Islands in the Stream

by Ernest Hemingway

“I smelled it coming down,” Thomas Hudson said. “Ask him if he wants anything,” he said to Peters.

  The radio operator spoke to him in German and the German looked toward him but he did not speak nor move his head. Thomas Hudson heard the humming of the outboard motor, and looked across the bight at the dinghy coming out of the sunset. It was loaded down to the water line. He looked down at the German again.

  “Ask him how many they are. Tell him we must know how many they are. Tell him this is important.”

  Peters spoke to the German softly and it seemed to Thomas Hudson almost lovingly.

  The German said three words with great effort.

  “He says nothing is important,” Peters said.

  “Tell him he is wrong. I have to know. Ask him if he wants morphine.”

  The German looked at Thomas Hudson kindly and said three words.

  “He says it doesn’t hurt anymore,” Peters said. He spoke rapidly in German and again Thomas Hudson caught the loving tone; or, perhaps it was only the loving sound of the language.

  “Shut up, Peters,” Thomas Hudson said. “Translate only and exactly what I say. Did you hear me?”

  “Yes, sir,” Peters said.

  “Tell him I can make him tell.”

  Peters spoke to the German and he turned his eyes toward Thomas Hudson. They were old eyes now but they were in a young man’s face gone old as driftwood and nearly as gray.

  “Nein,” the German said slowly.

  “He says no,” Peters translated.

  “Yeah, I got that part of it,” Thomas Hudson said. “Get him some warm soup, Willie, and bring some cognac. Peters, ask him if he wouldn’t like some morphine really if he doesn’t have to talk. Tell him we have plenty.”

  Peters translated and the German looked toward Thomas Hudson and smiled a thin, northern smile.

  He spoke almost inaudibly to Peters.

  “He says thank you but he doesn’t need it and it’s better to save it.”

  Then he said something softly to Peters who translated, “He says he could have used it last week.”

  “Tell him I admire him,” Thomas Hudson said.

  Antonio, his mate, was alongside in the dinghy with Henry and the rest of the Mégano party.

  “Come aboard easy,” Thomas Hudson said to them. “Keep away from the stern. We got a Kraut dying on the stern that I want to have die easy. What did you find?”

  “Nothing,” Henry said. “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Peters,” Thomas Hudson said. “Talk to him all you want. You might get something. I’m going forward with Ara and Willie to get a drink.”

  Below, he said, “How’s your soup, Willie?”

  “The first one I put my hands on was clam broth,” Willie said. “It’s about hot enough.”

  “Why didn’t you give him oxtail or mulligatawny?” Thomas Hudson said. “They’re more deadly in his condition. Where the hell is the chicken?”

  “I didn’t want to give him the chicken. That’s Henry’s.”

  “Quite right, too,” Henry said. “Why should we coddle him?”

  “I don’t think we really are. When I ordered it I thought some soup and a drink might help him talk. But he isn’t going to talk. Give me a gin, will you, Ara?”

  “They made a shelter for him, Tom, and he had a good bed made from branches and plenty of water and food in a crock. They tried to make him comfortable and they ditched the sand for drainage. There were many good tracks from the beach and I would say they were eight or ten. Not more. Willie and I were very careful carrying him. Both his wounds are gangrenous and the gangrene is very high toward the right thigh. Perhaps we should not have brought him but instead have come for you and Peters to question him in his shelter. If so, it is my fault.”

  “Did he have a weapon?”

  “No. Nor any identification.”

  “Give me my drink,” Thomas Hudson said. “When would you say the branches for the shelter were cut?”

  “Not later than yesterday morning, I would say. But I could not be sure.”

  “Did he speak at all?”

  “No. He looked as though made of wood when he saw us with the pistols. He looked afraid of Willie once. When he saw his eye, I think. Then he smiled when we lifted him.”

  “To show he could,” Willie said.

  “Then he went away,” Ara said. “How long do you think it will take him to die, Tom?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, let’s go out and take the drinks,” Henry said. “I don’t trust Peters.”

