Long Voyage Back (11 page)

`They're doing no banking business with any except their own customers,' a man told Frank. 'I doubt that there's a single bank in the country today that doesn't have the same policy.'

Giving up, Frank returned to his car and sat slumped in shock. He might be able to steal the plane, he thought, pay for it later. But he couldn't fly it. He supposed he could kidnap a pilot . . . But gradually he realized that there was no way. He couldn't get there by car. He couldn't fly. He was stuck. As he slowly drove back to Crisfield he felt himself disoriented from the succeeding shocks of the day. All his life he had been a doer, a man who faced problems squarely and set about solving them. His success in the world of New York City real estate was based partly on this ability to deal with problems as soon as they arose, make fast decisions and get the job done. It also helped that he wasn't afraid of risks. He enjoyed taking risks.

He had wanted to treat the unthinkable catastrophe of nuclear war as he would a disastrous cashflow problem, for the challenge of the war stimulated him, the challenge of the logistics of saving his wife, shoring up his financial position, surviving - all these got his adrenalin flowing, had him acting decisively, rationally, quickly. But the experiences he'd had in his three hours in Salisbury had been for him the psychological equivalent of being bombed. He had begun to realize that all his paper wealth - his stocks, bonds, trust funds, treasury certificates -were probably worthless. And the more material assets he owned - the apartment houses in New York City, his home in Oyster Bay, the shopping centre in Englewood - had all, with the hopeful exception of his house in Oyster Bay, been destroyed. But worse, he realized that the '

problems' and `challenges' presented by the holocaust were not something that could be dealt with. He couldn't buy a plane, or a car, or even, maybe, a tank of gasoline. He couldn't even telephone anyone. He was almost helpless. Suddenly, overnight, he was an unemployed pauper.

But alive. For as he drove back towards Crisfield with the car-radio tuned to the appalling news, cities with whom all

communication had been lost, countries with whom all communication had been lost, a large part of him began to fear for his life and want to scurry for the nearest hole to survive. The numbing, incomprehensible, dreamlike list of American cities and defence installations that had been struck by nuclear missiles or bombs dazed him. He heard the Secretary of Defense urging people to stick to their jobs if their jobs were important, to report for service if they weren't. In one sentence the man warned against needless panic and in another advised people to evacuate fallout areas. He didn't list fallout areas. Frank learned that the United States had bombed Cuba, that Europe was being devastated; London wiped out, Moscow, Leningrad, numerous unpronounceable other Russian cities; Russian forces in Iraq attacked. China and Japan had been struck. Several countries in South America and Africa had loudly proclaimed their neutrality. His fear for himself began to grow. He knew that part of his frantic activity to get back north to his wife was based on the simple fact that it was the expected thing to do. It was a man's job to protect his wife. The thought of her there in their house, helpless, confused, worried about Jimmy, worried about him too, huddled together with Susan, that thought made him sad, made him feel needed, made him want to find a way north. But, the only thing left now was Vagabond. He was frightened: he pressed his foot further on the accelerator. All salvation lay in Vagabond.

15

With the wind shifting more to the north,. Vagabond had one long tack across the bay to Crisfield. Despite the extra ton of weight from the new passengers and their luggage, she plugged along at six or seven knots until within two miles of the town when the wind fell. Then her speed dropped to two knots and she began to wallow and crawl. Neil hailed and bribed a small cruiser to tow them the last two miles into the dock. The trip was uneventful. Although thin wisps of the dark cloud mass from Washington seemed to be stretching almost over them there was no sign of radioactive fallout. The ten passengers maintained a stunned and numb order which made the boat-handling easy. Jeanne had spent the first hour and a half below but, with Skippy napping and Lisa helping Jim at the helm, she came up and stood beside Neil in the port cockpit. He was again aware of her as a woman, her bare brown legs and arms set off by the white shorts and shirt. Her long hair was now brushed and tied up on top of her head. She stared forward for a while without speaking.

`Do you think Frank will be there?' she finally asked. `There's no way of knowing,' he answered. 'We'll just have to see.'

Ànd then what?' she asked.

Ì suppose that will be mostly up to Frank,' he said after a pause.

`We should leave,' she said with unexpected force. 'Get out of this country.'

He glanced at her. She seemed more angry than fearful. Ì agree, ' he said. 'But I'm afraid Frank doesn't.' Ì just listened to a radio down in the cabin,' she went on.

`The whole world is collapsing.'

Neil felt a fear, partly of what she said and partly of her intensity. Ì imagine it is.'

