“We’ll have to work it out,” Willie said.
“We can let these sons of bitches hang and rattle,” Thomas Hudson said. “Or we can go in now and finish it.”
“I’d rather take care of you.”
Henry was probing with the .50’s. He was as delicate as he was rough with a machine gun and with a pair of them all his qualities were doubled.
“Do you know where they are, Willie?”
“There’s only one place they can be.”
“Then let’s go in blasting and blow the shit out of them.”
“Spoken like an officer and a gentleman,” Willie said. “We sunk their skiff.”
“Oh. We didn’t hear that either,” Thomas Hudson said.
“It didn’t make much noise,” Willie said. “Ara chopped her open with a machete and cut the sail up. Christ couldn’t repair her in a month the best day he was in that carpenter shop.”
“You get up forward with Henry and George and have Ara and Antonio on the starboard side and let’s go in,” Thomas Hudson said. He felt very sick and strange, although there was no dizziness yet. The dressings Gil had put on contained the bleeding too easily and he knew it was internal. “Put lots of fire on and you signal me how to go. How close are they?”
“Right up against the shore behind the little rise of ground.”
“Can Gil reach it all right with the big ones?”
“I’ll shoot tracers to show him the target.”
“They’ll still be there?”
“They got no place to go. They saw us break up the skiff. They’re fighting Custer’s Last Stand in the mangroves. Christ, I wish I had some Anheuser Busch.”
“Ice cold in cans,” Thomas Hudson said. “Let’s get in.”
“You’re awfully white, Tommy,” Willie said. “And you’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“Let’s take her in fast then,” Thomas Hudson said. “I’m still all right.”
They closed fast with Willie with his head up over the starboard bow sometimes waving a correction.
Henry was traversing before and behind the rise that showed by the higher trees and George was working on what should be the lip of the rise.
“How is it, Willie?” Thomas Hudson said into the tube.
“You got enough hulls up here to start a brass foundry,” Willie answered. “Lay her goddam bow up against the bank and swing her broadside so Ara and Antonio can bear.”
Gil thought he saw something and fired. But it was the low branch of a tree that Henry had cut loose.
Thomas Hudson watched the bank come closer and closer until he could see individual leaves again. Then he swung her broadside until he heard Antonio firing and saw his tracers going in a little to the right of Willie’s. Ara was firing now, too. Then he came a little astern on his motors and swung her close to the bank but not so close that Gil could not throw.
“Throw an extinguisher,” he said. “Where Willie’s been shooting.”
Gil threw and again Thomas Hudson marvelled at the throw and at the shine of the brass cylinder whirling high through the air to drop almost exactly where it should. There was the flash and the roar and then the rising smoke and then Thomas Hudson saw a man walking toward them out of the smoke with his hands clasped over his head.
“Hold up the fire,” he said as rapidly as he could into two tubes.
But Ara had already fired and he saw the man slump forward into the mangroves on his knees with his head forward.
He spoke again and said, “Resume fire.” Then he said to Gil, very tiredly, “Put in another one about the same place if you can. Then put in a couple of frags.”
He had had a prisoner. But he had lost him.
After a while he said, “Willie, you and Ara want to have a look?”
“Sure,” Willie said. “But keep some fire on while we go in. I want to go in from the back.”
“Tell Henry what you want. When do you want it off?”
“As soon as we clear the entrance.”
“All right, jungle man,” Thomas Hudson said and for the first time he had time to realize that he was probably going to die.
He heard the noise of a grenade bursting behind the small ridge. Then there was no more noise and no firing. He leaned heavily on the wheel and he watched the smoke of the grenade thin out in the wind.
“I’m going to take her on through as soon as I see the dinghy,” he said to Gil.
He felt Antonio’s arm around him and heard him say, “You lie down, Tom. I’m taking her.”
“All right,” he said and he took a last look down the narrow, green-banked river. The water was brown but clear and the tide was flowing strong.
Gil and Antonio helped him to lie down on the planking of the bridge. Then Antonio took the wheel. He went astern a little more to hold her against the tide and Thomas Hudson could feel the sweet rhythm of the big motors.
“Loosen the tourniquet a little,” he said to Gil.
“We’ll get the air mattress,” Gil said.
“I like it on the deck,” Thomas Hudson said. “I think it is better if I don’t move much.”
“Get a cushion under his head,” Antonio said. He was looking down the channel.
In a little while he said, “They’re waving us in, Tom,” and Thomas Hudson felt the motors go ahead and the ship slide forward.
“Anchor her as soon as we’re out of the channel.”
“Yes, Tom. Don’t talk.”