  “Let’s drink the clam broth up,” Willie said. “I’m hungry. I can heat him a can of Henry’s chicken if he says it is OK.”

  “If it will help to make him talk,” Henry said. “Of course.”

  “It probably won’t,” Willie said. “But it’s kind of shitty to give him clam broth the way he is. Take him out the cognac, Henry. Maybe he really likes that, like you and me.”

  “Don’t bother him,” Thomas Hudson said. “He’s a good Kraut.”

  “Sure,” Willie said. “They’re all good Krauts when they fold up.”

  “He hasn’t folded up,” Thomas Hudson said. “He’s just dying.”

  “With much style,” Ara said.

  “You getting to be a Kraut-lover, too?” Willie asked him. “That makes you and Peters.”

  “Shut up, Willie,” Thomas Hudson said.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Willie said to Thomas Hudson. “You’re just the exhausted leader of a little group of earnest Kraut-lovers.”

  “Come up forward, Willie,” Thomas Hudson said. “Ara, take the soup astern when it is warm. The rest of you go watch the Kraut die, if you want. But don’t crowd him.”

  Antonio started to follow as Thomas Hudson and Willie went forward but Thomas Hudson shook his head at him and the big man went back to the galley.

  They were in the forward cockpit and it was almost dark. Thomas Hudson could just see Willie’s face. It looked better in this light and he was on the side of the good eye. Thomas Hudson looked at Willie and then at his two anchor lines and at a tree he could still see on the beach. It’s a tricky sandy bottom, he thought; and he said, “All right, Willie. Say the rest of it.”

  “You,” Willie said. “Flogging yourself to death up there because your kid is dead. Don’t you know everybody’s kids die?”

  “I know it. What else?”

  “That fucking Peters and a fucking Kraut stinking up the fantail and what kind of a ship is it where the cook is the mate?”

  “How does he cook?”

  “He cooks wonderful and he knows more about small-boat handling than all of us put together, including you.”

  “Much more.”

  “Shit, Tom. I’m not blowing my top. I got no goddam top to blow. I’m used to doing things a different way. I like it on the ship and I like everybody except that half-cunt Peters. Only you quit flogging yourself.”

  “I’m not really,” Thomas Hudson said. “I don’t think about anything except work.”

  “You’re so noble you ought to be stuffed and crucified,” Willie said. “Think about cunt.”

  “We’re headed toward it.”

  “That’s the way to talk.”

  “Willie, are you OK now?”

  “Sure. Why the hell wouldn’t I be? That Kraut got me, I guess. They had him fixed up nice like we wouldn’t fix up anybody. Or maybe we would if we had time. But they took time. They don’t know how close we are. But they got to know somebody’s chasing. Everybody’s after them now. But they fixed him up just as nice as anybody could be fixed in the condition he was.”

  “Sure,” Thomas Hudson said. “They fixed up those people back on the key nice, too.”

  “Yeah,” said Willie. “Isn’t that the hell of it?”

  Just then Peters came in. He always held himself as a Marine even when he was not at his best and he was proudest of the real discipline without the formalities of discipline which was the rule o
f the ship. He was the one who took the greatest advantage of it. Now he stopped, came to attention, saluted, which showed he was drunk, and said, “Tom, I mean, sir. He is dead.”

  “Who’s dead?”

  “The prisoner, sir.”

  “OK,” Thomas Hudson said. “Get your generator going and see if you can get Guantánamo.”

  They ought to have something for us, he thought.

  “Did the prisoner talk?” he asked Peters.

  “No sir.”

  “Willie,” he asked. “How do you feel?”

  “Fine.”

  “Get some flashbulbs and take two, in profile of the face, lying on the stern. Take the blanket off and his shorts off and take one full-length lying as he is across the stern. Shoot one full-face of his head and one full-face lying down.”

  “Yes sir,” Willie said.

