Flight from a Firing Wall

by Baynard Kendrick

  I had been one of the lucky ones. I had looked on death in the Escambray Mountains and survived a fight against bombastic tyranny, but I had never really had to face that trial by fire in battle. So I had taken on enough American characteristics to worry—not at what I was going into but because I knew I was bursting out of my silken cocoon, and losing perhaps forever the protection of this country which had given me such friendly succor—the United States of America, the only land that psychologically could have freed itself from fear.

  We had turned onto an unpaved road and were running through a stretch of uninhabited grassland that moved the Everglades very close, and pushed the city of Miami far away. After a short run, we swung into a cul-de-sac beside a dock where a gray-hulled boat with a flying bridge was moored. From what I could see, she was a beautiful job to do a little bass fishing from on some small quiet lake. For an outside run down the Straits of Florida, where the P. & O. liners used to stand on their noses, she appeared to have all the stability of half a peanut shell.

  Luis backed the Cadillac around and stopped. Neither of us were very much on long good-byes, but each of us knew what the other felt, and that no matter what happened we were living a moment that neither of us would soon forget.

  I got out. He handed me my medical bag and just for an instant clasped my hand. “¡Qué Dios le bendiga, chico! Suerte— God bless you and good luck!” He knew that I was going to need them both, and so did I. He drove off without a wave or a backward look. I suddenly found that the sun had gone along with the car.

  In that shut-in cove, with the acrid smell of mud and water, the air around me was syrupy thick and hard to breathe. I turned to face a grinning Joe Slade, who had climbed up silently onto the dock. He was standing there with his hand outstretched ready to crush all my finger bones. This time his T shirt was black and his skipper’s cap was missing, replaced by one with a visor but no crossed anchors. His massive form looked impregnable outlined against the background of that glowering sky.

  I was glad to see him to a point of enjoying the painful grip that paralyzed my arm. It would be several hours before I had to use it anyway, and surgically I didn’t believe it had suffered any permanent harm.

  He said, “Hop down into the Tantivy. Glad to have you aboard and all that sort of thing. Grab youreslf a seat on the flybridge. Either side. The controls are in the middle. It’s about a thirty-minute run from here to Baker’s Haulover Inlet. It’s nearly five now and we’d better be pushing along.”

  “The Tantivy? Where did you latch on to that name? It’s a new one on me.”

  “She was named by some guy with plenty of education and money, who won the Nassau race in her, and the Round Long Island Marathon.” He loosed and coiled the sternline. “Tantivy means at a gallop of full speed, according to him. It’s also a hunting cry like ‘Tallyho!’ or ‘Go, go, go!’ It’s good enough for me. She can do ’em all. You’ll see.”

  I said, “Get in and start her, and stow my bag somewhere. I may look creepy with this Panama on but I’m still not paralyzed, and I still haven’t forgotten how to coil a bowline.” I didn’t mention the slow recovery of my good right arm.

  He laughed, took my bag, and jumped lightly aboard to the spacious cockpit with its two fishing chairs. A companionway door with a window in it led into the cabin, which occupied about a third of the boat up forward, with a flybridge on top. She looked plenty rakish, but built to stand a heavy sea.

  Joe climbed up to the flybridge and settled himself behind the wheel. I unloosed the nylon bowline from around the pile and held on against the incoming tide that was holding the Tantivy’s fenders tight against the dock. A starter whined, and then another, and a couple of engines came to life.

  I don’t know quite what I was waiting for, but it was probably for the familiar sound of my own two 75 HP Grays which had powered the long gone Margaret-A. Chilly bumps dotted my skin, and the hackles stood up at the back of my neck when those two mammoth motors caught in the Tantivy. The muffled sounds forced out from those twin exhausts weren’t even loud, but emerging from the insides of that tiny craft with a twelve-foot beam they were just plain frightening. I had an unreal sensation that I was about to step on board of some atomic bubble that would waft me off into nothingness, with a truly supernatural strength far greater than the hand of man could stay.

