The day was beginning. The thought of it inspired him with an odd sense of assurance. It came to him that a deadline had passed, or something of that nature, and that what distance hadn’t managed, time had brought about.
Even so, the men were there, and obstinately searching on. They had to clean up everyone. He thought: So they expected this… they know us. So they knew one was missing. Me. I’m missing.
That was when he heard the roaring engine of a barge, on its way from the Dorado.
Someone close by whistled.
The voices and the footsteps grew, hurrying from the scrub.
‘Let’s go!’
‘There’s nothing here.’
‘Tough shit. Come on!’
‘The whole thing is a fuck-up.’
‘We haven’t got the time.’
‘We’re just about to find him.’
‘They’re going to land at any moment and we’ll still be here.’
‘Come on, let’s go!’
They jumped across the ditch.
Someone cried:
‘The ditch!’
‘There’s no time. Let’s get out of here!’
Not long after that he heard the growling of the launch, and knew that they were going by the Honda Canal, because the noise crossed right in front of him, was muffled in the bend and then faded on its way towards the north.
The boat arrived and throttled down on seeing what was floating in the middle of the river. Motionless inside the ditch, watching the day as it grew up among the treetops, he imagined it all unfolding. It was probably a barge. He heard the sound of voices and the engine throttled up again. It returned to the Dorado. Others would be coming now. And some would come along the bank, for certain.
He must have gone to sleep. He thought he’d closed his eyes and then had opened them again, nothing more than that. The truth was that he didn’t have a clear idea of anything. All of him was reducing by the minute, to a very small point. And what remained of his body was also something still and stuck against the ground. Something strange, that had fallen there across him, preventing him from moving.
At first the sensations were clear and distinct. The mud, and the dampness that was wetting all his clothes. The fierce pain in his shoulder and the sick void in his stomach and the throbbing in his thigh. The smell of staleness in the walls. And then there was the day. But then he started losing any sense of where the limits were. The fact of being motionless was really what had numbed him, or rather, had bewildered him. Now and then the pain returned and brought him back to life. Pain returned his feelings to a certain kind of order. The thought he couldn’t bear was that he wouldn’t be able to move. He hadn’t really tried to, but his hand still rested against the wall, alien and cold.
He opened up his eyes and saw the ditch was bright in places. One half of his body was now lying in the sunlight. But there was something else. The water was submerging him. He raised his head a little, and noticed that his body was now partly underwater. The toe-ends of his boots protruded, and seemed further away than usual. The river had been rising for an hour, more or less, and on arriving at the level of the ditch, had started filling it. Now the water trickled round his neck. It was hard to hold his head up, but it seemed to him he wouldn’t be able to move himself again if he dropped it in the water even once more. He made a real effort and got up onto his elbows. His intestines seemed to empty out. Now he saw his stomach with its dark stain in the middle, and a thread of blood that slowly turned to water. It was best to do it all at once, given his suffering. He rested on his good side, on the leg that wasn’t injured, and tried to get up on his knees. The water swelled his clothes and, when he made it to his knees, it fell out in a flood. When he moved he’d churned the mud that lay down in the bottom, increasing his disgust. Now up on his knees, his eyes were level with the ground. He smelt the heavy stench of grass, the damp warmth of the earth with its successive beds of rotting leaves. He looked away in front of him and saw the river shining, as if at the end of a tunnel or a passage. The dinghy was still sitting at the entrance to the ditch, the water had refloated it and pinned it to the wall with its pressure. He couldn’t hear a thing. Neither boats nor people. Nothing but the humming of the light on a summer’s day, obstinately rising. He rested on one knee and placed his whole weight on the other leg. Once again the water flooded out from his clothes, and he almost let his body fall. He leaned against the wall. The edge of the ditch was at his chest now and the weeds brushed at his head. He didn’t see a way that he could struggle from the ditch. His feet sank gently down into the mud, with noisy gurglings. And he also had the thought that he was dying. I’m dying…
He didn’t feel surprised. He only felt annoyed at all the things he’d have to go through in the meantime.
He heard a barge far off and tried to move towards the dinghy. Everything would be simpler once he’d made it to the boat.
It seemed somewhat bizarre that he could tolerate such pain. The water reached his knees now. He centred all his efforts on not falling on his face. The thought that he would die buried in one of these ditches was repugnant. This was how Old Nardi died; they’d found him sunk so far down and in such a state of ruin, that they’d left him where he was.
Every time he pulled one of his feet out from the bottom, the mud gave back an irritated snort.
At last he reached the dinghy and he held on to the side and closed his eyes. Then, and with his eyes still closed, he threw his body forward and fell down into the vessel.
The sound of the barge was growing louder in the morning, as if it were increasing with the light. It had left the Dorado and was entering the Arroyón, because the sound was boxed-in now. Things were better here, in the bottom of the dinghy, but he’d had it all the same, and the only thing that mattered much now was getting there. In one way or another, he’d always circled round this thing. And still he hadn’t got there. He listened to the noise with his face against the bottom planks, and almost fell asleep to its beating in the morning. It went into a bend and the sound changed again.
He got up on the seat, and with a push against the ditch wall he went out onto the river and the morning, which was sparkling on the water.
The current wasn’t strong, but he felt that it would carry him a while. He’d hardly left the ditch when he felt it start to take him, pushing him along against the bank. He got an oar into his fist and tried to turn the boat towards the middle of the current. The light was blazing silently. The middle of the current was the middle of the light, in a way. The river and the light one force. It snatched him from the shadows of the scrub to take him off to die elsewhere.
The Caporale lay there tilting over to the starboard, a large part of the boat now underwater. If the river went on rising it would cover it completely. The explosion must have opened up a hole below the waterline, and so the boat had sunk. Something of the other side was showing through the surface, blackened by the fire. At first sight it seemed to be the belly of a fish. The end-piece of the mast, with its crosstrees still in place, was lying on the other shore, and from the way it lay he saw the fire had eaten through its base, starting from the mast-hole, and nothing but the rigging now attached it to the hull.
He heard the voices moving down the shore.
He saw one of Cabecita’s arms hanging down, pointing at the water, and part of his head that was showing through the grass. But this was all he saw. The three of them would be there, and Capi, stuck to the ground, as if they were asleep. And he’d broken free at last, even if a little late.
He began to turn the bend, and the voices and the panting of the barge moved away.