  Thomas Hudson went up on the flying bridge. He heard the motor of the generator start and saw the sudden flashes of the bulbs. ONI, up where they evaluate, won’t believe we even have this much of a Kraut, he thought. There isn’t any proof. Somebody will claim it is a stiff they pushed out that we picked up. I should have photographed him sooner. The hell with them. Maybe we will get the others tomorrow.

  Ara came up.

  “Tom, who do you want to have take him ashore and bury him?”

  “Who worked the least today?”

  “Everybody has worked hard. I’ll take Gil in and we will do it. We can bury him in the sand just above high water.”

  “Maybe a little higher.”

  “I’ll send Willie up and you tell him how you want the board lettered. I have a board from a box in stores.”

  “Send Willie up.”

  “Do we sew him up?”

  “No. Just wrap him in his own blanket. Send Willie up.”

  “What was it that you wanted?” Willie asked.

  “Letter the board, ‘Unknown German Sailor’ and put the date underneath.”

  “OK, Tom. Do you want me to go In with the burial detail?”

  “No. Ara and Gil are going in. Letter the board and take it easy and have a drink.”

  “As soon as Peters gets Guantánamo, I’ll send it up. Don’t you want to come down?”

  “No. I’m taking it easy up here.”

  “What’s it like on the bridge of a big ship like this, full of responsibility and horseshit?”

  “Just about the same as lettering that board.”

  When the signal came from Guantánamo it read, decoded, CONTINUE SEARCHING CAREFULLY WESTWARD.

  That’s us, said Thomas Hudson to himself. He lay down and was asleep immediately and Henry covered him with a light blanket.

  IX

  An hour before daylight he was below and had checked his glass. It was four-tenths lower and he woke his mate and showed it to him.

  The mate looked at him and nodded.

  “You saw the squalls over Romano yesterday,” he whispered. “She is going into the south.”

  “Make me some tea, will you, please,” Thomas Hudson asked.

  “I have some cold in a bottle on the ice.”

  He went astern and found a mop and a bucket and scrubbed the deck of the stern. It had been scrubbed before but he scrubbed it again and rinsed the mop. Then he took his bottle of cold tea up on the flying bridge and waited for it to get light.

  Before it was light his mate got in the stern anchor and then with Ara brought in the starboard anchor and they and Gil hoisted the dinghy aboard. Then his mate pumped the bilges and checked his motors.

  He put his head up and said, “Any time.”

  “Why did she make that much water?”

  “Just a stuffing box. I tightened it a little. But I’d rather she made a little water than run hot.”

  “All right. Send up Ara and Henry. We’ll get going.”

  They got in the anchor and he turned to Ara. “Show me the tree again.”

  Ara pointed it out just above the line of beach they were leaving and Thomas Hudson made a small pencilled cross on the chart.

  “Peters never did get Guantánamo again?”

  “No. He burned out once more.”

  “Well, we are behind them and they have other people ahead of them and we’ve got orders.”

  “Do you think the wind will really go into the south, Tom?” Henry asked.

  “The glass shows it will. We can tell better when it starts to get up.”

  “It fell off to almost nothing about four o’clock.”

  “Did the sand flies hit you?”

  “Only at daylight.”

  “You might as well go down and Flit them all out. There’s no sense our carrying them around with us.”

  It was a lovely day and looking back at the bight where they had anchored and at the beach and the scrub trees of Cayo Cruz that they both knew so well, Thomas Hudson and Ara saw the high, piled clouds over the land. Cayo Romano rose so that it was like the mainland and the clouds were high above it with their promise of south wind or calm and land squalls.

  “What would you think if you were a German, Ara?” Thomas Hudson asked. “What would you think if you saw that and knew that you were going to lose your wind?”

  “I’d try to get inside,” Ara said. “I think that’s what I’d do.”

  “You’d need a guide for inside.”

  “I’d get me a guide,” Ara said.

  “Where would you get him?”

  “From fishermen up at Antón or inside at Romano. Or at Coco. There must be fishermen salting fish along there now. There might even be a live-well boat at Antón.”

