoke in a normal tone of voice since they knew the others could not be closer than those small green islands.

“You watch,” Thomas Hudson said. “I’m going to throw that ammunition of theirs overboard and have another look around below.”

Below he found several things he had not noticed before and he lifted the case of ammunition out onto the deck and pushed it over the side. I suppose I should have scattered all the cartons, he thought. But the hell with it. He brought up the Schmeisser pistol and found it was not functioning. He laid it down with his own stuff.

I’ll let Ara break it down, he thought. At least we know why they did not take it with them. Do you suppose they left that wounded man behind just as a reception committee and pulled out? Or do you suppose they made him comfortable and went off for a recon? How much do you think they saw and how much do they know?

“Don’t you think we might have kept that ammo for evidence?” Henry asked.

“We’re way past the evidence stage now.”

“But it’s always good to have it. You know how stuffy they are and they’ll probably just evaluate the whole thing as doubtful. Maybe ONI won’t even give it a doubtful. Do you remember the last one, Tom?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“She went all the way up the mouth of the Mississippi and she’s still doubtful.”

“That’s correct.”

“I think we might have kept the ammo.”

“Henry,” Thomas Hudson said. “Please take it easy. The deads from the massacre are on the key. We have Schmeisser bullets from them and from the dead Kraut. We have another dead Kraut buried with the location in the log. We have this turtle boat sunk and a dead Kraut in her bows. We have two Schmeisser pistols. One is nonfunctioning and the other is smashed by the frag.”

“A hurricane will come along and blow everything away and they will say the whole thing is doubtful.”

“All right,” said Thomas Hudson. “Let’s concede the whole thing is doubtful. And Peters?”

“One of us probably shot him.”

“Sure. We’ll have to go through all that.”

They heard the outboard and then saw Ara round the poult. That dinghy rides as high in the bow as a canoe, Thomas Hudson thought.

“Get your junk together, Henry,” he said. “We’re going back to the ship.”

“I’m glad to stay aboard this thing if you want me to.”

“No. I want you on the ship.”

After Ara came alongside Thomas Hudson changed his mind.

“Stay here, Henry, a little while and I’ll send Ara for you. If they come out, get a frag into the skiff if they come alongside. Take this back hatch where you have lots of room. Use your head.”

“Yes, Tom. Thank you for letting me stay.”

“I’d stay and send you in. But I have to talk things over with Antonio.”

“I understand. Shouldn’t I fire on them when they are alongside before I throw the frag?”

“If you want. But keep your head down and then throw the frag in from the other hatch. And hold it all you can.”

He was lying in the lee scuppers passing his things to Ara. Then he lowered himself over the side.

“Is there too much water for you down there?” he asked Henry.

“No, Tom. It’s quite all right.”

“Don’t get claustrophobia and keep a good lookout. If they come in, let them get right alongside before you make your play.”

“Of course, Tom.”

“Think of it as a duck blind.”

“I don’t have to, Tom.”

Thomas Hudson was lying flat on the planking of the dinghy now.

“Ara will be back as soon as you ought to come in.”

“Don’t worry, Tom. I can stay here all night if you like but I’d like Ara to bring out something to eat and a little rum perhaps and some more water.”

“He’ll be back and pick you up and we’ll have a little rum on board.”

Ara pulled the cord on the motor and they headed for the ship. Thomas Hudson felt the frags along his legs and the weight of the nino across his chest. He put his arms around it and cuddled it and Ara laughed and leaned down and said, “This is a bad life for good children.”