“The wind won’t fail, Tom,” Antonio said. “It’s firm and solid now for the trade wind.”
Thomas Hudson looked at the sky and saw the long white hackles of clouds of the east wind. Then he looked ahead at the point of the main key, at the spot of key and the flats that were beginning to show. There he knew his trouble would start. Then he looked at the mess of keys ahead that showed like green spots on the water.
“Can you pick up the stake yet, Gil?” he asked.
“No, Tom.”
“It’s probably only the branch of a tree or maybe a stick.”
“I can’t see anything yet.”
“It ought to be dead ahead as we go.”
“I see it, Tom. It’s a tall stick. Dead ahead as we go.”
“Thank you,” Thomas Hudson said.
The flats on either side were white yellow in the sun and the tidal stream that came pouring out of the channel was the green water of the inner lagoon. It was not fouled nor cloudy from the marl of the banks because the wind had not had time to raise a sea that would disturb them. This made his piloting easier.
Then he saw how narrow the cut was beyond the stake end and he felt his scalp prickle.
“You can make it, Tom,” Antonio said. “Hang close to the starboard bank. I’ll see the cut when it opens up.”
He hung close to the starboard bank and crawled along. Once he looked to the port bank and saw it was closer than the starboard and he inched over to the right.
“Is she throwing any mud?” he asked.
“Clouds.”
They came to the wicked turn and it was not as bad as he thought it would be. The narrow part they had come through was worse. The wind had risen now and Thomas Hudson felt it blowing strongly on his bare shoulder as they ran broadside to it through this cut.
“The stake is dead ahead,” Gil said. “It’s only a branch of tree.”
“I’ve got it.”
“Hold her hard against the starboard bank, Tom,” Antonio said. “We have this one beat.”
Thomas Hudson hugged the starboard bank as though he were parking a car against a curb. It did not look like a curb, though, but like the indented muddy terrain of an old battlefield, when they fought with great concentrations of artillery, that had suddenly been revealed from the bottom of the ocean and spread out, like a relief map, on his right.
“How much mud are we throwing?”
“Plenty, Tom. We can anchor when we get through this cut. This side of Contrabando. Or in the lee of Contrabando,” Antonio suggested.
Thomas Hudson turned his head and saw Cayo Contrabando looking small and green and cheerful and he said, “The hell with that. Sweep that key and the channel that shows for a turtle boat, please, Gil. I see the next two stakes.”
This channel was easy. But ahead he could see the sandbar on the right that was beginning to uncover. The closer they came to Cayo Contrabando, the narrower the channel became.
“Hold her to port of that stake,” Antonio said.
“That’s what I’m doing.”
They passed the stake which was only a dead branch. It was brown and blowing in the wind and Thomas Hudson thought that with this wind blowing up they would have much less than the Mean Low Water depths.
“How’s our mud?” he asked Antonio.
“Plenty, Tom.”
“Do you see anything, Gil?”
“Only the stakes.”
The water was beginning to be milky now from the sea that had risen with the wind and it was impossible to see the bottom nor the banks except when the ship sucked them dry.
This is no good, Thomas Hudson thought. But it is no good for them either. And they have to tack in it. They must really be sailors. Now I have to decide whether they would take the old channel or the new one. That depends on their pilot. If he is young, he would probably take the new one. That is the one the hurricane blew out. If he is old, he will probably take the old channel from habit and because it is safer.
“Antonio,” he said. “Do you want to take the old canal or the new one?”
“They’re both bad. It doesn’t make much difference.”
“What would you do?”
“I’d anchor in the lee of Contrabando and wait for the tide.”
“We won’t get enough tide to make it in daylight.”
“That’s the problem. You only asked me what I would do.”
“I’m going to try to run the son of a bitch.”
“It’s your ship, Tom. But if we don’t catch them, somebody else will.”
“But why isn’t Cayo Francés flying patrols over all this all the time?”
“They made their patrol this morning. Didn’t you see it?”
“No. And why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you saw it. One of those baby seaplanes.”
“Shit,” Thomas Hudson said. “It must have been when I was in the head and the generator was running.”
“Well, it doesn’t make any difference now,” Antonio said. “But, Tom, the next two stakes are out.”
“Can you see the next two stakes, Gil?”
“I can’t see any stakes.”
“The hell with it,” Thomas Hudson said. “All I have to do is hug that next chickenshit little key and keep off the sand-spit that runs north and south of it. Then we’ll case that bigger key with the mangroves and then we’ll try for the old or the new channel.”
“The east wind is blowing all the water out.”
“The hell with the east wind,” Thomas Hudson said. As he said the words, they sounded like a basic and older blasphemy than any that could have to do with the Christian religion. He knew that he was speaking against one of the great friends of all people who go to sea. So since he had made the blasphemy he did not apologize. He repeated it.
“You don’t mean that, Tom,” Antonio said.
“I know it,” Thomas Hudson said. Then he said to himself, making an act of contrition and remembering the verse unexactly, “Blow, blow, thou western wind. That the small rain down may rain. Christ, that my love were in my arms and I in my bed again.” It’s the same goddam wind only with the difference in latitude, he thought. They come from different continents. But they are both loyal and friendly and good. Then he repeated to himself again, Christ, that my love were in my arms and I in my bed again.
The water was so muddy now that there was nothing to steer by except the ranges and the suction the ship made of water from the banks. George was in the bow with the lead and Ara had a long pole. They measured their depths and called back to the bridge.
Thomas Hudson had the feeling that this had happened before in a bad dream. They had run many difficult channels. But this was another thing that had happened sometime in his life. Perhaps it had happened all his life. But now it was happening with such an intensification that he felt both in command and at the same time the prisoner of it.
“Can you make out anything, Gil?” he asked
“Nothing.”
“Do you want Willie up here?”
“No. I see whatever Willie would see.”
“I think he ought to be up anyway.”
“As you wish, Tom.”
Ten minutes later they were aground.
XV
THEY WERE AGROUND ON A PATCH OF MUD and sandy bottom that should have been marked with a stake, and the tide was still falling. The wind was blowing hard and the water was muddy. Ahead was a medium-sized green key that looked set low in the water and there was a scattering of very small keys to the left. To the left and the right there were patches of bare bank that were beginning to show as the water receded. Thomas Hudson watched flocks of shore birds wheeling and settling on the banks to feed.
Antonio had the dinghy over and he and Ara ran out a bow anchor and two light stern anchors.
“Do you think we need another bow anchor?” Thomas Hudson asked Antonio.
“No, Tom. I don’t think so.”
“If the wind rises it can push us against the flood when it comes.”
“I don’t think it will, Tom. But it could.”
“Let’s get a small one out to windward and shift the big one further to leeward. Then we don’t have anything to worry about.”
“All right,” Antonio said. “I’d rather do that than run aground again in a bad place.”
“Yeah,” Thomas Hudson said. “We went into all that before.”
“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