Ànd we've done it,' she continued, again staring forward. Òur country and Russia are destroying the world.'

Neil was aware that two of the women seated in the wheelhouse were looking at her uneasily.

Ìf we live through this madness we have to create a new world,' she said, her eyes seeming to make a personal appeal -to Neil. 'We have to create a family, support each other, end the selfish divisions that led to this horror.' She looked at him for confirmation.

Neil felt an unaccountable heaviness. He supposed it was because he didn't think the species that killed a hundred million of its own kind in one day was likely to be too great on its next go-round. If there was a next go-round.

`First we have to survive,' he replied.

`Yes,' she said, seeming to relax some of her intensity. `But, my God, how cold-hearted this war is making us survivors. I think you're the only friendly face I've seen all day.'

`Cornered and fleeing animals aren't nice,' Neil said.

She nodded and frowned. 'Back before you rescued me I could have killed with that butcher knife,' she said softly, looking, Neil saw, quite puzzled and a little saddened by the knowledge. 'How depressing that is.'

Neil didn't comment. Two passengers were leaning out over the coaming in the port cockpit and he wondered why until he saw that one of them was being seasick. Ànd that's the way of madness,' Jeanne went on and, pausing, she looked up at him. 'I'm glad I spared you,' she said. Suddenly and unexpectedly she was smiling up at him. Ì am too,' Neil replied, smiling back.

`My personal Captain Luck,' she said.

`How so?' he asked, puzzled.

`You said that before we can create a new world we have to find the luck to survive,' she said, strangely gay all of a sudden. 'I guess I found you.' She paused. 'Although I hope your style isn't always to throw me overboard.'

After the horror of Point Lookout, Crisfield was as quiet and relaxed as a tourist and fishing town should be. There were no mobs and few boats. Neil supposed survivors from the Philadelphia area had more options to flee to than did those south and east of Washington and Baltimore.

After Vagabond was tied up at the dock in front of a large green fishing trawler named the Lucky Emerald, he assisted his passengers ashore. Most were bewildered; it seemed to Neil that if someone had offered them a boatride back to Point Lookout many of them would have crowded aboard. As they were leaving, Jeanne came up beside him where he stood overseeing the exodus.

`Can't we invite some of them to stay with us?' she asked him.

`That's Frank's decision to make,' he replied, feeling something of a liar. 'When he comes we can reconsider it.' `They have no place to go,' she said. Ànd we have nothing to feed them with,' Neil explained. Ì was in their place four hours ago' she said, looking away.

Ì know,' he said gently, frowning. 'But we can't save everybody. We'll be lucky if we can save ourselves.'

`We should try to save as many as we can,' she said.

`We haven't enough food to last ourselves more than two or three days,' he went on. '

That's our job now: to try to get some supplies aboard.'

Ì'd like to invite that woman with the nursing child,' Jeanne persisted. Neil looked at the retreating passengers.

Àll right, Jeanne,' he answered. 'But let her know the food situation.'

While Jeanne hurried forward to overtake the nursing mother Neil turned to Jim. When he did, he saw that the man with the .45 was still sitting on the settee and beside him the much younger man, Jerry, with the pink shirt and green pants. Neil .went over to them.

`What are your plans?' he asked the older man. `What are yours?' the man countered.

`We wait here until ten to pick up the owner, then we're heading out of the Bay into the Atlantic.'

Àll right.'

Àll right what?'

`We'd like to come along.'

Neil studied the man. His business suit seemed somehow inappropriate, fraudulent. The man's round, unshaven face never seemed to vary its placid expression. The young man beside him was morose-looking.

`Who are you?' Neil asked.

`Conrad Macklin,' he replied. 'This is my friend Jerry.' `What do you do?'

The man shrugged. 'I used to be a marine,' he said. `Paramedic. After Vietnam, I flew planes, freelancing. Now ... I sail a trimaran.'

`We don't have much food,' Neil said.

Macklin shrugged again.

`We're going shopping,' Neil said, feeling irritated.

`Could you two contribute some cash to the cause?' Macklin took out his billfold, removed two hundreddollar bills and handed them to Neil.

`Jim,' said Neil, turning away. 'I want you and Jeanne to go into town to the nearest supermarket and buy everything you can carry. I'll give you three hundred dollars and don't hesitate to pay double for anything you can get. Triple, if you have to.'

Jeanne reappeared in .the wheelhouse alone.

'What happened?' Neil asked.

`She'd hooked up with a man and he had a car,' she answered, looking saddened that her offer had been rejected.

