Islands in the Stream

VI

They were running to the westward inside the reef with the wind astern. The tanks had been filled, the ice stowed, and below one watch was picking and cleaning chickens. The other was cleaning weapons. The canvas that shielded the flying bridge to waist height was laced on and the two long boards that announced in twelve-inch block letters the scientific mission of the boat were in place. Looking over the side watching the depth of water Thomas Hudson saw the patches of chicken feathers floating out onto the following sea.

“Take her in just as close as we can get without hitting any of those sandbars,” he told Ara. “You know this coast.”

“I know it’s no good,” Ara said. “Where are we going to anchor?”

“I want to check up at the head of Cayo Cruz.”

“We can check there but I don’t think it will be much use. You don’t think they would stay there, do you?”

“No. But there might be fishermen in there who would have seen them. Or charcoal burners.”

“I wish this wind would fail,” Ara said. “I’d like to have a couple of days of flat calm.”

“It’s squally over Romano.”

“I know. But this wind blows through here like through a pass in the mountains. We’ll never catch them if this wind keeps up.”

“We’ve been right so far,” Thomas Hudson said. “And maybe we’ll get some luck. They could have taken Lobos and used the radio there to call up that other sub to take them off.”

“That shows they didn’t know the other sub was there.”

“Must be. They move a lot in ten days.”

“When they want to,” Ara said. “Let’s stop thinking, Tom. It gives me a headache. I’d rather handle gas drums. You think and tell me where you want me to steer.”

“Just as she goes and watch for that no-good Minerva. Keep well inside of that and outside the sand-spits.”

“Good.”

Do you suppose she lost her radio when she got smacked? Thomas Hudson thought. She must have had an emergency radio that she could have used. But Peters never picked her up on the UHF after she was smacked. Still, that doesn’t necessarily prove anything. Nothing proves anything except that those two boats were seen on the course we are on three days ago. Did I ask him if they had their dinghys on deck? No, I forgot to. But they must have because he said they were ordinary Bahaman turtling boats except for the shelters they had rigged with the palm branches.

How many people? You don’t know. Any wounded? You don’t know. How armed? All you know is a machine pistol. Their course? We are on it until now.

Maybe we will find something between Cayo Cruz and Mégano, he thought. What you’ll probably find is lots of willets and iguana tracks in the sand toward the water hole.

Well, it keeps your mind off things. What things? There aren’t any things any more. Oh yes, there are. There is this ship and the people on her and the sea and the bastards you are hunting. Afterwards you will see your animals and go into town and get drunk as you can and your ashes dragged and then get ready to go out and do it again.

Maybe this time you will get these characters. You did not destroy their undersea boat but you were faintly instrumental in its destruction. If you can round up the crew, it will be extremely useful.

Then why don’t you care anything about anything? he asked himself. Why don’t you think of them as murderers and have the righteous feelings that you should have? Why do you just pound and pound on after it like a riderless horse that is still in t…