“Of course,” Thomas Hudson said. “There is no doubt of it at all.”
“Please forgive me if I am ever stupid,” Henry said.
“You were forgiven when you were born,” Thomas Hudson said. “You are a very brave boy, Henry, and I am fond of you and trust you. You’re not stupid either.”
“You truly think we will have a fight?”
“I know it. Do not think about that. Think about details. Think about all the things you should do and how we should be a happy ship until we fight. I’ll think about the fight.”
“I will go and do my duty as well as I can,” Henry said. “I wish we could practice the fight so I could do my part better.”
Thomas Hudson said, “You’ll do it all right. I do not see any way that we can miss it.”
“It’s been so very long,” Henry said.
“But everything is long,” Thomas Hudson told him. “And pursuit is the longest.”
“Get some sleep,” Henry said. “You never sleep any more.”
“I’ll sleep,” Thomas Hudson said.
“Where do you suppose they lost their own boat, Tom?” Ara asked.
“They got these boats here and they did away with these people a week ago, say. So they must be the one that Camagüey claimed. But they got somewhere close to here before they lost her. They didn’t sail any rubber boats into that wind.”
“Then they must have lost her east of here.”
“Naturally. And they were damned well in the clear when they lost her,” Thomas Hudson said.
“It was still a long way home,” Henry said.
“It is going to be a longer way home now,” Ara said.
“They’re funny people,” Thomas Hudson said. “They’re all brave and some of them are so damned admirable. Then they have mean ones like this.”
“We better go and do our work,” Ara said. “We can talk tonight on watch to keep awake. You get some rest, Tom.”
“Get some sleep,” Henry said.
“Rest is as good as sleep.”
“No it isn’t,” Ara said. “You need sleep, Tom.”
“I’ll try to get some,” Thomas Hudson said. But when they were gone he could not sleep.
What did they have to do this rotten thing here for? he thought. We will get them anyway. All these people would have done was tell us how many they were and how they were armed. I suppose that was worth killing for, from their standpoint. Especially if they thought of these people as Negroes. But all that shows something about them. To have killed like that they must have some plan and they must have some hope of being picked up. Also there must have been dissension about the plan or they would not have done this murdering here of the sailor. That could be an execution for anything, though. He might have let her go down when she could have been kept up to make the try to get home.
Where does that bring us? he thought. You can’t bank on that. It is only a possibility. But if it was true it would mean she went down in sight of land and fast. That would mean they would not have much stuff. Maybe the boy did not do it and was falsely accused.
You don’t know how many boats they have because there could be a boat or two boats from here out turtling. There is nothing to do but think around it and check your keys.
But suppose they have crossed the Old Bahama channel and hit the Cuban coast? Sure, he thought. Why didn’t you think of that before? That’s the best thing for them to do.
If they do that they can make for home on a Spanish boat out of Havana. There is a screening at Kingston. But that is an easier chance to take and you know plenty of people have beaten it. That damned Peters with his radio out. FCC, he thought. Frankly Can’t Communicate. Then we got the beauty big one and it was too much radio for him. I don’t know how he has fucked it. But he couldn’t get Guantánamo last night on our call hour and if he doesn’t get her tonight we are on our own. The hell with it, he thought. There are worse places to be than on your own. Get some sleep now, he said to himself. There is nothing you can do now that is sounder than that.
He moved his shoulders against the sand and went to sleep with the roaring of the surf on the reef.
III
While Thomas Hudson was asleep he dreamed that his son Tom was not dead and that the other boys were all right and that the war was over. He dreamed that Tom’s mother was sleeping with him and she was sleeping on top of him as she liked to do sometimes. He felt all of this and the tangibility of her legs against his legs and her body against his and her breasts against his chest and her mouth was playing against his mouth. Her hair hung down and lay heavy and silky on his eyes and on his cheeks and he turned his lips away from her searching ones and took the hair in his mouth and held it. Then with one hand he moistened the .357 Magnum and slipped it easily and sound asleep where it should be. Then he lay under her weight with her silken hair over his face like a curtain and moved slowly and rhythmically.
That was when Henry put the light blanket over him and Thomas Hudson said, asleep, “Thank you for being so moist and lovely and for pressing on me so hard. Thank you for coming back so quickly and for not being too thin.”
“The poor son of a bitch,” Henry said and covered him carefully. He went away carrying two wicker five-gallon demijohns on his shoulders.
“I thought you wanted me thin, Tom,” the woman said in the dream. “You said I felt like a young goat when I was thin and that nothing felt better than a young goat.”
“You,” he said. “Who’s going to make love to who?”
“Both of us,” she said. “Unless you want it differently.”
“You make love to me. I’m tired.”
“You’re just lazy. Let me take the pistol off and put it by your leg. The pistol’s in the way of everything.”
“Lay it by the bed,” he said. “And make everything the way it should be.”
Then it was all the way it should be and she said, “Should I be you or you be me?”
“You have first choice.”
“I’ll be you.”
“I can’t be you. But I can try.”
“It’s fun. You try it. Don’t try to save yourself at all. Try to lose everything and take everything too.”
“All right.”
“Are you doing it?”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s wonderful.”
“Do you know now what we have?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes I know. It’s easy to give up.”
“Will you give up everything? Are you glad I brought back the boys and that I come and be a devil in the night?”
“Yes. I’m glad of everything and will you swing your hair across my face and give me your mouth please and hold me so tight it kills me?”
“Of course. And you’ll do it for me?”
When he woke he touched the blanket and he did not know, for an instant, that it was a dream. Then he lay on his side and felt the pistol holster between his legs and how it was really and all the hollownesses in him were twice as hollow and there was a new one from the dream. He saw it was still light and he saw the dinghy carrying water to his ship and he saw the white pounding of the surf on the reef. He turned on his side and tucked the blanket around himself and slept on his arms. He was asleep when they came to wake him and he had not dreamed at all this time.
IV
He steered all that night and he had Ara on the flying bridge with him until midnight and then Henry. They were running with a heavy beam sea and steering was like riding a horse downhill, he thought. It is all downhill and sometimes it is across the side of a hill. The sea is many hills and in here it is a broken country like the badlands.
“Talk to me,” he said to Ara.