“I’m going to give you a couple more in a little while,” I told him. “I know you haven’t got any cojones unless you’ve got rum and there isn’t much on board. So you’d better go easy.”
“Tell me what’s up,” said Eddy.
“Listen,” I said, talking to him in the dark. “We’re going to Bacuranao and pick up twelve Chinks. You take the wheel when I tell you to and do what I tell you to. We’ll take the twelve Chinks on board and we’ll lock them below forward. Go on forward now and fasten the hatch from the outside.”
He went up and I saw him shadowed against the dark. He came back and he said, “Harry, can I have one of those now?”
“No,” I said. “I want you rum-brave. I don’t want you useless.”
“I’m a good man, Harry. You’ll see.”
“You’re a rummy,” I said. “Listen. One Chink is going to bring those twelve out. He’s going to give me some money at the start. When they’re all on board he’s going to give me some more money. When you see him start to hand me money the second time you put her ahead and hook her up and head her out to sea. Don’t you pay any attention to what happens. You keep her going out no matter what happens. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“If any Chink starts bursting out of the cabin or coming through the hatch, once we’re out and under way, you take that pump-gun and blow them back as fast as they come out. Do you know how to use the pump-gun?”
“No. But you can show me.”
“You’d never remember. Do you know how to use the Winchester?”
“Just pump the lever and shoot it.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Only don’t shoot any holes in the hull.”
“You’d better give me that other drink,” Eddy said.
“All right. I’ll give you a little one.”
I gave him a real one. I knew they wouldn’t make him drunk now; not pouring them into all that fear. But each one would work for a little while. After he drank this Eddy said, just as though he was happy, “So we’re going to run Chinks. Well, by God, I always said I’d run Chinamen if I was ever broke.”
“But you never got broke before, eh?” I said to him. He was funny all right.
I gave him three more drinks to keep him brave before it was half-past ten. It was funny watching him and it kept me from thinking about it myself. I hadn’t figured on all this wait. I’d planned to leave after dark, run out, just out of the glare, and coast along to Cojimar.
At a little before eleven I saw the two lights show on the point. I waited a little while and then I took her in slow. Bacuranao is a cove where there used to be a big dock for loading sand. There is a little river that comes in when the rains open the bar across the mouth. The northers, in the winter, pile the sand up and close it.
They used to go in with schooners and load guavas from the river and there used to be a town. But the hurricane took it and it is all gone now except one house that some gallegos built out of the shacks the hurricane blew down and that they use for a clubhouse on Sundays when they come out to swim and picnic from Havana. There is one other house where the delegate lives but it is back from the beach.
Each little place like that all down the coast has a government delegate, but I figured the Chink must use his own boat and have him fixed. As we came in I could smell the sea grape and that sweet smell from the brush you get off the land.
“Get up forward,” I said to Eddy.
“You can’t hit anything on that side,” he said. “The reef’s on the other side as you go in.” You see, he’d been a good man once.
“Watch her,” I said, and I took her in to where I know they could see us. With no surf they could hear the engine. I didn’t want to wait around, not knowing whether they saw us or not, so I flashed the running lights on once, just the green and red, and turned them off. Then I turned her and headed her out and let her lay there, just outside, with the engine just ticking. There was quite a little swell that close in.
“Come on back here,” I said to Eddy and I gave him a real drink.
“Do you cock it first with your thumb?” he whispered to me. He was sitting at the wheel now, and I had reached up and had both the cases open and the butts pulled out about six inches.
“That’s right.”
“Oh, boy,” he said.
It certainly was wonderful what a drink would do to him and how quick.
We lay there and I could see a light from the delegate’s house back through the brush. I saw the two lights on the point go down, and one of them moving off around the point. They must have blown the other one out.
Then, in a little while, coming out of the cove, I see a boat come toward us with a man sculling. I could tell by the way he swung back and forth. I knew he had a big oar. I was pretty pleased. If they were sculling that meant one man.
They came alongside.
“Good evening, captain,” said Mr. Sing.
“Come astern and put her broadside,” I said to him.
He said something to the kid who was sculling but he couldn’t scull her backwards, so I took hold of the gunwale and passed her astern. There were eight men in the boat. The six Chinks, Mr. Sing, and the kid sculling. While I was pulling her astern I was waiting for something to hit me on top of the head but nothing did. I straightened up and let Mr. Sing hold onto the stern.
“Let’s see what it looks like,” I said.
He handed it to me and I took the roll of it up to where Eddy was at the wheel and put on the binnacle light. I looked at it carefully. It looked all right to me and I turned off the light. Eddy was trembling.
“Pour yourself one,” I said. I saw him reach for the bottle and tip it up.
I went back to the stern.
“All right,” I said. “Let six come on board.”
Mr. Sing and the Cuban that sculled were having a job holding their boat from knocking in what little swell there was. I heard Mr. Sing say something in Chink and all the Chinks in the boat started to climb onto the stern.
“One at a time,” I said.
He said something again, and then one after another six Chinks came over the stern. They were all lengths and sizes.
“Show them forward,” I said to Eddy.
“Right this way, gentlemen,” said Eddy. By God, I knew he had taken a big one.
“Lock the cabin,” I said, when they were all in.
“Yes, sir,” said Eddy.
“I will return with the others,” said Mr. Sing.
“O.K.,” I told him.
I pushed them clear and the boy with him started sculling off.
“Listen,” I said to Eddy. “You lay off that bottle. You’re brave enough now.”
“O.K., chief,” said Eddy.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“This is what I like to do,” said Eddy. “You say you just pull it backward with your thumb?”
“You lousy rummy,” I told him. “Give me a drink out of that.”
“All gone,” said Eddy. “Sorry, chief.”
“Listen. What you have to do now is watch when he hands me the money and put her ahead.”
“O.K., chief,” said Eddy.
I reached up and took the other bottle and got the corkscrew and drew the cork. I took a good drink and went back to the stern, putting the cork in tight and laying the bottle behind two wicker jugs full of water.
“Here comes Mr. Sing,” I said to Eddy.
“Yes, sir,” said Eddy.
The boat came out sculling toward us.
He brought her astern and I let them do the holding on. Mr. Sing had hold of the roller we had across the stern to slide a big fish aboard.
“Let them come aboard,” I said, “one at a time.”
Six more assorted Chinks came on board over the stern.
“Open up and show them forward,” I told Eddy.
“Yes, sir,” said Eddy.
“Lock the cabin.”
“Yes, sir.”
I saw he was at the wheel.
“All right, Mr. Sing,” I said. “Let’s see the rest of it.”
He put his hand in his pocket and reached the money out toward me. I reached for it and grabbed his wrist with the money in his hand, and as he came forward on the stern I grabbed his throat with the other hand. I felt her start and then churn ahead as she hooked up and I was plenty busy with Mr. Sing but I could see the Cuban standing in the stern of the boat holding the sculling oar as we pulled away from her through all the flopping and bouncing Mr. Sing was doing. He was flopping and bouncing worse than any dolphin on a gaff.
I got his arm around behind him and came up on it but I brought it too far because I felt it go. When it went he made a funny little noise and came forward, me holding him throat and all, and bit me in the shoulder. But when I felt the arm go I dropped it.
It wasn’t any good to him any more and I took him by
