Islands in the Stream (44 page)

“Gin and coconut water with Angostura and lime.”

“A
Tomini
?” his mate said, pleased that he was drinking again.

“Double quantity.”

Henry threw the air mattress up and climbed after it with a book and a magazine.

“You’re out of the wind here,” he said. “Do you want me to open any of this canvas for ventilation?”

“Since when did I rate all this?”

“Tom, we talked of it and we all agreed that you need some rest. You’ve been driving yourself past what a man can stand. You are past it now.”

“Shit,” said Thomas Hudson.

“Maybe,” said Henry. “I said I thought you were OK and could go quite a lot more and hold the pace. But the others were worried and they convinced me. You can deconvince me. But take it easy now, Tom.”

“I never felt better. I just don’t give a damn.”

“That’s what it’s about. You won’t come down off the bridge. You want to stand all the watches steering. And you don’t give a damn about anything.”

“OK,” said Thomas Hudson. “I get the-picture. But I still command.”

“I didn’t mean it in any bad way, truly.”

“Forget it,” Thomas Hudson said. “I’m resting. You know how to search a key, don’t you?”

“I should.”

“See what there is on Mégano.”

“That’s mine. Willie and Ara have gone in already. I’m just waiting with the other party for Antonio to come back with the dinghy.”

“How is Peters?”

“He’s been working hard on the big radio all afternoon. He thinks he has it fixed OK.”

“That would be wonderful. If I’m asleep, wake me as soon as you get back.”

“Yes, Tom.” Henry reached down and took something that was handed to him. It was a big glass full of ice and a rusty-colored liquid and it was wrapped in a double thickness of paper towel held fast by a rubber band.

“A double
Tomini
,”
Henry said. “Drink it and read and go to sleep. You can put the glass in one of the big frag slots.”

Thomas Hudson took a long sip.

“I like it,” he said.

“You used to. Everything will be fine, Tom.”

“Everything we can do damn well better be.”

“Just get a good rest.”

“I will.”

Henry went down and Thomas Hudson heard the hum of the outboard coming in. It stopped and there was talking and then he heard the hum of it going away. He waited a little, listening. Then he took the drink and threw it high over the side and let the wind take it astern. He settled the glass in the hole it fitted best in the triple rack and lay face down on the rubber mattress with his two arms around it.

I think they had wounded under the shelters, he thought. Of course it could be to conceal many people. But I do not believe that. They would have come in here the first night. I should have gone ashore. I will from now on. But Ara and Henry could not be better and Willie is very good. I must try to be very good. Try hard tonight, he told himself. And chase hard and good and with no mistakes and do not overrun them.

He felt a hand on his shoulder
. It was Ara and he said, “We got one, Tom. Willie and I.”

Thomas Hudson swung down and Ara was with him. The German lay on the stern wrapped in a blanket. His head was on two cushions. Peters was sitting on the deck beside him with a glass of water.

“Look what we got,” he said.

The German was thin and there was a blond beard on his chin and on his sunken cheeks. His hair was long and uncombed and in the late afternoon light, with the sun almost down, he looked like a saint.

“He can’t talk,” Ara said. “Willie and I tried him. You better keep to windward of him, too.”

“I smelled it coming down,” Thomas Hudson said. “Ask him if he wants anything,” he said to Peters.

The radio operator spoke to him in German and the German looked toward him but he did not speak nor move his head. Thomas Hudson heard the humming of the outboard motor, and looked across the bight at the dinghy coming out of the sunset. It was loaded down to the water line. He looked down at the German again.

“Ask him how many they are. Tell him we must know how many they are. Tell him this is important.”

Peters spoke to the German softly and it seemed to Thomas Hudson almost lovingly.

The German said three words with great effort.

“He says nothing is important,” Peters said.

“Tell him he is wrong. I have to know. Ask him if he wants morphine.”

The German looked at Thomas Hudson kindly and said three words.

“He says it doesn’t hurt anymore,” Peters said. He spoke rapidly in German and again Thomas Hudson caught the loving tone; or, perhaps it was only the loving sound of the language.

“Shut up, Peters,” Thomas Hudson said. “Translate only and exactly what I say. Did you hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Peters said.

“Tell him I can make him tell.”

Peters spoke to the German and he turned his eyes toward Thomas Hudson. They were old eyes now but they were in a young man’s face gone old as driftwood and nearly as gray.

