“Get me the two quarts,” I told him. I was thinking of something else.
He brought them out and I took a drink from the open one and put them forward by the wheel. He stood there and I looked at him. I was sorry for him and for what I knew I’d have to do. Hell, I knew him when he was a good man.
“What’s the matter with her, Harry?”
“She’s all right.”
“What’s the matter, then? What are you looking at me like that for?”
“Brother,” I told him, and I was sorry for him, “you’re in plenty of trouble.”
“What do you mean, Harry?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I haven’t got it all figured out yet.”
We sat there awhile and I didn’t feel like talking to him any more. Once I knew it, it was hard to talk to him. Then I went below and got out the pump-gun and the Winchester thirty-thirty that I always had below in the cabin and hung them up in their cases from the top of the house where we hung the rods usually, right over the wheel where I could reach them. I keep them in those full-length clipped sheep’s-wool cases soaked in oil. That’s the only way you can keep them from rusting on a boat.
I loosened up the pump and worked her a few times, and then filled her up and pumped one into the barrel. I put a shell in the chamber of the Winchester and filled up the magazine. I got out the Smith and Wesson thirty-eight special I had when I was on the police force up in Miami from under the mattress and cleaned and oiled it and filled it up and put it on my belt.
“What’s the matter?” Eddy said. “What the hell’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” I told him.
“What’s all the damn guns for?”
“I always carry them on board,” I said. “To shoot birds that bother the baits or to shoot sharks cruising along the keys.”
“What’s the matter, damn it?” said Eddy. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” I told him. I sat there with the old thirty-eight flopping against my leg when she rolled, and I looked at him. I thought, there’s no sense to do it now. I’m going to need him now.
“We’re going to do a little job,” I said. “In at Bacuranao. I’ll tell you what to do when it’s time.”
I didn’t want to tell him too far ahead because he would get to worrying and get so spooked he wouldn’t be any use.
“You couldn’t have anybody better than me. Harry,” he said. “I’m the man for you. I’m with you on anything.”
I looked at him, tall and bleary and shaky, and I didn’t say anything.
“Listen, Harry. Would you give me just one?” he asked me. “I don’t want to get the shakes.”
I gave him one and we sat and waited for it to get dark. It was a fine sunset and there was a nice light breeze, and when the sun got pretty well down I started the engine and headed her in slow toward land.
We lay offshore about a mile in the dark. The current had freshened up with the sun down and I noticed it running in. I could see the Morro light way down to the westward and the glow of Havana, and the lights opposite us were Rincon and Baracoa. I headed her up against the current until I was past Bacuranao and nearly to Cojimar. Then I let her drift down. It was plenty dark but I could tell good where we were. I had all the lights out.
“What’s it going to be, Harry?” Eddy asked me. He was beginning to be spooked again.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You’ve got me worried.” He was pretty close to the shakes and when he came near me he had a breath like a buzzard.
“What time is it?”
“I’ll go down and see,” he said. He came back up and said it was half past nine.
“Are you hungry?” I asked him.
“No,” he said. “You know I couldn’t eat, Harry.”
“All right,” I told him. “You can have one.”
After he had it I asked him how he felt. He said he felt fine.
“I’m going to give you a couple more in a little while,” I told him. “I know you haven’t got any guts unless you’ve got rum and there isn’t much on board. So you’d better go easy.”
“Tell me what’s up,” said Eddy.
“Listen,” I said, talking to him in the dark. “We’re going in to Bacuranao and pick up twelve Chinks. You take the wheel when I tell you to and do what I tell you to. We’ll take the twelve Chinks on board and we’ll lock them below forward. Go on forward now and fasten the hatch from the outside.”
He went up and I saw him shadowed against the dark. He came back and he said, “Harry, can I have one of those now?”
“No,” I said. “I want you rum-brave. I don’t want you useless.”
“I’m a good man, Harry. You’ll see.”
“You’re a rummy,” I said. “Listen. One Chink is going to bring those twelve out. He’s going to give me some money at the start. When they’re all on board he’s going to give me some more money. When you see him start to hand me money the second time you put her ahead and hook her up and head her out to sea. Don’t you pay any attention to what happens. You keep her going out no matter what happens. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“If any Chink starts bursting out of the cabin or coming through the hatch, once we’re out and under way, you take that pump-gun and blow them back as fast as they come out. Do you know how to use the pump- gun?”
“No. But you can show me.”
“You’d never remember. Do you know how to use the Winchester?”
“Just pump the lever and shoot it.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Only don’t shoot any holes in the hull.”
“You’d better give me that other drink,” Eddy said.
“All right. I’ll give you a little one.”
I gave him a real one. I knew they wouldn’t make him drunk now; not pouring into all that fear. But each one would work for a little while. After he drank this Eddy said, just as though he was happy, “So we’re going to run Chinks. Well, by God, I always said I’d run Chinamen if I was ever broke.”
“But you never got broke before, eh?” I said to him. He was funny all right.
I gave him three more drinks to keep him brave before it was half past ten. It was funny watching him and it kept me from thinking about it myself. I hadn’t figured on all this wait. I’d planned to leave after dark, run out, just out of the glare, and coast along to Cojimar.
At a little before eleven I saw the two lights show on the point. I waited a little while and then I took her in slow. Bacuranao is a cove where there used to be a big dock for loading sand. There is a little river that comes in when the rains open the bar across the mouth. The northers, in the winter, pile the sand up and close it.
They used to go in with schooners and load guavas from the river and there used to be a town. But the hurricane took it and it is all gone now except one house that some gallegos built out of the shacks the hurricane blew down and that they use for a clubhouse on Sundays when they come out to swim and picnic from Havana. There is one other house where the delegate lives but it is back from the beach.
Each little place like that all down the coast has a government delegate, but I figured the Chink must use his own boat and have him fixed. As we came in I could smell the sea grape and that sweet smell from the brush you get off the land.
“Get up forward,” I said to Eddy.
“You can’t hit anything on that side,” he said. “The reef’s on the other side as you go in.” You see, he’d been a good man once.
“Watch her,” I said, and I took her in to where I knew they could see us. With no surf they could hear the engine. I didn’t want to wait around, not knowing whether they saw us or not, so I flashed the running lights on once, just the green and red, and turned them off. Then I turned her and headed her out and let her lay there, just outside, with the engine just ticking. There was quite a little swell that close in.
“Come on back here,” I said to Eddy and I gave him a real drink.