  I hopped on board, coiled the line, detached it from the bow cleat, and stored it in a forward hatch, closing the cover. Clinging to the handrail, I worked myself aft to the cockpit, shipped the fenders, and stowed the sternline under the transom. A moment later I was seated beside Joe Slade on the flybridge. I hadn’t seen him look my way.

  He said, “Why don’t you skip all this foolishness, Doc? My mate on the Angelus is getting hitched and I can use a good hand. The last one I tried thought the fenders belonged to the pier and threw them away.”

  “Try me when and if I get back. I may be needing a job by then.” Without so much as a noticeable tremor we started down the twisting Oleta River, running as circumspectly as grandma driving her one-hoss shay.

  Joe saw me cocking an eye at the weather. “That will blow over by the time we’re outside, Doc. It’s just an afternoon rainstorm and with this heat it’s overdue. We might get a little rain, but even that’s doubtful. There’s a couple of nylon pullovers in that locker behind you.”

  “What happens if the weather gets real nasty?”

  “We duck inside,” he said. “There are duplicate controls in the cabin, but even up here that hat should protect you. Nervous?”

  “Don’t be silly, Joe! I’m a blue-water man who has won three cups for swimming across the Coral Gables pool. If you notice me trembling, it’s entirely due to vibration. All I need is my red coat and I’d start yelling Tallyho! I would like to know how many horses we’re carrying in this Gemini Two.”

  That brought me what was supposed to be a comforting grin. “Just eight hundred, Doc. She has two 400 HP Daytona engines in her. That’s all.”

  I swallowed and choked out, “¡Dios mío! Two four-hundred horse power engines in this—this cosa—this thing!”

  “Don’t be disrespectful, Dr. Carrillo. This is a Bertram Flybridge Sports Cruiser with a couple of fishing chairs added so we can always say we’ve been out fishing. She’s thirty-one feet long with an eleven-foot two-and-a-half inch beam, and one of those world-famous Ray Hunt deep-V hulls with a draft of two feet and seven inches, or with the extra gas she’s carrying now maybe three.”

  “¡Está bien!” I said. “I’m impressed. I only hope she has thick enough planks in her hull.”

  “Planks!” He snorted. “She’s fiberglass from stem to stern. Even has fiberglass in the mufflers to quiet her down.”

  “That makes me feel much better. I’ve always longed for a piece of glass to cling to when I started to drown.”

  “Lookit, Doc. You don’t know how lucky you are taking this milk run with about thirty-five grand worth of Bertram under you powered by two of the fastest marine engines in the world.”

  I said, “You’re wasting your time with the hard sell, Skipper. Maybe the Bertram and Daytona boys are giving you your Captain’s cut, but for the moment I’m a trifle short of the necessary cash to buy one. My speed is about a gravyboat from the Women’s Exchange. Have you any idea who is actually financing this million-dollar milk run?”

  He shrugged. “I’m just a hired hand. My wages are paid in cash by some guy with white hair. All I know about him is he’s a lawyer—”

  “With offices in the Ainsley Building,” I broke in.

  “Then you know more than I do. Never ask where sugar comes from today, Doc. You know it doesn’t come from Cuba. So relax and enjoy it. Have fun!”

  “I’m already overcome with pleasure and sheer delight at the luxury of it all. I’ve been informed that I’m to land in Cuba in the middle of the night—better than four hundred miles as the fishes fly. I’m interested in this milkboat’s speed. What the devil can she do?” />
  “Forty knots,” he said carelessly. “I’ve never had to really push her, but I think she’ll do fifty if I give her the gun, and the gun is what she’s getting tonight until I get rid of you.”

  “Thanks, friend!” I said. “And just how much gas does this monster burn? Or is that top secret too?”

  “You can figure about a gallon a mile depending on conditions. Fifty to sixty gallons an hour, more or less. Anyhow, we’ll stop in Key West for a refill between nine and ten. See, that storm’s passed over.” He pointed south to where the sky showed blue, but not nearly as blue as I was beginning to feel inside.

  We pulled out into the Intracoastal Waterway and picked up a little speed with the Sunny Isles to port. I enviously eyed those nice safe automobiles rolling along Collins Avenue that killed only fifteen hundred people a year. Baker’s Haulover and the open sea was less than a couple of miles away.

