Long Voyage Back (14 page)

`Coffee or scotch?' Jeanne now asked Frank. Captain Olly was already sipping at a cup of scotch - caffeine being 'bad for the teeth'.

`Both,' Frank replied and sat down with a great sigh on the settee opposite 0lly, who was now slumped sideways and snoring.

When Neil appeared he stopped with uncharacteristic uncertainty at the foot of the steps. He accepted a cup of coffee from Jeanne with a mechanical smile, his severe face showing none of the warm attention to her it had shown so often throughout the day.

`We should be getting under way,' Neil said to Frank, who sat with his back to him. Frank stared into the bronze glow of his whisky and in a single swallow tossed it off. When Frank didn't reply Jeanne asked: 'Where are we going?'

It's my judgement we should sail out the Bay to the ocean,' Neil replied, looking at Frank'

s back.

Frank turned on the transistor radio on the shelf above the dinette table and after a moment obtained a working station. As they all began listening to a radio report of the events of the day Jeanne exchanged a strangely conspiratorial glance with Neil and then sat down beside Frank, instinctively placing her hand on top of his. The nuclear war was exactly one day old and already, although someone claimed both sides were showing 'restraint',

every European country and most regions of the United States had been hit. The US

retaliation on the Soviet Union was described as if it were even more devastating than the blows the US had received. A statement from the President indicated that the war would be fought to the bitter finish, no matter what the consequences. The President said that he expected every citizen to do all he could to support the American effort against the world-destroying Soviet Union. A state of martial law had been declared, requiring everyone to obey the military as the law of the land.

Finally Frank reached up to his right and turned off the radio. 'I couldn't get to Norah,' he said to no one in particular.

`No planes available?' Neil asked.

`Nothing to pay with,' Frank replied. 'I have no money.' In the silence that followed Jeanne became aware of Neil's

unanswered call to get going hovering over the room. `What are we going to do now?'

she asked Frank gently. Ì don't know,' Frank answered.

`Macklin obtained a puller,' Neil said, 'and they loosened the old shaft. Jim and I should be able to put in the new one and get the prop on in less than an hour. Then we should sail south.'

Frank turned in his settee seat to look past Jeanne at Neil still standing at the foot of the companionway steps.

`What about Bob?' he asked. 'What about Captain 01ly? What about the rest of the country?'

It seemed strange to Jeanne to hear someone asking about Bob. It was like an inquiry into another lifetime. `Bob is dead,' she said automatically.

`The radioactive cloudbank from Washington is still spreading,' Neil went on. 'The fallout will get worse. I doubt we can survive unless we get east and south. Fast.'

With a wave of fear Jeanne suddenly saw in Frank's haggard face that he was in a state of shock, that he was barely there. She saw a vague irritation cross his features when Neil spoke, but no comprehension.

`Then . . . we should get under way,' she said softly and stood up. Looking back at Frank she saw him turning to pour himself another small glass of whisky.

`We've got new food supplies in 01ly's smack,' Neil said to her. 'I'd like you and 01ly to transfer them over to Vagabond and then you can begin storing them.'

Àll right,' she answered, aware of how gently Neil was speaking to her.

`We're running away,' Frank announced in a low, husky voice. Ì hope so,' Neil snapped back.

`What else is there we can do?' Jeanne asked quickly.

Frank tossed off his second drink, slid himself sideways and stood up. 'When I know, we'

ll do it,' he said. 'HEY! YOU!' he shouted at the sleeping fisherman, who awoke, startled and blinking. 'You want to join us on an ocean cruise?'

Captain 01ly squinted dazedly at Frank. 'I gotta son I want to see,' Olly replied, frowning.

`Well, then, you'll have to shove off,' Frank said. 'We'rr only taking cowards and deserters.' He brushed past Jeanne and Neil and up the companionway. Neil and 01ly followed.

`What are we going to do with this load of filth?' Frank asked, stopping to stare at Conrad Macklin, who was seated bound to the base of the mizzen mast with his arms tied behind his back. Jim was seated on a settee seat guarding him, a bandaged forehead and bluish bruise on his lower rib cage indicating his wounds.

Ì'm sorry we stole your boat,' Macklin said unexpectedly.

Ì say we dump him overboard,' Frank went on fiercely, turning to Neil. 'I tried to get through to the Coast Guard to come arrest him, but the man on duty said we'd have to bring him in.'

