I knelt before the fire, grilling a couple of spareribs. They smelt and looked fine.
We were tired, but we had the house ship-shape. I was surprised the way Miss Wonderly put her back into cleaning the joint. We had scrubbed and swept and dusted. We had laid coconutmatting down in two rooms and shifted the boat’s bunks into one of them. We’d unscrewed the two small arm-chairs from the cabin and dragged them into the house, and we’d taken the table too. With a couple of good paraffin lamps, the place looked almost like home.
In the cockpit of the boat I had found a Thompson and an automatic rifle and enough ammunition to start a minor war. I brought the automatic rifle to the house, but left the Thompson in the cockpit. I didn’t know when we might be cut off suddenly from the house or the boat, and I reckoned a division of weapons wise.
There was a portable radio on the boat, and we brought that up to the house too.
It had been a good day’s work in spite of the heat, and now we were ready for something solid to eat.
I divided up the spareribs, the hashed brown potatoes and a couple of Cokes.
“Here we go,” I said, dumping the plate on Miss Wonderly’s chest. “Eats.”
She sat up, after putting the plate on the beach wrap she had spread out so she shouldn’t get sand in her hair. In the moonlight and the firelight she looked swell.
“Still scared?” I asked, cutting my meat.
She shook her head. “No.”