  I said, “I think I’d better go below and use the head.”

  “Be my guest, Doc. First door to starboard as you go in the cabin. Electric n’everything. You won’t disturb Old Grandad who’s asleep in the bunk. He won’t stir until we reach Key West. He’s full of bourbon and branch up to his chin.”

  “You mean you’ve got a drunk on board?” I asked incredulously.

  “He’s not exactly a lush. He’s seventy-four and he’s just recovering from an operation for cataracts. He’s sort of like that Hemingway character, that old man and the sea.”

  “Skipper, you certainly think of everything,” I told him, “A senile, half-blind alcoholic is just what I need to keep my medical hand in.”

  “He’s a Cuban fisherman and speaks Spanish. Another refugee,” he said defensively.

  “¡Me maravillo! I’m astonished! All the Cuban fishermen I’ve met speak Polish. I simply must have a nice chat with him when he sobers up. Once we’ve landed, I’ll be glad of his company. I’m sure you brought him just for me.”

  “Just for you, Doc. But he’s not landing. He’s coming back with me. He’s along to pick up the Black Light signals we’ll get from that Dromedary Key.”

  18

  The character Joe had called Old Grandad was asleep on his back in the starboard bunk of the cabin which proved surprisingly roomy, with a headroom of six feet, two inches. Judging from the shattering strength of his snores he wasn’t in need of a doctor. He was obviously feeling no pain. He did need a barber to work on his scraggly white beard, yellowed with tobacco stain, and to do a fast clipper job on his gray Beatle hair.

  A pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, with lenses thick enough to be bullet proof, lay carelessly on the floor beside a bottle one-third full of 100-proof bourbon. The label on it advertised its tempting contents, as well as where Old Grandad had come by his name.

  I picked up the spectacles and put them on a locker where they wouldn’t get stepped on. The cabin, with its stainless-steel sink, two-burner stove, ship’s clock and barometer, and two comfortable berths, felt as snug and cozy as my apartment at home. In addition, due to Old Grandad’s breathing, it had taken on some of that pleasantly protective aura of a first-class waterfront saloon. Only the fact that under my gay exterior there lies a hidden will of prestressed concrete prevented me from knocking off the rest of Grandad’s bottle, rolling into the opposite bunk, and letting Joe Slade handle all his nautical problems alone.

  The Tantivy was already rising to the swell of the Gulf Stream. Those eight hundred thoroughbred horses in her had quit whinnying through their fiberglass nosebags and settled down into what might be called a contented purr. I took a look at the five-inch compass mounted flush in front of the wheel, to starboard in the cabin. We were headed almost due south, on a course of 182°. Looking out of the cabin windows, I could see that the ominous cloud had used some brains and moved off over the land somewhere. We were skimming over a bright blue sea. To starboard the mammoth hotels of Miami Beach were black against the setting sun. I wished the hour were earlier. I could give a ring to Miss Minute Maid, with the orange-juice voice, on the ship-to-shore phone. When I asked for myself and she wanted to know where to call me back, I’d tell her Dr. Carrillo was on a ship at sea and couldn’t be reached. He was on his way to Cuba in perfect weather, and had already made friends with a drunken Cuban bum.

  I went aloft to the flybridge and huddled back of the windshield beside Joe. He said, “The wind’s hauled around to the northeast and we’re going to have a following sea. But don’t let that worry you.”

  “Why should it worry me? Ever since the Kerritack made port, everybody in Miami has been following me.”

  “Hunh! Well, this baby holds her course without yawing or broaching even when she’s opened up wide in the biggest following sea.”

  “I’ll bet the waves can’t catch her. It just shows what God could could do if he only had the money.” I looked overside. The good old Tantivy was already churning up a two-foot-high crest of cream. “I take it we’re not opened up wide right now.”

  We flashed by the whistle buoy at the Government Cut before it had a chance to whistle at me. He was heading slightly inshore to get out of that four-mile current against us in the Gulf Stream. It was startling to follow that giant cleavage where the ocean changed from bright blue to green.

