Ernest Hemingway - The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

“Pour one yourself,” I said. I saw him reach for the bottle and tip it up.

I went back to the stern.

“All right,” I said. “Let six come on board.”

Mr. Sing and the Cuban that sculled were having a job holding their boat from knocking in what little swell there was. I heard Mr. Sing say something in Chink and all the Chinks in the boat started to climb onto the stern.

“One at a time,” I said.

He said something again, and then one after another six Chinks came over the stern. They were all lengths and sizes.

“Show them forward,” I said to Eddy.

“Right this way, gentlemen,” said Eddy. By God, I knew he had taken a big one.

“Lock the cabin,” I said, when they were all in.

“Yes, sir,” said Eddy.

“I will return with the others,” said Mr. Sing.

“O.K.,” I told him.

I pushed them clear and the boy with him started sculling off.

“Listen,” I said to Eddy. “You lay off that bottle. You’re brave enough now.”

“O.K., chief,” said Eddy.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“This is what I like to do,” said Eddy. “You say you just pull it backward with your thumb?”

“You lousy rummy,” I told him. “Give me a drink out of that.”

“All gone,” said Eddy. “Sorry, chief.”

“Listen. What you have to do now is watch her when he hands me the money and put her ahead.”

“O.K., chief,” said Eddy.

I reached up and took the other bottle and got the corkscrew and drew the cork. I took a good drink and went back to the stem, putting the cork in tight and laying the bottle behind two wicker jugs full of water.

“Here comes Mr. Sing,” I said to Eddy.

“Yes, sir,” said Eddy.

The boat came out sculling toward us.

He brought her astern and I let them do the holding in. Mr. Sing had hold of the roller we had across the stern to slide a big fish on board.

“Let them come aboard,” I said, “one at a time.”

Six more assorted Chinks came on board over the stern.

“Open up and show them forward,” I told Eddy.

“Yes, sir,” said Eddy.

“Lock the cabin.”

“Yes, sir.”

I saw he was at the wheel.

“All right, Mr. Sing,” I said. “Let’s see the rest of it.”

He put his hand in his pocket and reached the money out toward me. I reached for it and grabbed his wrist with the money in his hand, and as he came forward on the stern I grabbed his throat with the other hand. I felt her start and then churn ahead as she hooked up and I was plenty busy with Mr. Sing but I could see the Cuban standing in the stem of the boat holding the sculling oar through all the flopping and bouncing Mr. Sing was doing. He was flopping and bouncing worse than any dolphin on a gaff.

I got his arm around behind him and came up on it but I brought it too far because I felt it go. When it went he made a funny little noise and came forward, me holding him throat and all, and bit me on the shoulder. But when I felt the arm go I dropped it. It wasn’t any good to him any more and I took him by the throat with both hands, and brother, that Mr. Sing would flop just like a fish, true, his loose arm flailing, but I got him forward onto his knees and had both thumbs well in behind his talk box and I bent the whole thing back until she cracked. Don’t think you can’t hear it crack, either.

I held him quiet just a second, and then I laid him down across the stem. He lay there, face up, quiet, in his good clothes, with his feet in the cockpit, and I left him.

I picked up the money off the cockpit floor and took it up and put it on the binnacle and counted it. Then I took the wheel and told Eddy to look under the stem for some pieces of iron that I used for anchoring whenever we fished bottom fishing on patches or rocky bottom where you wouldn’t want to risk an anchor.

“I can’t find anything,” he said. He was scared being down there by Mr. Sing.

“Take the wheel,” I said. “Keep her out.”

There was a certain amount of moving around going on below but I wasn’t spooked about them.

I found a couple of pieces of what I wanted—iron from the old coaling dock at Tortugas—and I took some snapper line and made a couple of good big pieces fast to Mr. Sing’s ankles. Then when we were about two miles offshore I slid him over. He slid over smooth off the roller. I never even looked in his pockets. I didn’t feel like fooling with him.

He’d bled a little on the stern from his nose and his mouth, and I dipped a bucket of water that nearly pulled me overboard the way we were going, and cleaned her off good with a scrub brush from under the stern.

“Slow her down,” I said to Eddy.

“What if he floats up?” Eddy said.

“I dropped him in about seven hundred fathoms,” I said. “He’s going down all that way. That’s a long way, brother. He won’t float till the gas brings him up and all the time he’s going with the current and baiting up fish. Hell,” I said, “you don’t have to worry about Mr. Sing.”

“What did you have against him?” Eddy asked me.

“Nothing,” I said. “He was the easiest man to do business with I ever met. I thought there must be something wrong all the time.”

“What did you kill him for?”

“To keep from killing twelve other Chinks,” I told him.

“Harry,” he said, “you’ve got to give me one because I can feel them coming on. It made me sick to see his head all loose like that.”

So I gave him one.

“What about the Chinks?” Eddy said.

“I want to get them out as quick as I can,” I told him. “Before they smell up the cabin.”

“Where are you going to put them?”

“We’ll run them right in to the long beach,” I told him.

“Take her in now?”

“Sure,” I said. “Take her in slow.”

We came in slow over the reef and to where I could see the beach shine. There is plenty of water over the reef and inside it’s all sandy bottom and slopes right in to shore.

“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.”