The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway - Ernest Hemingway [209]
“Get up forward and give me the depth.”
He kept sounding with a grains pole, motioning me on with the pole. He came back and motioned me to stop. I came astern on her.
“You’ve got about five feet.”
“We’ve got to anchor,” I said. “If anything happens so we haven’t time to get her up, we can cut loose or break her off.”
Eddy paid out rope and when finally she didn’t drag he made her fast. She swung stern in.
“It’s sandy bottom, you know,” he said.
“How much water have we got at the stern?”
“Not over five feet.”
“You take the rifle,” I said. “And be careful,”
“Let me have one,” he said. He was plenty nervous.
I gave him one and took down the pump-gun. I unlocked the cabin door, opened it, and said: “Come on out.”
Nothing happened.
Then one Chink put his head out and saw Eddy standing there with a rifle and ducked back.
“Come on out. Nobody’s going to hurt you,” I said.
Nothing doing. Only lots of talk in Chink.
“Come on out, you!” Eddy said. My God, I knew he’d had the bottle.
“Put that bottle away,” I said to him, “or I’ll blow you out of the boat.”
“Come on out,” I said to them, “or I’ll shoot in at you.”
I saw one of them looking at the corner of the door and he saw the beach evidently because he begins to chatter.
“Come on,” I said, “or I’ll shoot.”
Out they came.
Now I tell you it would take a hell of a mean man to butcher a bunch of Chinks like that and I’ll bet there would be plenty of trouble, too, let alone mess.
They came out and they were scared and they didn’t have any guns but there were twelve of them. I walked backwards down to the stem holding the pump gun. “Get overboard,” I said. “It’s not over your heads.”
Nobody moved.
“Over you go.”
Nobody moved.
“You yellow rat-eating aliens,” Eddy said, “get overboard.”
“Shut your drunken mouth,” I told him.
“No swim,” one Chink said.
“No need swim,” I said. “No deep.”
“Come on, get overboard,” Eddy said.
“Come astern here,” I said. “Take your gun in one hand and your grains pole in the other and show them how deep it is.”
He showed them.
“No need swim?” the one asked me.
“No.”
“True?”
“Yes.”
“Where we?”
“Cuba.”
“You damn crook,” he said and went over the side, hanging on and then letting go. His head went under but he came up and his chin was out of water. “Damn crook,” he said. “Damn crook.”
He was mad and he was plenty brave. He said something in Chink and the others started going into the water off the stern.
“All right,” I said to Eddy. “Get the anchor up.”
As we headed her out, the moon started to come up and you could see the Chinks with just their heads out of water walking ashore, and the shine of the beach and the brush behind.
We got out past the reef and I looked back once and saw the beach and the mountains starting to show up; then I put her on her course for Key West.
“Now you can take a sleep,” I said to Eddy. “No, wait, go below and open up all the ports to get the stink out and bring me the iodine.”
“What’s the matter?” he said when he brought it.
“I cut my finger.”
“Do you want me to steer?”
“Get a sleep,” I said. “I’ll wake you up.”
He lay down on the built-in bunk in the cockpit, over the gas tank, and in a little while he was asleep.
I held the wheel with my knee and opened up my shirt and saw where Mr. Sing bit me. It was quite a bite and I put iodine on it, and then I sat there steering and wondering whether a bite from a Chinaman was poisonous and listened to her running nice and smooth and the water washing along her and I figured, Hell no, that bite wasn’t poisonous. A man like that Mr. Sing probably scrubbed his teeth two or three times a day. Some Mr. Sing. He certainly wasn’t much of a business man. Maybe he was. Maybe he just trusted me. I tell you I couldn’t figure him.
Well, now it was all simple except for Eddy. Because he’s a rummy he’ll talk when he gets hot. I sat there steering and I looked at him and I thought, Hell, he’s as well off dead as the way he is, and