There was no sign of any boats.
“We’re really close to them, I think. Get in fast with Antonio and tell me what you find. I’ll lay her in right along the bank. Tell them to stay at their stations and act natural.”
The dinghy spun and moved in to the beach. Thomas Hudson watched Antonio and Ara walking toward the thatched shack. They were moving as fast as they could without running. They called to the shack and a woman came out. She was dark as a sea Indian and was barefooted and her long hair hung down almost to her waist. While she talked, another woman came out. She was dark, too, and long-haired and she carried a baby. As soon as she finished speaking, Ara and Antonio shook hands with the two women and came back to the dinghy. They shoved off and started the motor and came out.
Antonio and Ara came up onto the flying bridge while the dinghy was being hoisted aboard.
“There were two women,” Antonio said. “The men are outside fishing. The woman with the baby saw a turtle boat go into the channel that goes inside. It went in when this breeze came up.”
“That would be about an hour and a half ago,” Thomas Hudson said. “With the tide falling now.”
“Very strong,” Antonio said. “It is dropping very fast, Tom.”
“When she is down, there is not enough water to carry us through there.”
“No.”
“What do you think?”
“It’s your ship.”
Thomas Hudson swung the helm hard over and put in both motors up to twenty-seven hundred revolutions and headed for the point of the key.
“They may run aground themselves,” he said. “The hell with it.”
“We can anchor if it gets too bad,” Antonio said. “It’s a marl bottom if we run aground. Marl and mud.”
“And rocky spots,” Thomas Hudson said. “Get Gil up here for me to watch for the stakes. Ara, you and Willie check all the weapons. Stay up here, please, Antonio.”
“The channel is a bastard,” Antonio said. “But it is not impossible.”
“She is impossible in low water. But maybe the other son of a bitch will ground, too, or maybe the wind will fail.”
“The wind won’t fail, Tom,” Antonio said. “It’s firm and solid now for the trade wind.”
Thomas Hudson looked at the sky and saw the long white hackles of clouds of the east wind. Then he looked ahead at the point of the main key, at the spot of key and the flats that were beginning to show. There he knew his trouble would start. Then he looked at the mess of keys ahead that showed like green spots on the water.
“Can you pick up the stake yet, Gil?” he asked.
“No, Tom.”
“It’s probably only the branch of a tree or maybe a stick.”
“I can’t see anything yet.”
“It ought to be dead ahead as we go.”
“I see it, Tom. It’s a tall stick. Dead ahead as we go.”
“Thank you,” Thomas Hudson said.
The flats on either side were white yellow in the sun and the tidal stream that came pouring out of the channel was the green water of the inner lagoon. It was not fouled nor cloudy from the marl of the banks because the wind had not had time to raise a sea that would disturb them. This made his piloting easier.
Then he saw how narrow the cut was beyond the stake end and he felt his scalp prickle.
“You can make it, Tom,” Antonio said. “Hang close to the starboard bank. I’ll see the cut when it opens up.”
He hung close to the starboard bank and crawled along. Once he looked to the port bank and saw it was closer than the starboard and he inched over to the right.
“Is she throwing any mud?” he asked.
“Clouds.”
They came to the wicked turn and it was not as bad as he thought it would be. The narrow part they had come through was worse. The wind had risen now and Thomas Hudson felt it blowing strongly on his bare shoulder as they ran broadside to it through this cut.
“The stake is dead ahead,” Gil said. “It’s only a branch of tree.”
“I’ve got it.”
“Hold her hard against the starboard bank, Tom,” Antonio said. “We have this one beat.”
Thomas Hudson hugged the starboard bank as though he were parking a car against a curb. It did not look like a curb, though, but like the indented muddy terrain of an old battlefield, when they fought with great concentrations of artillery, that had suddenly been revealed from the bottom of the ocean and spread out, like a relief map, on his right.
“How much mud are we throwing?”
“Plenty, Tom. We can anchor when we get through this cut. This side of Contrabando. Or in the lee of Contrabando,” Antonio suggested.
Thomas Hudson turned his head and saw Cayo Contrabando looking small and green and cheerful and he said, “The hell with that. Sweep that key and the channel that shows for a turtle boat, please, Gil. I see the next two stakes.”
This channel was easy. But ahead he could see the sandbar on the right that was beginning to uncover. The closer they came to Cayo Contrabando, the narrower the channel became.
“Hold her to port of that stake,” Antonio said.
“That’s what I’m doing.”
They passed the stake which was only a dead branch. It was brown and blowing in the wind and Thomas Hudson thought that with this wind blowing up they would have much less than the Mean Low Water depths.
“How’s our mud?” he asked Antonio.
“Plenty, Tom.”
“Do you see anything, Gil?”
“Only the stakes.”
The water was beginning to be milky now from the sea that had risen with the wind and it was impossible to see the bottom nor the banks except when the ship sucked them dry.
This is no good, Thomas Hudson thought. But it is no good for them either. And they have to tack in it. They must really be sailors. Now I have to decide whether they would take the old channel or the new one. That depends on their pilot. If he is young, he would probably take the new one. That is the one the hurricane blew out. If he is old, he will probably take the old channel from habit and because it is safer.
“Antonio,” he said. “Do you want to take the old canal or the new one?”
“They’re both bad. It doesn’t make much difference.”
“What would you do?”
“I’d anchor in the lee of Contrabando and wait for the tide.”
“We won’t get enough tide to make it in daylight.”
“That’s the problem. You only asked me what I would do.”
“I’m going to try to run the son of a bitch.”
“It’s your ship, Tom. But if we don’t catch them, somebody else will.”
“But why isn’t Cayo Francés flying patrols over all this all the time?”
“They made their patrol this morning. Didn’t you see it?”
“No. And why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you saw it. One of those baby seaplanes.”
“Shit,” Thomas Hudson said. “It must have been when I was in the head and the generator was running.”
“Well, it doesn’t make any difference now,” Antonio said. “But, Tom, the next two stakes are out.”
“Can you see the next two stakes, Gil?”
“I can’t see any stakes.”
“The hell with it,” Thomas Hudson said. “All I have to do is hug that next chickenshit little key and keep off the sand-spit that runs north and south of it. Then we’ll case that bigger key with the mangroves and then we’ll try for the old or the new channel.”
“The east wind is blowing all the water out.”
“The hell with the east wind,” Thomas Hudson said. As he said the words, they sounded like a basic and older blasphemy than any that could have to do with the Christian religion. He knew that he was speaking against one of the great friends of all people who go to sea. So since he had made the blasphemy he did not apologize. He repeated it.