“Where did you learn about centaurs?”
“I read it in a book, Tommy. I’m educated. I’m educated far beyond my years.”
“You’re a good old son of a bitch,” Thomas Hudson told him. “Now get the hell down and do what I told you.”
“Yes sir. Tommy, when we finish this cruise will you let me buy one of the sea paintings out at the joint?”
“Don’t shit me.”
“I’m not doing that. Maybe the hell you don’t understand all the time.”
“That could be. Maybe all my life.”
“Tommy, I kid a lot. But you chased pretty.”
“We’ll see tomorrow. Tell Henry to bring a drink up. But I don’t want any.”
“No, Tommy. All we have tonight is a simple fight and I don’t think we’ll have it.”
“All right,” said Thomas Hudson. “Send it up. And get down off this fucking bridge and get to work.”
XX
Henry passed the two drinks up and swung up himself after them. He stood beside Thomas Hudson and leaned forward to look at the shadow of the far keys. There was a thin moon in the first quarter of the sky to the westward.
“Here’s to your good health, Tom,” Henry said. “I didn’t look at the moon over my left shoulder.”
“She’s not new. She was new last night.”
“Of course. And we didn’t see her for the squall.”
“That’s right. How’s everything below?”
“Excellent, Tom. Everybody’s working and cheerful.”
“How are Willie and Ara?”
“They drank a little rum, Tom, and it made them very cheerful. But they’re not drinking now.”
“No. They wouldn’t.”
“I look forward to this very much,” Henry said. “So does Willie.”
“I don’t. But it’s what we are here to do. You see, we want prisoners, Henry.”
“I know.”
“Because they made that mistake on the massacre key they don’t want to be taken prisoner.”
“I think that’s putting it mildly,” Henry said. “Do you think they will try to jump us tonight?”
“No. But we have to be alerted in case they do.”
“We will be. But what do you really think they are going to do, Tom?”
“I can’t figure it, Henry. If they are really desperate they will try for the ship. If they have a radio operator left, he could fix our radio up and they could go across to Anguilas and just call a taxi and wait for it to take them home. They have every reason to try for the ship. Somebody could always have talked around Havana and they might know what we are.”
“Who would talk?”
“Never speak ill of the deads,” Thomas Hudson said. “But I’m afraid he might have when he was drinking.”
“Willie is sure he did.”
“Does he know anything?”
“No. He’s just sure.”
“It’s a possibility. But they could also just try to make the mainland and make their way overland to Havana and get a Spanish ship out. Or an Argentine ship. But they don’t want to be picked up on account of the massacre business. So I think they’ll try something desperate.”
“I hope so.”
“If we can set it up,” Thomas Hudson said.
But nothing happened all night long except the movement of the stars and the steady blowing of the east wind and the sucking of the currents past the ship. There was much phosphorescence in the water from the weed that the big tides and the sea made by the wind had torn up from the bottom, and it floated in and out and in again like cold strips and patches of white, unhealthy fire in the water.
The wind dropped a little before dawn and when it was light Thomas Hudson lay down and slept on the deck, lying en his belly with his face against a corner of the canvas. Antonio covered him and his weapon with a piece of canvas but Thomas Hudson was asleep and did not feel it.
Antonio took over the watch and when the tide was high so they swung free, he woke Thomas Hudson. They got the anchors in and started in with the dinghy going ahead and sounding and staking any dubious points. The water on this flood tide was clean and clear by now and the piloting was difficult but not as it had been the day before. They had staked a branch of a tree in the channel where they had grounded the day before and Thomas Hudson looked back and saw its green leaves moving in the current.