Robert Stone - A Flag for Sunrise

“You go get ’em, sailor,” Tino said, slapping him on the shoulder.

Pablo took his morning Benzedrine; a barbed wave of resentment ran through him. Fucking pull and tote. He climbed over the rail and took a closer look at the town.

At the end of the pier was a market square dominated by a gabled stone building with “Perreira Brothers” lettered over its central doorway. To the right of it, behind a garden wall enclosing royal palms and banana trees, was a government building marked by the same two flags.

Two seagoing tugs were berthed at the adjoining pier, one flying U.S. colors, the other Dutch. Beside the tugs were two small Venezuelan freighters. As far as Pablo could see, there were no other craft in port.

He lifted a crate of Amstel, carried it aboard and set it down beside the forward hold. After a while, he fell into the rhythm of hauling; the speed, the sweating, the sun on his body made him feel powerful. When the beer was aboard, there were cartons of frozen meat for the reefer, then greens and fruit.

Each time Pablo shouldered a box past the shuttered main cabin, he heard the voices of the people conferring inside and although he could not make out what was being said there was something about the very tone in which they spoke that made him think of high fortune and the big-time score. He began to take less pleasure in his donkey work and to feel turned around.

After a little more than a half hour, he decided that he would take a break, let the cartons pile up on the pier for a while and get out of the sun. Tino was down in the engine space, working on the diesel.

In the shade of a hatch cover, Pablo contemplated the scheme of things. He kept thinking of the old man called Naftali who was with them in the cabin now, and who lived in a hotel room amid piles of hundred-dollar bills.

He had made his move, he thought. He had put a thousand miles between himself and the life of petty day-by-day. McPhail and his like, the crummy trailer, the chickenshit, that bitch and her rat-burgers. He was out where it mattered; out here, he thought, you made it big or you went under. He would go under or go back and let them put the irons on him and do the time. But if he made it big, he might go back and no one could touch him. Or he might settle down, on some island, a better island than this one — and be like the men you read about in Soldier of Fortune , men who had lived the life of adventure in hot countries and by their strength and cunning made it big, gotten rich, and who lived exquisitely in plantation houses high above the harbor with beautiful native wives.

People liked to get you thinking you were small-time. That way, they made out and you got fucked. It was that way now, he thought, they were in the cabin talking big-time scores and he was hauling groceries for them. They might pay him or they might not; he was a yo-yo to them. One of life’s little yo-yos.

But the fact was, they were old and soft. They were making it big, they had made their move, but they were soft. Callahan was a rummy. What were Negus and Callahan together compared to him? Surely, he thought, their day was over. It was someone else’s turn now, someone smarter and tougher. And it was all in your mind; if you let weak people buffalo you, they would keep you down. He had been letting them do it all his life and it was time to call them on it. He was young, he was strong, a soldier of fortune. He had seen them up close, they were nothing much.

Naftali with the room full of money, he had not seen. But Naftali was an old man, was losing his grip. Was he as bad as all that? He, Pablo, might see about that; you had to take risks, there was nothing for free. It was a new ball game on this ocean. He began to suspect that things were going his way.

Then Tino came up and yelled at him — the black son of a bitch actually cursed him out in front of the other niggers on the dock; he was put back to his loading. As he labored under the bales of netting and the boxes full of spare parts, a chain of recall ground against his memory and every insult and humiliation he had ever been forced to bear flashed before him, as bright and hurtful as though he were enduring each again.

When the last of the stores were aboard, he took another Benzedrine and shortly thereafter made up his mind. They would never pay him, he realized. They took him for a fool. It was time for another move. A man doesn’t live forever, he thought. You don’t make out playing it safe. He had tried being Joe Citizen and he had ended up sharing a trailer with an ignorant whore and a kid he couldn’t support. No more. If you let yourself be anybody’s man you ended up like everybody.

In the afternoon, Tino sent him to the port captain’s office to get the Cloud ’s papers stamped and the fishing permit renewed. By the time he got back aboard, the conference was over. The cabin shutters were lifted and Naftali had departed unseen. The Callahans were in bathing suits.

Pablo asked if he could take a shower.

“Go ahead,” Callahan told him. “We’re finished here.”

Callahan looked pretty good, Pablo thought, harder and trimmer than he ought considering his age and the amount he seemed to drink. The sight of Mrs. Callahan in her bikini stirred Pablo’s resentment and strengthened his resolve. He noticed that Negus had started in drinking beer.

“We’re going to the beach,” Deedee said. “Up at the new hotel. Anybody else want to come?”

Pablo shook his head.

“Tino,” she said, “you come. I want to see if you’ll show your legs.”

“Oh no,” Tino said. “Not me.”

“I don’t think he can swim,” she said to her husband.

“I de bes’ swimmer,” Tino told her with a sad smile.

“You’ll find Naftali at the Hollandia if you need him,” Callahan told Negus. “He’ll probably sack out, I don’t think he’s feeling well.” He looked over his men with an air of good-natured proprietorship. “Think you boys can stay out of trouble until we get back?” As he asked the question, Pablo noticed that a gear locker beside the galley was swinging open. Its upper drawer was piled with tubes and radio parts — various things that might be worth keeping under lock and key in port. His automatic pistol was in the lower drawer still in its leather holster. On the locker handle hung an open padlock.

“Guess I’ll wash up now,” Pablo said. He went back to the lazaret to get his towel and clogs and some clean underwear. The space was close and airless without a seaborne wind to cool it; the boards enclosed each hour of the day’s heat.

When he had finished showering, the locker still hung open. He changed clothes on deck, leaving his boots beside the hatch with his wallet and passport under his socks, and put on his sunglasses and his Macklin Chain Saw hat. With the cap down over his eyes, he sat down in one of the cockpit chairs, turning it round on its swivel so that he could face the main cabin and see the open locker.

In the cabin, Negus reclined on a wooden bench, his feet up on the table and his back against the bulkhead. He had been up all night and had started drinking in the morning. There was a glass of neat rum on the table, a few inches from where his legs rested.

Tino was in the engine space with another St. Joostian, working on the Lister. Through the planking, Pablo could hear the rattle of their tools and their soft curses.

In his swivel chair, Pablo felt clean, cool and ready. He was waiting for Negus to fall asleep. As he willed Freddy Negus into slumber, he had a look at the publications stacked beside the Modar. He found two U.S. Coast Guard code books, laminated and stamped “Secret,” and the Coast Guard frequency chart, all current. Along with these were code books of the Tecanecan and Compostelan navies, so similar in typeface and binding to the U.S. books that it was apparent they had been printed by the same outfit. The Spanish in these was obscure to Pablo, but the military frequencies and codes were listed.