`To where?' Neil asked.

`Their station at Crisfield.'

`We're not wasting time going back there.'

`Throw him overboard.'

A silence followed, Macklin looking expressionlessly at Frank. When Jeanne came up into the wheelhouse he looked at her.

Ì'm sorry about your girl,' he said. 'Jerry didn't mean to hurt her.'

`SHUT UP!' Frank shouted, taking a step towards Macklin and flushing with anger. Ìgnore him, Frank,' said Neil. 'Jim, get into your scuba gear. We're going to put the new propeller shaft in.'

When Jim went forward to change, and Jeanne and Oily began transferring the food from Lucy Mae, Frank sat down and put his face in his hands. Neil remained facing Macklin. Ì panicked,' Macklin went on quietly, his eyes as expressionless as always. 'Jerry was convinced that without food you were going to kick us off the boat before we cleared the Chesapeake. When I got back with that tool he'd already taken over the boat without me. Ask Jim.' He looked up at Neil with an anguished expression which Neil couldn't quite believe. 'Take me with you. I can help.'

Frank erupted from his seat and grabbed Macklin by the throat, sending his head crashing back against the mizzen mast. 'SHUT UP! YOU STUPID BASTARD!' he shouted. 'You say another word and I'll kill you!'

Neil pulled Frank away. 'Help 01ly and Jeanne,' he said to him quietly. For a moment Frank stood looming over Macklin; Neil could feel him trembling. Ì can't stand that kind of talk,' Frank said, finally moving away. 'A man steals my boat, hits a woman in the face, has his crony almost kill Lisa, and expects us to forgive him. Jesus!'

As he led his friend over towards the Lucy Mae, Neil

couldn't respond. He was disturbed to remember that he himself had been perfectly ready to steal a boat to go chase after Vagabond. And would he have let Macklin and Jerry stay if they'd got no additional food?

Now left alone with Macklin, Neil knelt down to remove the large section of the floor to get at the engine. He took a flashlight out of the tool chest lying on the shelf above the engine to examine the state of the repairs.

`You need me, Captain Loken,' Macklin suddenly said to him in a whisper. 'You need my medical skills. You need someone else aboard this ship with your cold will to survive. You can use me.'

Neil pushed himself back up to a kneeling position to look at Macklin in the dim light. Macklin was staring at him serenely.

`The others have too much heart to survive in this world,' Macklin went on. 'You can use me, you know it. I didn't want to take this boat. I can't sail. Without Jerry I'm no threat to turn pirate again.'

Neil looked back at him without expression. 'Despite your cold will to survive,' he said, '

the helpless people with too much heart have tied you to a mast and are about to throw you overboard.'

Jeanne and Frank came into the wheelhouse carrying bags of groceries and disappeared down into the main cabin.

`You know Frank won't kill me,' Macklin whispered. `That woman wouldn't let him. Only you are strong enough and cold enough to kill me, but you need another man like me. And you need a doctor. You know it.'

`With you around we'd damn well need somebody's medical skills,' Neil said. When Jim came into the wheelhouse dressed in his wetsuit, Neil stood up. 'If Frank agrees, we're dumping you ashore at the first opportunity,' he said to Macklin. Ì'm a fighter, Loken,' Macklin said in a normal voice. `You need another fighter.'

Ì can use your .45,' Neil replied, nodding to Jim to pick up the new shaft. 'The rest of you, no. Let's get to it, Jim.'

18

Because she felt herself moving in a dream from which she might momentarily awaken Jeanne was partially detached from all she did. The pedestrian act of bringing groceries into the galley was slightly unhinged by having to pass by the dark figure of Macklin bound to the mast whispering greedily to Neil. Later she could hear Neil and Jim grunting and swearing as they worked on the engine shaft, and as she traipsed to and fro between the two boats she became aware that around Vagabond was a vast darkness. There were no lights to be seen now in any direction, and although stars shone above them the whole northwestern third of the sky was ominously dark. She had managed to put away almost half the food in the galley when the propeller shaft was finally fixed, the engine tested, and the sails again raised. With the men shouting to each other on the deck above her, Olly poked his head into the galley and said an awkward goodbye. In another moment she felt the steady hiss of water along the sides of the hull at her feet; the anchor was up and they were sailing.

