ISLANDS IN THE STREAM

“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.”

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