Ernest Hemingway

ISLANDS IN THE STREAM
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XII

They left before the sun was up and Thomas Hudson steered down the channel that was like a canal with the gray banks showing on either side. By the time the sun was up he was out through the cut between the shoals and he steered due north to get into blue water and past the dangerous rocky heads of the outer reef. It was a little longer than running on the Inside but it was much safer.

When the sun rose, there was no wind and not enough swell for the sea to break on any of the rocks. The day would be hot and muggy, he knew, and there would be squalls in the afternoon.

His mate came up and looked around. Then he looked carefully at the land and along it to where the high, ugly tower of the light showed.

“We could have run down easily on the inside.”

“I know it,” Thomas Hudson said. “But I thought this was better.”

“Another day like yesterday. But hotter.”

“They can’t make much time.”

“They can’t make any time. They’re becalmed somewhere. You’re going to check with the light whether they went into the cut between Paredón and Coco, aren’t you?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll go in. I know the keeper. You can lay just inside the little key at the tip. I won’t be gone long,” Antonio said.

“I don’t even need to anchor.”

“You’ve got plenty of strong-backed people to get anchors up.”

“Send up Ara and Willie if they’ve eaten. Nothing should show here this close to the light and you can’t see a damned thing looking into the sun. But send up George and Henry, too. We might as well do it right.”

“Remember the rocks make right up to your blue water here, Tom.”

“I remember and I can see them.”

“Do you want your tea cold?”

“Please. And a sandwich. Send the men up first.”

“They’ll be right up. I’ll send the tea up and have everything ready to go ashore.”

“Be careful how you talk to them.”

“That’s why I am going in.”

“Put out a couple of lines, too. It will look better coming in on the light.”

“Yes,” his mate said. “We might get something we could give them at the light.”

The four came up and took their usual posts and Henry said, “Did you see anything, Tom?”

“One turtle with a sea gull flying around him. I thought he was going to perch on his back. But he didn’t.”

“Mi capitán,” said George, who was a taller Basque than Ara and a good athlete and fine seaman, but not nearly as strong as Ara in many ways.

“Mi senor obispo,” said Thomas Hudson.

“OK, Tom,” George said. “If I see any really big submarines do you want me to tell you?”

“If you see one as big as you saw that one time keep it to yourself.”

“I dream about her nights,” George said.

“Don’t talk about her,” Willie said. “I just ate breakfast.”

“When we closed I could feel my cajones going up like an elevator,” Ara said. “How did you really feel, Tom?”

“Scared.”

“I saw her come up,” Ara said. “And the next thing I heard Henry say, ‘She’s an aircraft carrier, Tom.’ ”

“That’s what she looked like,” Henry said. “I can’t help it. I’d say the same thing again.”

“She spoiled my (...)

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