He heard the .50’s start slamming and he waved Ara and Willie in. They came in as fast as the little motor would bring them. Willie was firing all the time until they were under the lee of the ship.
Willie jumped aboard and came up on the flying bridge while Ara made the dinghy fast.
He looked at Tom and at Gil who was putting a tourniquet on his left leg as close to the crotch as he could tighten it.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “What you got, Tommy?”
“I don’t know,” Thomas Hudson said. He did not know, either. He could not see any of the wounds. All he saw was the color of the blood and it was dark so he did not worry. But there was too much of it and he felt very sick.
“What’s in there, Willie?”
“I don’t know. There was a guy with a burp gun fired on us and I got him. Or I’m pretty sure I did.”
“I didn’t hear it with the noise you made.”
“You guys sounded like an ammunition dump going up. Do you think there’s anything still back there?”
“Still, maybe. We gave it the treatment.”
“We’ll have to work it out,” Willie said.
“We can let these sons of bitches hang and rattle,” Thomas Hudson said. “Or we can go in now and finish it.”
“I’d rather take care of you.”
Henry was probing with the .50’s. He was as delicate as he was rough with a machine gun and with a pair of them all his qualities were doubled.
“Do you know where they are, Willie?”
“There’s only one place they can be.”
“Then let’s go in blasting and blow the shit out of them.”
“Spoken like an officer and a gentleman,” Willie said. “We sunk their skiff.”
“Oh. We didn’t hear that either,” Thomas Hudson said.
“It didn’t make much noise,” Willie said. “Ara chopped her open with a machete and cut the sail up. Christ couldn’t repair her in a month the best day he was in that carpenter shop.”
“You get up forward with Henry and George and have Ara and Antonio on the starboard side and let’s go in,” Thomas Hudson said. He felt very sick and strange, although there was no dizziness yet. The dressings Gil had put on contained the bleeding too easily and he knew it was internal. “Put lots of fire on and you signal me how to go. How close are they?”
“Right up against the shore behind the little rise of ground.”
“Can Gil reach it all right with the big ones?”
“I’ll shoot tracers to show him the target.”
“They’ll still be there?”
“They got no place to go. They saw us break up the skiff. They’re fighting Custer’s Last Stand in the mangroves. Christ, I wish I had some Anheuser Busch.”
“Ice cold in cans,” Thomas Hudson said. “Let’s get in.”
“You’re awfully white, Tommy,” Willie said. “And you’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“Let’s take her in fast then,” Thomas Hudson said. “I’m still all right.”
They closed fast with Willie with his head up over the starboard bow sometimes waving a correction.
Henry was traversing before and behind the rise that showed by the higher trees and George was working on what should be the lip of the rise.
“How is it, Willie?” Thomas Hudson said into the tube.
“You got enough hulls up here to start a brass foundry,” Willie answered. “Lay her goddam bow up against the bank and swing her broadside so Ara and Antonio can bear.”
Gil thought he saw something and fired. But it was the low branch of a tree that Henry had cut loose.
Thomas Hudson watched the bank come closer and closer until he could see individual leaves again. Then he swung her broadside until he heard Antonio firing and saw his tracers going in a little to the right of Willie’s. Ara was firing now, too. Then he came a little astern on his motors and swung her close to the bank but not so close that Gil could not throw.
“Throw an extinguisher,” he said. “Where Willie’s been shooting.”
Gil threw and again Thomas Hudson marvelled at the throw and at the shine of the brass cylinder whirling high through the air to drop almost exactly where it should. There was the flash and the roar and then the rising smoke and then Thomas Hudson saw a man walking toward them out of the smoke with his hands clasped over his head.