“
Nein
,” the German said slowly.

“He says no,” Peters translated.

“Yeah, I got that part of it,” Thomas Hudson said. “Get him some warm soup, Willie, and bring some cognac. Peters, ask him if he wouldn’t like some morphine really if he doesn’t have to talk. Tell him we have plenty.”

Peters translated and the German looked toward Thomas Hudson and smiled a thin, northern smile.

He spoke almost inaudibly to Peters.

“He says thank you but he doesn’t need it and it’s better to save it.”

Then he said something softly to Peters who translated, “He says he could have used it last week.”

“Tell him I admire him,” Thomas Hudson said.

Antonio, his mate, was alongside in the dinghy with Henry and the rest of the Mégano party.

“Come aboard easy,” Thomas Hudson said to them. “Keep away from the stern. We got a Kraut dying on the stern that I want to have die easy. What did you find?”

“Nothing,” Henry said. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Peters,” Thomas Hudson said. “Talk to him all you want. You might get something. I’m going forward with Ara and Willie to get a drink.”

Below, he said, “How’s your soup, Willie?”

“The first one I put my hands on was clam broth,” Willie said. “It’s about hot enough.”

“Why didn’t you give him oxtail or mulligatawny?” Thomas Hudson said. “They’re more deadly in his condition. Where the hell is the chicken?”

“I didn’t want to give him the chicken. That’s Henry’s.”

“Quite right, too,” Henry said. “Why should we coddle him?”

“I don’t think we really are. When I ordered it I thought some soup and a drink might help him talk. But he isn’t going to talk. Give me a gin, will you, Ara?”

“They made a shelter for him, Tom, and he had a good bed made from branches and plenty of water and food in a crock. They tried to make him comfortable and they ditched the sand for drainage. There were many good tracks from the beach and I would say they were eight or ten. Not more. Willie and I were very careful carrying him. Both his wounds are gangrenous and the gangrene is very high toward the right thigh. Perhaps we should not have brought him but instead have come for you and Peters to question him in his shelter. If so, it is my fault.”

“Did he have a weapon?”

“No. Nor any identification.”

“Give me my drink,” Thomas Hudson said. “When would you say the branches for the shelter were cut?”

“Not later than yesterday morning, I would say. But I could not be sure.”

“Did he speak at all?”

“No. He looked as though made of wood when he saw us with the pistols. He looked afraid of Willie once. When he saw his eye, I think. Then he smiled when we lifted him.”

“To show he could,” Willie said.

“Then he went away,” Ara said. “How long do you think it will take him to die, Tom?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s go out and take the drinks,” Henry said. “I don’t trust Peters.”

“Let’s drink the clam broth up,” Willie said. “I’m hungry. I can heat him a can of Henry’s chicken if he says it is OK.”

“If it will help to make him talk,” Henry said. “Of course.”

“It probably won’t,” Willie said. “But it’s kind of shitty to give him clam broth the way he is. Take him out the cognac, Henry. Maybe he really likes that, like you and me.”

“Don’t bother him,” Thomas Hudson said. “He’s a good Kraut.”

“Sure,” Willie said. “They’re all good Krauts when they fold up.”

“He hasn’t folded up,” Thomas Hudson said. “He’s just dying.”

“With much style,” Ara said.

“You getting to be a Kraut-lover, too?” Willie asked him. “That makes you and Peters.”

“Shut up, Willie,” Thomas Hudson said.

“What’s the matter with you?” Willie said to Thomas Hudson. “You’re just the exhausted leader of a little group of earnest Kraut-lovers.”

“Come up forward, Willie,” Thomas Hudson said. “Ara, take the soup astern when it is warm. The rest of you go watch the Kraut die, if you want. But don’t crowd him.”

Antonio started to follow as Thomas Hudson and Willie went forward but Thomas Hudson shook his head at him and the big man went back to the galley.

They were in the forward cockpit and it was almost dark. Thomas Hudson could just see Willie’s face. It looked better in this light and he was on the side of the good eye. Thomas Hudson looked at Willie and then at his two anchor lines and at a tree he could still see on the beach. It’s a tricky sandy bottom, he thought; and he said, “All right, Willie. Say the rest of it.”