Neil wrote out a brief list of basics for Jeanne and Jim and sent them off. Skippy had fallen asleep during the sail, so Neil had Lisa begin making an inventory of the cans and boxes of food already on hand. Although uneasy about the presence of Macklin and his friend, he decided Macklin already had what he wanted - namely a boat to escape in -so now there should be no worry.

He worked briefly setting up Lisa with the inventory and then went back up into the wheelhouse.

'I've got an important job I'd like you to do for us,' he said to Macklin.

'Yes?'

'We've got a bent propeller shaft and can't get it out,' Neil explained. 'We need a slidehammer puller, it's a tool. I want you to try the boatyard over there and see if you can rent, buy or borrow the tool. How about it?'

'Why don't you go?' Macklin asked.

Neil met the man's cold gaze with equal coldness.

'You'll help when I ask you to help or you're not sailing with us,' he said, feeling absurdly for an instant like he was in some western in which both he and Macklin were about to go for their guns.

Macklin in fact looked down at his .45, again cradled in his lap, and caressed the barrel once with his left hand.

'That sounds reasonable,' Macklin said and, standing, put the gun into a shoulder holster beneath his suit jacket. He smiled for the first time. 'Relax, captain,' he went on. 'I'm just out to save my ass like the rest of you.'

'A slide-hammer puller,' Neil repeated coldly.

'Got it.' Macklin ambled off the boat.

'And I want you,' Neil said to the man named Jerry, 'to go

along the docks and see if there's a water outlet we can get water from.' The man - he seemed only a couple of years older than Jim - nodded and went off. The other thing is fishing gear, Neil thought, as his mind immediately returned to the task of preparing the ship for a long survival voyage. It would help if they had extra nylon line and metal lures, another rod too, maybe. Those might actually be easier to pick up than food. He looked restlessly ashore: Jeanne and Jim were already returning, and emptyhanded. The two of them jumped down on to the side deck and came over to him.

`There was a line forty yards long outside the supermarket,' Jeanne explained. 'And then the manager came out, counted about twenty people and told the rest of us to go home. He was closing after those twenty.'

Èvery other grocery store was closed,' Jim added. 'Half of them were boarded up and the others had an armed guard.' Neil simply nodded.

`Give me the money, Jeanne,' he said. As Jeanne fished in her pocket for the cash he went on to Jim, 'We need to get water aboard. All we can get. I sent that guy named Jerry to locate an open tap. Fill the tank and all the plastic jugs.'

`How about that leaky ten-gallon container?' Jim asked.

`That too,' Neil replied. 'I sent Macklin - that's the man with the .45 - after the puller. I'm going to take a shot at getting us some supplies. Stay here, get your .22 out again, and don't let anyone aboard except Macklin. When he's back, have him stand guard.'

`You trust him?' Jim asked.

Ì trust him to keep unnecessary people off the boat,' Neil explained. Òkay.'

Neil hesitated, gauging Jim's character.

`This time . . .' he began, as Jim looked at him attentively, ìf you feel you have to shoot .

. . shoot.'

`Macklin?' asked Jim.

Ànybody,' Neil replied.

The situation in Crisfield was as Jeanne and Jim had described it. Fortunately, the local hardware store was open.

`Cash only,' a clerk announced as he entered. 'All prices triple what's marked.'

Neil went to the fishing gear section and quickly picked out three lures, two wire leaders and 500 feet of 30 lb test line. As he walked to the cashier he grabbed two kerosene lanterns. The manager said he didn't sell kerosene, but Neil bought the lamps anyway. Back on the main street he considered his tactics. He'd hidden his gun under a loosefitting jacket and the bag of supplies he was carrying. He'd become aware throughout the day of a feeling he hadn't had for a long time: that he was ready and able to kill, had in the past killed, and that this readiness gave him a power and confidence in this situation, since the missiles had started flying, that was essential for survival. He felt he could sense when others lacked that readiness - as with the grey-haired man on the yawl who was holding Jeanne - and when they did have it, as with Macklin. This feeling of power had always bothered him, ever since he'd first sensed it in Vietnam more than a decade ago, but he knew it was now one of his chief assets. Neil passed a closed grocery store behind the door of which sat a fat man with a shotgun across his knees. Neil felt it would be easy enough to take such a store, but it didn't feel right and he walked on. Ahead he saw a line of about twelve people outside a large Foodtown store. He went around to the back. The first rear entrance was locked but at the other end of the back of the building he saw another. A man with a white apron was exiting with an armload of boxes. When Neil followed him back to the door the clerk turned.