“Thanks,” Thomas Hudson said. “But I will be a sad son of a bitch before I drink to you until all your radios and you are functioning.”
Peters looked at him and into his face there came the discipline and into his body, which was in bad shape, the carriage of a man who had served three hitches in something that he had believed in and left for something else, as Willie had, and he said, automatically and without reservations, “Yes sir.”
“Drink to you,” Thomas Hudson said. “And crank up all your fucking miracles.”
“Yes, Tom,” Peters said, without any cheating and without reservations.
Well, I guess that is enough of that, Thomas Hudson thought. I better leave it as it lays and go back to the stern and watch my other problem child come aboard. I can never feel about Peters the way the rest of them all feel. I hope I know as well as they do what his defects are. But he has something. He is like the false carried so far that it is made true. It is certain that he is not up to handling what we have. But maybe he is up to much better things.
Willie’s the same, he thought. One is as bad one way as the other. They ought to be in now.
He saw the dinghy coming through the rain and the white drifted water that curled and blew under the lash of the wind. They were both thoroughly wet when they came aboard. They had not used their raincoats but had kept them wrapped around their niños.
“Hi, Tom,” Willie said. “Nothing but a wet ass and a hungry gut.”
“Take these children,” Ara said and handed the wrapped submachine guns aboard.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing multiplied by ten,” Willie said. He was standing on the stern dripping and Thomas Hudson called to Gil to bring two towels.
Ara pulled the dinghy in by her painter and climbed aboard.
“Nothing of nothing of nothing,” he said. “Tom, do we get overtime for rain?”
“We ought to clean those weapons right away,” Willie said.
“We’ll get dry first,” Ara said. “I’m wet enough. First I could never get wet and now I have gooseflesh even on my ass.”
“Tom,” Willie said. “You know those sons of bitches can sail in these squalls if they reef down and have the balls to.”
“I thought of that too.”
“I think they lay up in the daytime with the calm and then run with these afternoon squalls.”
“Where do you put them?”
“I don’t put them past Guillermo. But they could be.”
“We’ll start at daylight and catch them at Guillermo tomorrow.”
“Maybe we’ll find them and maybe they’ll be gone.”
“Sure.”
“Why the hell haven’t we got radar?”
“What good would it do us right now? What do you see in the screen, Willie?”
“I’ll pipe the hell down,” Willie said. “Excuse me, Tom. But chasing something with UHF that hasn’t got a radio … ?”
“I know,” said Thomas Hudson. “But do you want to chase any better than we’ve been chasing?”
“Yes. Is that OK?”
“OK.”
“I want to catch the sons of bitches and kill every one of them.”
“What good would that do?”
“You don’t remember the massacre?”
“Don’t give me any of that massacre shit, Willie. You’ve been around too long for that.”
“OK. I just want to kill them. Is that all right?”
“It’s better than the massacre thing. But I want prisoners from a U-boat operating in these waters who can talk.”
“That last one you had didn’t talk much.”
“No. Neither would you if you were up the creek like he was.”
“OK,” Willie said. “Can I draw a slug of the legal?”
“Sure. Get on dry shorts and a shirt and don’t make trouble.”
“With nobody?”
“Grow up,” Thomas Hudson said.
“Drop dead,” Willie said and grinned.
“That’s the way I like you,” Thomas Hudson told him. “Keep it that way.”
XIV
That night there was heavy lightning and thunder and it rained until about three o’clock in the morning. Peters could get nothing on the radio and they all slept hot and muggy until the sand flies came out after the rain stopped and wakened them, one after the other. Thomas Hudson pumped Flit down below and there was coughing and then less restless moving and slapping.