“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 best with you in the bow. But I’ll take the bow if you like.”
“Get in and steer her,” Willie said. “You got a really good ship now.”
“I got my finger on my number,” Thomas Hudson said. “I’m working up. Come aboard, Mr. Peters.”
“Happy to be on board, admiral,” Peters said.
“Good hunting,” Henry said.
“Drop dead,” Willie called. The motor caught and they were off toward the silhouette of the key that was lower in the water now because of their lack of altitude.
“I’m going alongside and we’ll board her without hailing.”
The two men nodded, one amidships and one in the bow.
“Get your junk hung. I don’t give a shit if it shows,” Thomas Hudson said.
“I don’t know where I’d hide it,” Peters said. “I feel like one of grandma’s mules now.”
“Then be a mule. It’s a fucking good animal.”
“Tom, do I have to remember all that shit about the pilot?”
“Remember it but use your head.”
“Well,” said Peters. “We haven’t any fucking troubles anymore.”
“We better all pipe down,” Thomas Hudson said. “We’ll all three board at the same time and if they are below, you ask them in Kraut to come out with their hands up. We have to stop talking because they can hear voices a long way above the noise of an outboard.”
“What do we do if they don’t come out?”
“Willie throws in a grenade.”
“What do we do if they’re on deck?”
“Sweep the deck according to our sectors. Me the stern. Peters amidships. You the bow.”
“Then do I throw in a grenade?”
“Sure. We ought to get woundeds that we can save. That’s why I brought the kit.”
“I thought that was for us.”
“Us too. Now let’s pipe down. Do you have it clear?”
“Clearer than shit,” Willie said.
“Has there been an issue of asshole corks?” Peters asked.
“They dropped it from the plane this morning. Didn’t you get yours?”