On the stern they were all bathing naked. They soaped themselves and stood on one foot and another, bending against the lashing of the rain as they soaped and then leaning back into it. They were really all brown but they looked white in this strange light. Thomas Hudson thought of the canvas of the bathers by Cézanne and then he thought he would like to have Eakins paint it. Then he thought that he should be painting it himself with the ship against the roaring white of the surf that came through the driving gray outside with the black of the new squall coming out and the sun breaking through momentarily to make the driving rain silver and to shine on the bathers in the stern.
He brought the dinghy up and Ara tossed a line and they were home.
XI
THAT NIGHT AFTER THE RAIN had stopped and he had checked all leaks from the long dry spell, and seen that pans were put under them, and the point of actual leakage, not the drip, was pencilled, the watches were set, the duties apportioned, and everything discussed and agreed on with his mate and Ara. Then when the supper was ended and the poker game underway, he went up on the flying bridge. He had a Flit gun with him and his air mattress and a light blanket.
He thought that he would lie down and think about nothing. Sometimes he could do this. Sometimes he could think about the stars without wondering about them and the ocean without problems and the sunrise without what it would bring.
He felt clean from his scalp to his feet from the soaping in the rain that had beaten down on the stern and he thought, I will just lie here and feel clean. He knew there was no use thinking of the girl who had been Tom’s mother nor all the things they had done and the places they had been nor how they had broken up. There was no use thinking about Tom. He had stopped that as soon as he had heard.
There was no use thinking about the others. He had lost them, too, and there was no use thinking about them. He had traded in remorse for another horse that he was riding now. So lie here now and feel clean from the soap and the rain and do a good job at nonthinking. You learned to do it quite well for a while. Maybe you will go to sleep and have funny or good dreams. Just lie quiet and watch the night and don’t think. Ara or Henry will wake you if Peters gets anything.
He was asleep in a little while. He was a boy again and riding up a steep canyon. The canyon opened out and there was a sandbar by the clear river that was so clear he could see the pebbles in the bed of the stream and then watch the cutthroat trout at the foot of the pool as they rose to flies that floated down the current. He was sitting on his horse and watching the trout rise when Ara woke him.
The message read CONTINUE SEARCH CAREFULLY WESTWARD with the code name at the end.
“Thanks,” he said. “Let me have anything else.”
“Of course. Go back to sleep, Tom.”
“I was having a fine dream.”
“Don’t tell it to me,” Ara said. “And maybe it will come true.”
He went to sleep again and when he went to sleep he smiled because he thought that he was carrying out orders and continuing the search westward. I have her pretty far west, he thought. I don’t think they meant this far west.
He slept and he dreamed that the cabin was burned and someone had killed his fawn that had grown into a young buck. Someone had killed his dog and he found him by a tree and he woke sweating.
I guess dreams aren’t the solution, he said to himself. I might as well take it the same as always without any hope of anesthetics. Go on and think it out.
All you have now is a basic problem and your intermediate problems. That is all you have so you better like it. You will never have good dreams any more so you might as well not sleep. Just rest and use your head until it won’t work any more, and when you go to sleep, expect to have the horrors. The horrors were what you won in that big crap game that they run. You put it on the line and made your point and let it ride and finally you dragged down the gift of uneasy unpleasant sleep.
You damned near dragged down not sleeping at all. But you traded that in for what you have so you might as well like it. You’re sleepy now. So sleep and figure to wake up sweating. And what of it? Nothing at all of it. But do you remember when you used to sleep all night with the girl and always happy and never woke unless she woke you to make love? Remember that, Thomas Hudson, and see how much good it will do you.
I wonder how many dressings they have for that other wounded character? If they had time to get dressings they had time to get other stuff, too. What stuff? What do you think they have besides what you know they have? I don’t think much. Maybe pistols and a few machine pistols. Maybe some demolition charges they could make something out of. I have to figure that they have the machine gun. But I don’t think so. They wouldn’t want to fight.
They want to get the hell away and on a Spanish ship. If they had been in shape to fight they would have come back that night and taken Confites. Maybe no. Maybe something made them suspicious and they saw our drums on the beach and thought we might be basing there nights. They wouldn’t know what we were.
But they would see the drums and figure there was something around that burned plenty of gas. Then too they probably didn’t want to fight with their wounded. But the boat with the wounded could have laid off at night while they came in and took the wireless station if they wanted to get off with that other sub. I wonder what happened with her. There’s something very strange about that.
Think about something cheerful. Think about how you start with the sun at your back. And remember they have local knowledge now, along with all that salt fish, and you are going to have to use your head. He went to sleep and slept quite well until two hours before daylight when the sand flies awakened him. Thinking about the problems had made him feel better and he slept without dreaming.
XII
THEY LEFT BEFORE THE SUN WAS UP and Thomas Hudson steered down the channel that was like a canal with the gray banks showing on either side. By the time the sun was up he was out through the cut between the shoals and he steered due north to get into blue water and past the dangerous rocky heads of the outer reef. It was a little longer than running on the Inside but it was much safer.
When the sun rose, there was no wind and not enough swell for the sea to break on any of the rocks. The day would be hot and muggy, he knew, and there would be squalls in the afternoon.
His mate came up and looked around. Then he looked carefully at the land and along it to where the high, ugly tower of the light showed.
“We could have run down easily on the inside.”
“I know it,” Thomas Hudson said. “But I thought this was better.”
“Another day like yesterday. But hotter.”
“They can’t make much time.”
“They can’t make any time. They’re becalmed somewhere. You’re going to check with the light whether they went into the cut between Paredón and Coco, aren’t you?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll go in. I know the keeper. You can lay just inside the little key at the tip. I won’t be gone long,” Antonio said.
“I don’t even need to anchor.”
“You’ve got plenty of strong-backed people to get anchors up.”
“Send up Ara and Willie if they’ve eaten. Nothing should show here this close to the light and you can’t see a damned thing looking into the sun. But send up George and Henry, too. We might as well do it right.”
“Remember the rocks make right up to your blue water here, Tom.”
“I remember and I can see them.”
“Do you want your tea cold?”
“Please. And a sandwich. Send the men up first.”
“They’ll be right up. I’ll send the tea up and have everything ready to go ashore.”
“Be careful how you talk to them.”
“That’s why I am going in.”
“Put out a couple of lines, too. It will look better coming in on the light.”
“Yes,” his mate said. “We might get something we could give them at the light.”
The four came up and took their usual posts and Henry said, “Did you see anything, Tom?”
“One turtle with a sea gull flying around him. I thought he was going to perch on his back. But he didn’t.”
“Mi capitán,” said George, who was a taller Basque than Ara and a good athlete and fine seaman, but not nearly as strong as Ara in many ways.
“Mi señor obispo,” said Thomas Hudson.
“OK, Tom,” George said. “If I see any really big submarines do you want me to tell you?”
“If
