'I like it fine. But there's a good reason Columbus didn't take women with him on the Santa Maria. When they're wearing bikinis they affect the ship's steering. With you around they'd probably have discovered Tasmania.'
She lit a cigarette and ignored me and I did my best to ignore her back. I checked the tachometer, the oil level, the ammeter and the motor temperature. Then I glanced out of the wheelhouse window. Smith Key, a small island once held by the British, lay ahead of us. It was home to many of Santiago's fishing folk and pilots, and its red-tiled houses and small ruined chapel made it look very picturesque. But it wasn't much next to the scene inside Melba's bikini pants.
The sea was calm until we reached the mouth of the harbour where the water started to swell a bit. I pushed the throttle forward and held the boat on a steady east-south-east course until Santiago was no longer visible. Behind us the boat's wake unzipped a great white scar in the ocean that was hundreds of feet long. Melba sat in the fisherman's chair and squealed with excitement as our speed increased.
'Can you believe it?' said Melba. 'I live on an island and I've never been on a boat before.'
'I'll be glad when we're off this tub,' I said, and fetched a bottle of rum from the chart drawer.
After about three or four hours it got dark and I could see the lights of the US naval base at Guantanamo, twinkling on our port side. It was like staring at the ancient stars of some near galaxy that was at the same time a vision of the future in which American democracy ruled the world with a Colt in one hand and a stick of chewing gum in the other. Somewhere in the tropical darkness of that Yankee littoral thousands of men in white suits were engaged in the meaningless routines of their ocean-going imperial service. In response to the cold imperative of new enemies and new victories they sat inside their floating, steel-grey cities of death, drinking Coca-Cola, smoking their Lucky Strikes and preparing to free the rest of the world from its unreasonable desire to be different. Because Americans and not Germans were now the master race, and Uncle Sam had replaced Hitler and Stalin as the face of the new empire.
Melba saw my lip curl and must have read my mind. 'I hate them,' she said.
'Who? The yanquis?'
'Who else? Our good neighbours have always wanted to make this island one of their United States. And but for them Batista could never have remained in power.'
I couldn't argue with her. Especially now that we'd spent the night together. Especially now that I was planning to do the same again, just as soon as we were installed in a nice hotel. I'd heard that Le Refuge in the holiday resort of Kenscoff, six miles outside Port-au-Prince, might be just the kind of place I was looking for. Kenscoff is four thousand feet above sea level and the climate there is fine all year round. Which is almost as long as I was planning to stay. Of course, Haiti had its problems, just like Cuba, but they weren't my problems, so what did I care? I had other things to worry about, such as what I was going to do when my Argentine passport expired. And now there was the small problem of taking a small boat safely through the Windward Passage. I probably shouldn't have been drinking but even with La Guajaba's running lights there was something about driving a boat across the sea in darkness that I found unnerving. And fearing that we might hit something – a reef, or maybe a whale – I knew I wouldn't be able to relax until it was light again. By which time I hoped we would be halfway across the ocean to Hispaniola.
And then there was something more tangible to worry about. Another vessel was approaching quickly from the north. It was moving too fast to be a fishing boat and the big searchlight picking us out of the darkness was too powerful for it to belong to anything but a US Navy patrol boat.
'Who are they?' asked Melba.
'The American Navy, I imagine.'
Even above our twin Chrysler engines I heard Melba swallow. She still looked beautiful, only now she looked worried as well. She turned suddenly and stared at me with wide brown eyes.
'What are we going to do?'
'Nothing,' I said. 'That boat can outrun us and outgun us. The best thing you can do is go below, climb into bed and stay there. I'll handle things up here.'
She shook her head. 'I won't let them arrest me,' she said. 'They'd hand me over to the police and-'
'No one's going to arrest you,' I said, touching her cheek in an effort to reassure her. 'My guess is that they're just going to look us over. So do as I say and we'll be okay.'
I throttled back and put the gear shift in neutral. When I came out of the wheelhouse the blinding searchlight was in my face. I felt like a giant gorilla on a skyscraper with the patrol boat circling me at a distance. I went to the gently pitching stern, had another drink and coolly awaited their pleasure.
A minute passed and then an officer wearing whites came to the starboard side of the gunboat with a bullhorn in his hand.
'We're looking for some sailors,' he said, speaking to me in Spanish. 'They stole a boat from the harbour at Caimanera. A boat like this one.'
I threw up my hands and shook my head. 'There are no American sailors on this boat.'
'Mind if we come aboard and take a look for ourselves?'
Minding very much, I told the American officer I didn't mind at all. There seemed to be little point in arguing. A sailor manning a fifty-calibre machine gun on the foredeck of the American boat had the best way of winning an argument I could think of. So I threw them a line, put out some fenders and let them tie up alongside La Guajaba. The officer came aboard with one of his NCOs. There wasn't much you could say about either of them except that their shoes were black and they looked the way that all men look when you take away most of their hair and their capacity for independent action. They were carrying side arms, a couple of flashlights and a vague smell of mint and tobacco as if they'd just disposed of their gum and their cigarettes.
'Anyone else on board?'
'I have a lady friend in the forward cabin,' I said. 'She's asleep. On her own. The last American sailor we saw was Popeye.'
The officer smiled a wry smile and bounced a little on the balls of his feet. 'Mind if we take a look for ourselves?'
'I don't mind at all. But just let me see if my friend is dressed to receive visitors.'
He nodded and I went forward and below. The damp-smelling cabin had a closet, a little cabinet and a double berth containing Melba with a blanket drawn up to her neck. Underneath she was still wearing the bikini and I promised myself to drop anchor when the Amis were gone and help her take it off. There's nothing like sea air to give you an appetite.
'What's going on?' she asked fearfully. 'What do they want?'
'Some American sailors stole a boat from Caimanera,' I explained. 'They're looking for them. I don't think there's anything really to worry about.'
She rolled her eyes. 'Caimanera. Yes, I can imagine what they were doing there, the pigs. Just about every hotel in Caimanera is a brothel. The casas even have patriotic American names, like the Roosevelt Hotel. The bastards.'
I might have wondered how she knew this, but I was rather more concerned with satisfying their curiosity than the small matter of how they satisfied their sexual desires. 'It's what Eisenhower calls the domino effect. When some guys lay one down they like to make a big show of it.' I jabbed my thumb back at the cabin door. 'Look, they're outside. They just want to check their men aren't hiding under the bed or anything. I said they could as soon as I checked you were decent.'
'That's going to take a lot more time than might seem reasonable.' She shrugged. 'You'd better show them in anyway.'
I went back up on deck and nodded them below.
They shuffled in through the cabin door, their faces pink with embarrassment when they saw Melba still in bed, and if I hadn't been enjoying that I might not have noticed the NCO lay his eyes on her and then lay them on her again, only the second time wasn't for the obvious reason, that she belonged in a picture on a bulkhead above his hammock. These two had met before. I was sure of that and so was he, and when the Amis came back to the wheelhouse, the NCO drew his officer aside and said something quietly.
When their conversation became a little more urgent I might have got involved but for the fact that the officer unbuttoned the holster of his side arm, which prompted me to go to the stern and sit in the fisherman's chair. I think I even smiled at the man on the fifty-calibre, only the fisherman's chair looked and felt too much like