  “We’ll try Antón,” Thomas Hudson said. “It’s nice to wake up in the morning and steer with the sun behind you.”

  “If you always steered with the sun behind you and on a day like this, what a place the ocean would be.”

  The day was like true summer and in the morning the squalls had not yet built. The day was all gentle promise and the sea lay smooth and clear. They could see bottom clearly until they ran out of soundings, and then far out and just where it should be was the Minerva with the sea breaking restfully on its coral rocks. It was the swell that was left from the two months of unremitting heavy trade wind. But it broke gently and kindly and with a passive regularity.

  It is as though she were saying we are all friends now and there win never be any trouble nor any wildness again, Thomas Hudson thought. Why is she so dishonest? A river can be treacherous and cruel and kind and friendly. A stream can be completely friendly and you can trust it all your life if you do not abuse it. But the ocean always has to lie to you before she does it.

  He looked again at her gentle rise and fall that showed the Minervas as regularly and attractively as though she were trying to sell them as a choice location.

  “Want to get me a sandwich?” he asked Ara. “Corned beef and raw onion or ham and egg and raw onion. After you get breakfast, bring a four-man watch up here and check all the binoculars. I’m going outside before we go in to Antón.”

  “Yes, Tom.”

  I wonder what I would do without that Ara, Thomas Hudson thought. You had a wonderful sleep, he told himself, and you couldn’t feel better. We’ve got orders and we are right on their tails and pushing them toward other people. You’re following your orders and look what a beautiful morning you have to follow them in. But things look too damned good.

  They moved down the channel keeping a good lookout, but there was nothing but the calm, early morning sea with its friendly undulations and the long green line of Romano inland with the many keys between.

  “They won’t sail very far in this,” Henry said.

  “They won’t sail at all,” Thomas Hudson said.

  “Are we going in to Antón?”

  “Sure. And work all of that out.”

  “I like Antón,” Henry said. “There’s a good place to lay to, if it’s calm, so they won’t eat us up.”

  “Inside they’d carry you away,” Ara said.

 
; A small seaplane showed ahead, flying low and coming toward them. It was white and minute with the sun on it.

  “Plane,” Thomas Hudson said. “Pass the word to get the big flag out.”

  The plane came on until it buzzed them. Then it circled them twice and went off flying on down to the eastward.

  “He wouldn’t have it so good if he found one,” Henry said. “They’d shoot him down.”

  “He could send the location and Cayo Francés would pick it up.”

  “Maybe,” Ara said. The two other Basques said nothing. They stood back to back and searched their quadrants.

  After a while the Basque they called George because his name was Eugenio and Peters could not always say Eugenio said, “Plane’s coming back to the eastward between the outer keys and Romano.”

  “He’s going home to breakfast,” Ara said.

  “He’ll report us,” Thomas Hudson said. “So in a month maybe everybody will know where we were at this time today.”

  “If he doesn’t get the location mixed up on his chart,” Ara said. “Paredón Grande, Tom. Bearing approximately twenty degrees off the port bow.”

  “You’ve got good eyes,” Thomas Hudson said. “That’s her, all right. I better take her in and find the channel in to Antón.”

  “Turn port ninety degrees and I think you’ll have her.”

  “I’ll hit the bank anyway and we can run along it until we find that damned canal.”

  They came in toward the line of green keys that showed like black hedges sticking up from the water and then acquired shape and greenness and finally sandy beaches. Thomas Hudson came in with reluctance from the open channel, the promising sea, and the beauty of the morning on deep water, to the business of searching the inner keys. But the plane working the coast in this direction, turning to run over it with the sun behind it, should mean no one had picked the boats up to the eastward. It could be only a routine patrol, too. But it was logical that it should mean the other. A routine patrol would have been out over the channel both ways.

  He saw Antón, which was well wooded and a pleasant island, growing before him and he watched ahead for his marks while he worked in toward the bank. He must take the highest tree on the head of the island and fit it squarely into the little saddle on Romano. On that bearing, he could come in even if the sun were in his eyes and the water had the glare of a burning glass.