And then, in a casual, almost routine way, the nightmarish side of her dreamworld began again. They had been sailing no more than a minute or two, she still working in the galley, now lit by a kerosene lamp, when the companionway to the wheelhouse, which had been dark, was filled with light. She heard Neil shout: 'Don't look!' and a moment later Frank's voice: 'Get the sails down!'

She felt a wave of weakness and despair sweep over her. She braced herself, expecting the boat now to be hit as her car had been by the force of the blast. She heard and felt feet rushing across the cabin roof and again Frank's voice

shouting something to Jim. The sails began to flutter and snap as they did when the boat came up into the wind. She still crouched by the galley stove, her teeth clenched, her hands clutching the counter top.

A screeching sound cut into the flapping sails - the sails being lowered? - and then Neil's face appeared in the cabin entrance.

`Batten everything down!' he shouted. He started to leave but, catching her blank expression, he turned back. 'Big waves may be hitting us from the blast. Store everything where it can't get loose and fly around.'

While she began putting the dishes and remaining groceries away helter-skelter into drawers and cabinets Jim leapt down into the cabin.

Ì'll help,' he said and, kneeling, pushed back the carpet and removed a section of the floor. 'We'll store the rest of the food in the bilge for now,' he added. By the time she and Jim had battened everything down in the main cabin and come back up into the wheelhouse, the glow to the south, over Norfolk Jim told her, was large and growing, but not as bright as the blast over Washington. The sails were tied down and the boat motoring slowly north, its diesel engine barely audible. When Jeanne checked Lisa and Skippy she was surprised to see that someone had tied them into the berth: two half-inch lines across the top of the blanket attached to fittings in the far wall and at the edge of the berth near the cabin walk space. They couldn't roll out.

`Hold on, Jeanne!' she heard Frank shout and then became aware of a hissing, swishing sound growing closer. She grabbed the handrail of her own berth just as Vagabond was struck by a noisy moiling wash of water. The breaking waves threw Vagabond forward, swinging Jeanne around and slamming her into the wall beneath her berth. But that was all. The rushing sound continued and

Vagabond seemed to be surging and rocking, but the blow seemed relatively harmless. Her children didn't even waken.

Back up on deck she saw Frank, looking grim, handling the wheel and looking to his right where she could see another boat, the Lucy Mae, easing alongside. With Neil and Jim assisting, the two ships were again tied to each other, both motoring slowly forward. Ì came back for dessert,' 01ly said to her from his cockpit and smiled an elfin smile. Neil returned to the wheelhouse. 'We ought to motor into deeper water,' he said to Frank.

`You think there'll be more waves?' Frank asked.

Ìn two or three hours there may be some huge waves,' Neil replied intensely. 'The water near the blast area will have been hit with tremendous force and sent rolling up the Bay. These little things that are hitting us now are just from the local shock wave.'

`How much time do we have?' Frank asked.

Ìf the waves are moving at twenty to thirty knots, probably about two hours. Maybe more.'

Ìn that time we could get ourselves into the lee of Tangier Island,' Captain 01ly said.

`That would be good,' said Neil.

`Let's do it,' agreed Frank.

Neil and 01ly were now both frowning over at the Lucy Mae.

Òlly,' Neil said. ' Vagabond's made for big seas, but the Lucy Mae will be swamped and sunk if the big ones hit before we make the lee of Tangier. I think you ought to anchor and come with us.'

`How much warning you figure we'll get?' 01ly asked.

Ìf this light holds we should be able to see big waves coming from quite a distance . . . about a minute's warning,' Neil answered. 'But Christ, 01ly, we can't know even that for sure.'

01ly nodded. 'Why don't we both motor side by side,' he said. 'I'd like to try to make it.'

Òkay,' agreed Neil. 'Stay close in our lee. If we see danger we'll signal with the air horn and turn due north away from the waves. You motor over and board us. Figure you have about thirty seconds. Why don't we send Jim with you to help you prepare to abandon your ship if the time comes?'

`Sounds fine to me, sonny,' 0lly said. 'How big you figure these waves'll be?'

`Too big,' Neil replied.

The two vessels were soon speeding through the rough water thirty feet apart, headed northwest to hide behind the northern end of Tangier Island fourteen miles away. Jeanne could see Lucy Mae rolling and pitching in the short steep waves sent northward by the local shock waves. Vagabond's motion was less, since her three hulls made her more like a huge sailing raft, but the waves still smashed into the port hull with ominous crashing sounds.