The skiff must be a sturdy craft. Thomas Hudson had no radio operator and it was therefore impossible to give a description of the skiff and nobody would be looking for her. Then, if they wanted to, and had the will to try it they could try to assault the ship at night. That seemed extremely unlikely.
Thomas Hudson thought it out as carefully as he could. Finally, he decided, I believe that they will go inside the mangroves and haul the skiff in and hide it. If we go in after them, they can ambush us easily. Then they will run for the open inside bay and push on and try and pass Cayo Francés at night. That is easy. They may pick up supplies, or raid for them, and they will keep on pushing to the westward and try to make one of the German outfits around Havana where they will hide them and pick them up. They can easily get a better boat.
They can jump one. Or steal one. I have to report at Cayo Francés and deliver Peters and get my orders. The trouble won’t come until Havana. There’s a lieutenant commanding at Cayo Francés and we won’t have any trouble there and they can keep Peters.
I have enough ice to handle him to there and I gas there and get ice at Caibarién.
We are going to get these characters for better or for worse. But I am not going to put Willie and Ara and Henry into one of those burp-gun massacres in the mangroves for fuck-all nothing. There are eight of them, anyway, from the looks of everything on board. I had a chance to catch them today with their pants down and I blew it because they were too smart or too lucky and they are always efficient.
We’ve lost one man and he is our radio operator. But we have cut them down to a skiff now. If I see the skiff we will destroy it and blockade the island and hunt them down on it. But I’m not going to stick our necks into any of those eight against three traps. If it is my ass afterwards, it is my ass. It is going to be my ass, anyway. Now that I’ve lost Peters. If I lost any irregulars, nobody would give a damn. Except me and the ship.
I wish they would get back, he thought. I don’t want those bastards coming out to see what gives aboard this vessel and have the battle of no-name key by myself. I wonder what they are doing in there, anyway? Maybe they went for oysters. Willie mentioned the oysters. Maybe they just didn’t want to be on this turtle boat in daylight if a plane came over and spotted her. But they must know the hours those planes work on by now. Hell, I wish they would come out and get it over with. I’ve got good cover and they’d have to get in range before they try to come aboard. Why do you suppose that wounded man didn’t open up on us when we came over the side? He must have heard the outboard. Maybe he was asleep. The outboard makes very little noise anyway.
There are too many whys in this business, he thought, and I am not at all sure I have it figured properly. Maybe I should not have jumped the boat. But I think I had to do that. We sunk the boat and lost Peters and killed one man. That is not very brilliant but it still adds up.
He heard the hum of the outboard and turned his head. He saw her coming around the point but he could only see one man in her. It was Ara in the stern. But he noticed she was loaded deep and he realized that Willie and Henry must be lying flat. Willie’s really smart, he thought. Now the people on the key don’t know but that there may be only one man in the dinghy and they will see it is a different man from the one that took her away. I don’t know whether that is smart or not. But Willie must have figured it.
The dinghy came up in the lee of the turtle boat and Thomas Hudson saw Ara’s great chest, his long arms, and his brown face that was serious now, and he could see the nervous twitching of his legs. Henry and Willie lay flat with their heads on their arms.
When the dinghy came into the lee of the turtle boat that was careened away from the key and Ara held the rail, Willie turned on his side and said, “Get aboard, Henry, and crawl up there with Tom. Ara will hand you your junk. You’ve got Peters’ junk too.”
Henry climbed cautiously up the steep deck on his belly. He took one look at Peters as he crawled by him.
“Hi, Tom,” he said.
Thomas Hudson put his hand on Henry’s arm and said softly, “Get up in the bow and keep absolutely flat. Don’t let anything show over the gunwale.”
“Yes, Tom,” the big man said, and began inching down to crawl up to the bow. He had to crawl over Peters’ legs and he picked up his submachine gun and clips and stuck the clips in his belt. He felt in Peters’ pockets for frags and hung them on his belt. He patted Peters on the legs and holding the two submachine guns by the muzzles he crawled up to his post in the bow.
Thomas Hudson saw him look down into the blasted forward hatch as he crawled up the steep deck over the broken mangroves. His face gave no sign of what he saw there. When he was under the lee of the gunwale, he put the two submachine guns by his right hand and then tested the functioning of Peters’ gun and put in a fresh clip.
He laid the other clips along the gunwale and unhooked the grenades from his belt and laid them out within reach. When he saw him in position and looking out at the greenness of the key, Thomas Hudson turned his head and spoke to Willie who was lying in the bottom of the dinghy with his good and his bad eye shut against the sun. He was wearing a faded khaki shirt with sleeves and ragged shorts and he had a pair of sneakers on. Ara was sitting in the stern and Thomas Hudson noticed his thatch of black hair and the way his big hands gripped the gunwale. His legs were still jumping but Thomas Hudson had known for a long time how nervous he always was before action and how beautiful he was once things started.
“Willie,” Thomas Hudson said. “You have anything figured?”
Willie opened his good eye and kept his bad eye closed against the sun.
“I ask permission to go in on the far side of the key and see what the hell gives. We can’t let them get out of here.”
“I’ll go in with you.”
“No, Tommy. I know this shit and it’s my trade.”
“I don’t want you to go in alone.”
“That’s the only way on this. You trust me, Tommy. Ara will come back here and back up your play if I flush them. He can come in and pick me up on the beach if there isn’t any trouble.”
He had both eyes open and he was looking hard at Thomas Hudson the way a man looks who is trying to sell an appliance to someone who should really have it if they can afford it.
“I’d rather go in with you.”
“Too fucking much noise, Tom. I tell you truly I know this shit good. I’m a fucking expert. You’ll never find anybody like me.”
“OK. Go in,” Thomas Hudson said. “But bust up their skiff.”
“What the hell you think I’m going to do? Go in there and jerk off?”
“If you’re going in, you better get in.”
“Tom. Now you’ve got two traps set. The ship and here. Ara makes you mobile. You have one expendable, medically discharged Marine to lose. What’s holding you up?”
“You talking so much,” Thomas Hudson said. “Get the hell in and shit bless you.”
“Drop dead,” Willie told him.
“You sound in good shape,” Thomas Hudson said and explained rapidly in Spanish to Ara what they were going to do.
“Don’t bother,” Willie said. “I can talk to him lying down.”
Ara said, “I’ll be right back, Tom.”
Thomas Hudson watched him yank the motor alive and watched the dinghy move out with Ara’s broad back and black head in the stern and Willie lying in the bottom. He had turned around so that his head was close to Ara’s feet and he could talk to him.
The good, brave, worthless son of a bitch, Thomas Hudson thought. Old Willie. He made up my mind for me when I was starting to put things off. I would rather have a good Marine, even a ruined Marine, than anything in the world when there are chips down. And we have chips down now. Good luck, Mr. Willie, he thought. And don’t drop dead.
“How are
