Tierra del Fuego by Francisco Coloane Page A

cheer them with his harmonica, or the occasions when, without a centavo in his pocket, he’d go to a bar in this port or that with one of his friends and launch into a grotesque dance, playing the harmonica and a whole set of spoons that he’d hold between his fingers and drum in time on his head, front and back. After the dance, which always made the customers laugh, Martín would be invited to every table, but would refuse to drink without his esteemed comrades . . .
    â€œRemember when the María Cristina went down?”
    â€œWhen he took off his life jacket and gave it to Foster . . .”
    â€œBecause Foster was the older of the two, and he wouldn’t have made it otherwise. . . .”
    â€œHe handed it over and swam out to sea without a life jacket . . .”
    â€œAnd now the old rogue’s asleep and won’t even bury the man who saved his life . . .”
    â€œNor will we . . .”
    â€œOr those other bastards who took off . . .”
    â€œOr anyone else . . . hic . . . hic . . . This world’s a rotten place . . . and the minute you turn your back, no one remembers you . . .” It was the drunker of the two men who was speaking, his eyes filling with thick tears. “Poor Martín,” he went on between whines and sobs. “‘ If the green goes with the green , And the red goes with the red , Then all is for the best , And I’ll sleep easy in my bed . . .’”
    Intermittently, a ship’s siren sounded out of the night. It could be heard inside the bar, cutting through the noise and the music—an anguished howl, with something human about it, a plaintive, touching voice in the midst of that vastness. It was the horn of the Gastelu , crying out for her five crewmembers who had disembarked on a mission of mercy.
    â€œHey, sailors!” the owner of the bar cried, shaking the two men still dozing at the table where five men had sat down that afternoon. “A ship’s been calling her crew for the past half-hour!”
    It was no easy task to wake them. Fortunately, he did so just as the ship’s siren resumed its long, anguished lament, again calling for its crew to set sail before the tide rose in the exit from the Straits.
    Still rubbing their eyes, the two sailors recognized the intermittent hooting as the voice of the Gastelu.
    â€œThat’s our ship!”
    â€œShe’s telling you to hurry up!” the bar owner said.
    â€œWhat about our shipmates?” one of the men asked, somewhat sobered after his sleep.
    â€œThey left . . . a few hours ago . . . in search of other entertainment!”
    â€œEven Foster?”
    â€œWho’s Foster?”
    â€œThe others may have gone to find women, but Foster’s an old man, and he should be with us!”
    â€œOh, yes, the old man! I saw him with you, but he vanished a while ago . . . You never know, sometimes the older you are, the more of a skirt-chaser!”
    At that moment, the horn of the Gastelu blew again, calling its men back from town, and the last two customers of the Hamburg quickly grabbed their caps and left.
    Outside, they ran headlong into the black night, and the frozen tentacles emerging from the darkness fanned their faces and sobered them up.
    â€œWhat about Martín?” one of them said, suddenly remembering the coffin they had abandoned on the sidewalk.
    â€œWe didn’t bury him!” the other exclaimed, as if resuming the drunken litany.
    â€œLet’s keep quiet about it . . . We’ll agree on a story with the others when we’re in the boat.”
    â€œSomeone’ll find him tomorrow and bury him!” the other replied, and they set off toward the quay and vanished like two shadows darker than the darkness around them.
    But the following day there was no coffin to be found anywhere—snow had been falling all night, forming a mantle about three feet thick and turning everything white, and it continued snowing,