ISLANDS IN THE STREAM

Then he heard the noise of the outboard coming. He could not see it join them from where he lay and then Ara and Willie came up. Ara was sweating and they both were scratched by the brush.

“I am sorry, Tom,” Ara said.

“Shit,” said Thomas Hudson.

“Let’s haul ass out of here,” Willie said, “and I’ll tell you. Ara, get the hell down on the anchor and send Antonio up here to take her.”

“We’re going in to the Central. It’s faster.”

“Smart,” Willie said. “Now don’t talk, Tom, and let me tell you.” He stopped and put his hand on Thomas Hudson’s forehead lightly and reached under the blanket and felt the pulse accurately but very gently.

“Don’t die, you bastard,” he said. “Just hold it and don’t move.”

“Roger,” Thomas Hudson said.

“At the first fight there were three deads,” Willie explained. He was to windward of Thomas Hudson sitting on the deck and he smelled sour of sweat and his bad eye was swung wild again and all the plastic surgery on his face showed white. Thomas Hudson lay very quietly and listened to him.

“They had two burp guns only but they were set up good. Gil’s first extinguisher got them and the .50’s cut the shit out of them. Antonio hit them too. Henry can really shoot the .50’s.”

“He always could.”

“I mean with the heat on. So we detrapped that joint and it is very high now. Ara and I cut all the wires but we left the stuff. She’s OK and I’ll pinpoint the location of these other Krauts on the chart.”

The anchor was up and the motors were turning.

“We didn’t do so good, did we?” Thomas Hudson said.

“They outsmarted us. But we had the firepower. They didn’t do so good either. Don’t say anything to Ara about the prisoner. He feels bad enough. He says he squeezed off before he thought.”

The ship was heading toward the blue hills and gathering speed.

“Tommy,” Willie said. “I love you, you son of a bitch, and don’t die.”

Thomas Hudson looked at him without moving his head.

“Try and understand if it isn’t too hard.”

Thomas Hudson looked at him. He felt far away now and there were no problems at all. He felt the ship gathering her speed and the lovely throb of her engines against his shoulder blades which rested hard against the boards. He looked up and there was the sky that he had always loved and he looked across the great lagoon that he was quite sure, now, he would never paint and he eased his position a little to lessen the pain. The engines were around three thousand now, he thought, and they came through the deck and into him.

“I think I understand, Willie,” he said.

“Oh shit,” Willie said. “You never understand anybody that loves you.”

THE END.

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