Ara came up on the bridge and said, “It’s good holding-ground, Tom. We have them in there good with a trip line to the big one. When we raise the big one we can get out fast. We buoyed both the stern anchors with trip lines.”
“I saw. Thank you.”
“Don’t feel bad, Tom. The sons of bitches may be just behind that other key.”
“I don’t feel bad. I just feel delayed.”
“It’s not like smashing up a car or losing a ship. We’re just aground waiting for a tide.”
“I know.”
“Both wheels are sound. She’s just in mud up to her ass.”
“I know. I put her there.”
“She’ll come off as easy as she went in.”
“Sure she will.”
“Tom. Are you worried about anything?”
“What would I be worried about?”
“Nothing. I only worried if you were worried.”
“The hell with worry,” Thomas Hudson said. “You and Gil go down. See everybody eats well and is cheerful. Afterwards we’ll go in and check that key. That’s all there is to do.”
“Willie and I can go now. We don’t have to eat.”
“No. I’m going in later with Willie and Peters.”
“Not me?”
“No. Peters speaks German. Don’t tell him he’s going in. Just wake him up and see he drinks plenty of coffee.”
“Why can’t I go, too?”
“The dinghy is too damn small.”
Gil left him the big glasses and went down with Ara. Thomas Hudson studied the key carefully with the big glasses and saw that the mangroves were too high for him to learn anything about what was inside. There were other trees mixed with the mangroves on the solid part of the key and they brought the height up even more so that he could not possibly see if there was any mast showing in the horseshoe-shaped shelter on the far side. The big glasses hurt his eyes and he put them in their case and hung the strap of the case on a hook and laid the glasses flat on the frag rack.
He was happy to be alone again on the flying bridge and he relaxed for the short time of his reprieve. He watched the shore birds working on the flats and he remembered what they had meant to him when he was a boy. He could not feel the same about them now and he had no wish to kill them ever. But he remembered the early days with his father in a blind on some sand-spit with tin decoys out and how they would come in as the tide lowered and bared the flats and how he would whistle the flock in as they were circling. It was a sad whistle and he made it now and turned one flock. But they veered off from the stranded ship and went far out to feed.
He swept the horizon with the big glasses once and there was no sign of any boat. Maybe they have made it out through the new channel and into the inside passage, he thought. It would be nice if someone else caught them. We can’t catch them now without a fight. They will not surrender to a dinghy.
He had been thinking so long in their heads that he was tired of it. I am really tired finally, he thought. Well, I know what I have to do, so it is simple. Duty is a wonderful thing. I do not know what I would have done without duty since young Tom died. You could have painted, he told himself.
Or you could have done something useful. Maybe, he thought. Duty is simpler.
This is useful, he thought. Do not think against it. It helps to get it over with. That’s all we are working for. Christ knows what there is beyond that. We’ve chased these characters quite well and now take a ten-minute break and then proceed with your duty. The hell with quite well, he thought. We’ve chased them very well.
“Don’t you want to eat, Tom?” Ara called up.
“I don’t feel hungry, kid,” Thomas Hudson said. “I’ll take the bottle of cold tea that’s on the ice.”
Ara handed it up and Thomas Hudson took it and relaxed against the corner of the flying bridge. He drank from the bottle of cold tea and watched the biggest key that was ahead. The mangrove roots were showing plainly now and the key looked as though it were on stilts. Then he saw a flight of flamingoes coming from the left. They were flying low over the water, lovely to see in the sunlight.
Their long necks were slanted down and their incongruous legs were straight out; immobile while their pink and black wings beat, carrying them toward the mud bank that was ahead and to the right. Thomas Hudson watched them and marvelled at their downswept black and white bills and the rose color they made in the sky, which made their strange individual structures unimportant and still each one was an excitement to him. Then as they came up on the green key he saw them all swing sharply to the right instead of crossing the key.
“Ara,” he called down.
Ara came up and said, “Yes, Tom.”
“Check out three niños with six clips apiece and put them in the boat with a dozen frags and the middle size aid kit. Send Willie up here, please.”
The flamingoes had settled on the bank to the far right and were feeding busily. Thomas Hudson was watching them when Willie said, “Look at those goddam fillamingoes.”
“They spooked flying over the key. I’m pretty sure that boat or another boat is inside there. Do you want to go in with me, Willie?”
“Of course.”
“Did you finish chow?”
“The condemned man ate a hearty lunch.”
“Help Ara, then.”
“Is Ara going with us?”
“I’m taking Peters because he speaks German.”
“Can’t we take Ara instead? I don’t want to be with Peters in a fight.”
“Peters may be able to talk us out of a fight. Listen, Willie. I want prisoners and I don’t want their pilot to get killed.”
“You’re making a lot of conditions, Tom, with them eight or nine maybe and we three. Who the hell knows we know they have the pilot anyway?”
“We know.”
“Let’s not be so fucking noble.”
“I asked you if you wanted to come.”
“I’m coming,” Willie said. “Only that Peters.”
“Peters will fight. Send Antonio and Henry up, will you, please.”
“Do you think they are in there, Tom?” Antonio asked.
“I’m pretty sure.”
“Can’t I go with you, Tom?” Henry asked.
“No. She will only take three. If anything happens to us, try and nail her with the .50’s if she tries to come out on the first of the tide. Afterwards you’ll find her in the long bay. She’ll be damaged. She probably won’t even be able to make it out. Get a prisoner if you can and get into Cayo Francés and check in.”
“Couldn’t I go in instead of Peters?” Henry asked.
“No, Henry. I’m sorry. But he speaks German. You have a good crew,” Thomas Hudson said to Antonio. “If everything goes well with us I’ll leave Willie and Peters on board with whatever there is and bring a prisoner back in the dinghy.”
“Our last prisoner didn’t last very long.”
“I’ll try and bring a good, strong, healthy one. Go on down and see everything is secured. I want to watch the flamingoes for a little while.”
He stood on the flying bridge and watched the flamingoes. It is not just their color, he thought. It’s not just the black on that rose pink. It is their size and that they are ugly in detail and yet perversely beautiful. They must be a very old bird from the earliest times.
He did not watch them through the glasses because he did not want details now. He wanted the roseate mass on the gray brown flat. Two other flocks had come in now and the banks were colored in a way that he would not have dared to paint. Or I would have dared to paint and would have painted, he thought. It is nice to see flamingoes before you make this trip. I better not give them time to worry or to think too much.
He climbed down from the bridge and said, “Gil, get up there and keep your glasses on the key. Henry, if you hear a lot of noise and then the turtle boat should come out from behind the key, shoot her fucking bow off. Everybody get up and glass where the survivors are and you can hunt them tomorrow. Plug the dinghy where she is shot up and use her. The turtle boat has a skiff and you can plug her up and use her too if we don’t damage her too badly.”
Antonio said, “Do you have any other orders?”
“Just keep your bowels open and try to lead clean lives. We’ll be back in a little while. Come on, you two gentlemen bastards. Let’s go.”
“Grandmother always claimed I wasn’t a bastard,” Peters said. “She said I was the nicest-looking, most legitimate little baby in the county.”
“Mother claimed I wasn’t a bastard, too,” Willie said. “Where do you want us, Tom?”
“She trims
