“What about, Tom?”
“Anything.”
“Peters couldn’t raise Guantánamo again. He has ruined it. The new big one.”
“I know,” Thomas Hudson said and tried to roll her as little as he could, riding the side of the hill. “He’s burnt out something that he can’t repair.”
“He’s listening,” Ara said. “Willie is keeping him awake.”
“Who’s keeping Willie awake?”
“He’s awake good,” Ara said. “He doesn’t sleep any better than you.”
“How about you?”
“I’m good for all night if you want. Don’t you want me to steer?”
“No. I haven’t anything else to do.”
“Tom, how badly do you feel?”
“I don’t know. How badly can you feel?”
“It’s useless,” Ara said. “Would you like the wineskin?”
“No. Bring me up a bottle of cold tea and check on Peters and Willie. Check on everything.”
Ara went down and Thomas Hudson was alone with the night and the sea and he still rode it like a horse going downhill too fast across broken country.
Henry came up with the bottle of cold tea.
“How are we, Tom?” he asked.
“We’re perfect.”
“Peters has the Miami police department on the old radio. All the prowl cars. Willie wants to talk to them. But I told him he couldn’t.”
“Correct.”
“On the UHF, Peters has something squirting in German but he says it is way up with the wolf packs.”
“He couldn’t hear it then.”
“It’s a very funny night, Tom.”
“It’s not that funny.”
“I don’t know. I’m just telling you. Give me the course and let me take her and you go down.”
“Has Peters logged it?”
“Of course.”
“Tell Juan to give me a fix and have Peters log it. When was the son of a bitch squirting?”
“When I came up.”
“Tell Juan to get the fix and log it right away.”
“Yes, Tom.”
“How are all the comic characters?”
“Sleeping. Gil, too.”
“Get the rag out and have Peters log the fix.”
“Do you want it?”
“I know too damn well where we are.”
“Yes, Tom,” Henry said. “Take it easy if you can.”
Henry came up but Thomas Hudson did not feel like talking and Henry stood by him on the flying bridge and braced himself against the roll. After an hour he said, “There’s a light, Tom. Off our starboard bow about twenty degrees.”
“That’s right.”
When he was abeam of it he changed the course and the sea was astern.
“Now she is headed home to pasture,” he said to Henry. “We’re in the channel now. Wake Juan and get him up here and really keep your eyes open. You were late on the light.”
“I’m sorry, Tom. I’ll get Juan. Wouldn’t you like a four-man watch?”
“Not until just before daylight,” Thomas Hudson said. “I’ll give you the word.”
They might have cut across the banks, Thomas Hudson was thinking. But I don’t think they would. They wouldn’t want to cross at night and in daytime the banks wouldn’t look good to deep-water sailors. They’d make their turn where I did. Then they would edge across comfortably the way we are going to do and they would probably hit for the highest part of the Cuban coast that showed. They don’t want to get into any port so they will run with the wind. They will keep outside of Confites because they know there is a radio station there. But they have to get food and they have to get water. Actually they would do best to try to get as close to Havana as they could to land somewhere around Bacuranao and then infiltrate in from there. I’ll send a signal from Confites. I won’t ask him what to do. That will hold us up if he’s away. I’ll tell him what it is and what I’m doing. He can make his own dispositions. Guantánamo can make theirs and Camagüey can make theirs and La Fe theirs and the FBI theirs and maybe something will happen in a week.
Hell, he thought. I’ll get them this week. They’ve got to stop for water and to cook what they have before the animals starve and rot. There’s a good chance they will run only at nights and lay up daytimes. That would be logical. That’s what I would do if I were them. Try to think like an intelligent German sailor with the problems this undersea boat commander has.
He has problems all right, Thomas Hudson thought. And the worst problem he has is us and he doesn’t even know about us. We don’t look dangerous to him. We look good to him.
Don’t take it in any bloodthirsty way, he thought. Nothing of this is going to bring back anything. Use your head and be glad to have something to do and good people to do it with.
“Juan,” he said. “What do you see, boy?”
“All bloody ocean.”
“You other gentlemen see anything?”
“Bloody nothing,” Gil said.
“My bloody belly sees coffee. But it doesn’t come any closer,” Ara said.
“I see land,” Henry said. He had seen it that instant, a low square smudge as though a man’s thumb had daubed weak ink against the lightening sky.
“That’s behind Romano,” Thomas Hudson said. “Thank you, Henry. Now you characters go down for coffee and send up four other desperate men to see strange and amusing things.”
“Do you want coffee, Tom?” Ara asked.
“No. I’ll take tea when it’s made.”
“We’ve only been on watch a couple of hours,” Gil said. “We don’t need to go off, Tom.”
“Go on down and get coffee and give the other desperate men a chance for glory.”
“Tom, didn’t you say you thought they were at Lobos?”
“Yes. But I changed my mind.”
The others had gone down and four were coming up.
“Gentlemen,” Thomas Hudson said. “Split the four quadrants up amongst you. Is there coffee below?”
“Plenty,” his mate said. “And tea. The engines are good and she didn’t make any more water than you would expect in the cross sea.”
“How is Peters?”
“He drank his own whisky in the night. The one with the little lamb on it. But he stayed awake. Willie kept him awake and drank his whisky,” his mate said.
“We have to fill gas at Confites and take on anything else there is.”
“They can load fast and I can kill a pig and scald and scrape him,” his mate said. “I’ll give them a quarter at the radio station to help me and I can butcher him while you are running. You get some sleep while we load. Would you like me to steer?”
“No. I only have to send three signals at Confites and you load and I will sleep. Then we will pursue.”
“Toward home?”
“Of course. They may avoid us for a time. But they cannot escape us. Later we will talk about it. How are they?”
“You know them. We will talk about it later. Steer in a little more, Tom. With the countercurrent you’ll shorten it.”
“Did you lose much with rolling?”
“Nothing that matters. It was a bitch of a beam sea,” his mate said.
“Ya lo creo,” said Thomas Hudson. “I believe it.”
“There should only be the people of this one undersea boat around here. She must surely be the one they claimed sunk. Now they are off La Guayra and above Kingston and on all the petrol lanes. Also they are with the wolf packs.”
“Also they are here sometimes.”
“Yes, for our sins.”
“And for theirs.”
“On this thing we will pursue well and intelligently.”
“Let us get it started,” Thomas Hudson said.
“There has been no delay.”
“It goes slowly for me.”