“You,” Willie said. “Flogging yourself to death up there because your kid is dead. Don’t you know everybody’s kids die?”

“I know it. What else?”

“That fucking Peters and a fucking Kraut stinking up the fantail and what kind of a ship is it where the cook is the mate?”

“How does he cook?”

“He cooks wonderful and he knows more about small-boat handling than all of us put together, including you.”

“Much more.”

“Shit, Tom. I’m not blowing my top. I got no goddam top to blow. I’m used to doing things a different way. I like it on the ship and I like everybody except that half-cunt Peters. Only you quit flogging yourself.”

“I’m not really,” Thomas Hudson said. “I don’t think about anything except work.”

“You’re so noble you ought to be stuffed and crucified,” Willie said. “Think about cunt.”

“We’re headed toward it.”

“That’s the way to talk.”

“Willie, are you OK now?”

“Sure. Why the hell wouldn’t I be? That Kraut got me, I guess. They had him fixed up nice like we wouldn’t fix up anybody. Or maybe we would if we had time. But they took time. They don’t know how close we are. But they got to know somebody’s chasing. Everybody’s after them now. But they fixed him up just as nice as anybody could be fixed in the condition he was.”

“Sure,” Thomas Hudson said. “They fixed up those people back on the key nice, too.”

“Yeah,” said Willie. “Isn’t that the hell of it?”

Just then Peters came in. He always held himself as a Marine even when he was not at his best and he was proudest of the real discipline without the formalities of discipline which was the rule of the ship. He was the one who took the greatest advantage of it. Now he stopped, came to attention, saluted, which showed he was drunk, and said, “Tom, I mean, sir. He is dead.”

“Who’s dead?”

“The prisoner, sir.”

“OK,” Thomas Hudson said. “Get your generator going and see if you can get Guantánamo.”

They ought to have something for us, he thought.

“Did the prisoner talk?” he asked Peters.

“No sir.”

“Willie,” he asked. “How do you feel?”

“Fine.”

“Get some flashbulbs and take two, in profile of the face, lying on the stern. Take the blanket off and his shorts off and take one full-length lying as he is across the stern. Shoot one full-face of his head and one full-face lying down.”

“Yes sir,” Willie said.

Thomas Hudson went up on the flying bridge. He heard the motor of the generator start and saw the sudden flashes of the bulbs. ONI, up where they evaluate, won’t believe we even have this much of a Kraut, he thought. There isn’t any proof. Somebody will claim it is a stiff they pushed out that we picked up. I should have photographed him sooner. The hell with them. Maybe we will get the others tomorrow.

Ara came up.

“Tom, who do you want to have take him ashore and bury him?”

“Who worked the least today?”

“Everybody has worked hard. I’ll take Gil in and we will do it. We can bury him in the sand just above high water.”

“Maybe a little higher.”

“I’ll send Willie up and you tell him how you want the board lettered. I have a board from a box in stores.”

“Send Willie up.”

“Do we sew him up?”

“No. Just wrap him in his own blanket. Send Willie up.”

“What was it that you wanted?” Willie asked.

“Letter the board, ‘Unknown German Sailor’ and put the date underneath.”

“OK, Tom. Do you want me to go In with the burial detail?”

“No. Ara and Gil are going in. Letter the board and take it easy and have a drink.”

“As soon as Peters gets Guantánamo, I’ll send it up. Don’t you want to come down?”

“No. I’m taking it easy up here.”

“What’s it like on the bridge of a big ship like this, full of responsibility and horseshit?”

“Just about the same as lettering that board.”

When the signal came from Guantánamo it read, decoded, CONTINUE SEARCHING CAREFULLY WESTWARD.

That’s us, said Thomas Hudson to himself. He lay down and was asleep immediately and Henry covered him with a light blanket.

An hour before daylight
he was below and had checked his glass. It was four-tenths lower and he woke his mate and showed it to him.

The mate looked at him and nodded.

“You saw the squalls over Romano yesterday,” he whispered. “She is going into the south.”

“Make me some tea, will you, please,” Thomas Hudson asked.

“I have some cold in a bottle on the ice.”

He went astern and found a mop and a bucket and scrubbed the deck of the stern. It had been scrubbed before but he scrubbed it again and rinsed the mop. Then he took his bottle of cold tea up on the flying bridge and waited for it to get light.