  Joe said, “Honest, Doc, we’ve scarcely been cruising. Now hang on to that Panama hat. Or better, stick it under the seat. I’ll show you what I mean.”

  He reached out for the controls and stuck some spurs into those horses from Daytona. They promptly took their bits in their teeth—or whatever mechanical horses do when you pour on the gasoline steam. The dairy farm, alongside the boat that was supplying the product for our milk run, suddenly rose from two feet high to a mountain of frothy whipped cream.

  I had ridden in a jet plane at six hundred miles per hour where I seemed to be standing still. I had traveled in trains that were doing over ninety and read a magazine. I had stood, or tried to stand, on the deck of a bucking P.T. boat with three Packard engines in her which were driving her better than forty knots—which is a good slice more than forty statute miles per hour—but that bucking bronco was eighty feet long. It seemed ten times the size of this Tantivy that was taking off into the wild blue yonder. Unquestionably this was a day of colors for me. First I’d felt blue like the sky and the Gulf Stream. Now I felt I was turning green like the ocean closer to shore. Somehow I had to get rid of those colors before Joe took a look at me and discovered I was really yellow.

  I said, “Now that you’ve laid all my fears to rest about any waves ever being fast enough to overtake us, would I be out of line if I inquired about that customer with the cataracts, who’s sleeping it off in the cabin below?”

  “It’s something they learned in the OSS in World War Two.”

  “Oh?”

  “The Commandos in their raids on France were signaled in where to land, with Black Lights, by the Maquis. It has something to do with the radiant energy of ultraviolet rays. All I know is, these flashlights they use can’t be seen from either side like ordinary flashlights. You have to come in on them straight ahead. So they used to take along men who had had cataract operations to spot them. Seems they can see them long before people with normal eyes can. Hell, you’re the doctor. Maybe you can explain it to me.”

  “I can make a try,” I told him, “but I’ll have to dig up a lot of my rusty ophthalmology. Have you ever used Old Grandad before as a Seeing Eye dog?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” he asked cautiously.

  “Look, Joe, nobody’s trying to pry into your private life as an escape-hatch captain. I’m merely trying to find out if when Old Grandad spotted these invisible signals, which you couldn’t see, he had those half-inch thick cheaters on.”

  “No.”

  “¡Qué bueno! By drawing on all my deep-seated medical lore the answer is beginning to come through to me. Among other things, ultraviolet rays are filtered out by the lenses in the human eyes.”

  “That’s swell! I’d
have never believed it,” he said, as the Fowey Rocks light skittered by.

  “Live and learn, Joe. Today they remove both lenses in their entirety from the eyes when they operate for cataracts,” I explained in my most impressive lecture tone. Nobody was going to intimidate me with 800 horses even if they could fly.

  “So what?”

  “So Grandad hasn’t got any lenses in his eyes to filter out those ultraviolet rays, and keep them from striking the retina. Another thing, he can see much better at a distance than he can up close. His eyes after removal of the cataracts are what is called highly hyperopic. Get it?”

  “Sure. I feel guilty that I can see.”

  “No need to apologize because you haven’t an M.D. For a clear normal vision he has to wear those thick cataract lenses, but with them on he wouldn’t be able to spot those Black Light signals any better than you or I.”

  Joe gave that some thought while he switched on the running lights. “Those pacifist jerks who are always howling for peace never stop to think of all the blessings that come out of a war. What’s the lives of a few million guys compared to finding out that one old soak can spot those Black Light signals better than you or me, with no lenses in his eyes at all?”

  We went by the hulk of a southbound tanker like she was an anchored lightship, instead of running fifteen knots our way. It was growing dark. Astern I could see the flashes from the lighthouse off Old Rhodes Key, and ahead the one marking Carysfort Reef, giving out groups of three warning flashes visible sixteen miles away.

  I said, “Aside from the heady pleasure of war and having no eyeballs, did you know that that lighthouse ahead marking Carysfort Reef also marks the site of a forty-eight-thousand acre State Park?”