Long Voyage Back (2 page)

`What was that?' he exclaimed.

Neil pointed to the vapour trails in the sky.

Jim seemed momentarily frightened, but then grinned. 'I thought the destroyers had opened fire on us,' he said.

Neil watched the cotton trails disappear into the brightness towards the east.

`Welcome back to civilization,' he commented.

Throughout the morning Vagabond sailed up the bay at a little over seven knots and Neil went about the boat, making sure it would be ready for its owner's inspection that night. Vagabond was a fast, roomy trimaran that moved through the water like a strange threelegged insect skipping from wave to wave. You entered the cabins of the side hull from the two side cockpits and went down steps to the long, narrow floor area. The berths were up in the 'wing' area over the water separated from the main cabin by a plywood and veneer partition. Vagabond was steered from the enclosed wheelhouse that was between the main cabin with its galley and dinettearea and Neil's aft cabin. On either side of the wheelhouse were the open cockpits with seats and the sliding hatchway leading down into the side cabins. All this space meant that people could get away from each other at sea and Neil, being a private man, found that important, almost as important as Vagabond's ability to go fast, without heeling, in almost any kind of weather. At noon he relinquished the helm to Jim in order to put through a call to Frank at his office in New York City. Jim turned on the transistor radio to listen to the noon news, a rarity, since he usually preferred music or his cassette tapes. Neil's aft cabin contained only twelve square feet of standing space between his double berth dead aft and the bulkhead that separated his cabin from the ship's engine compartment. Although not as spacious as the cabins in the two side hulls Neil preferred it to anywhere else aboard. The radio-telephone, a shortwave radio, and a chart table had all been installed here; his books were crammed along two long shelves. With the large grey radio, the navigational equipment and the sparse furnishings, it was a very masculine room, 'about as pretty as the inside of a tank' as one woman had described it. When the marine operator got the call through to New York Neil was glad to hear Frank'

s husky voice.

`This stupid war stuff is screwing up everything,' Frank announced loudly. 'I can't get a flight to Washington; they're booked solid. You think you could meet me today in Crisfield? I can get a flight to Salisbury, Maryland, and then rent a car.'

Crisfield, Neil, knew, was a small fishing town about twenty-five miles across the bay from Point Lookout.

`Sure,' he replied. 'That's as easy as Point Lookout. What about the Foresters?'

`We'll sail Vagabond across the bay and pick them up as soon as you get me. What time you figure you'll make it to Crisfield?'

Ìf the wind holds or improves we'll be there by six tonight. But if it drops or we're headed . .

`Well, do your best,' Frank said into the pause. 'I know you must be beat. Vagabond's a lot of boat for just two men, especially when one of them's a goof-off.'

`Your son's a good sailor,' Neil commented quickly. `Yeah?' Frank replied, seeming surprised at the news. Ìn that blow off St Augustine,' Neil went on, 'Jim went up the mast when the mainsail jammed. He also took the

helm for almost four hours, letting me sleep through half my watch.'

Àt home I can't get him to do five straight minutes of any kind of work, much less four hours.'

`Neil!' Jim's voice broke into the conversation from the deck just outside the cabin hatchway. 'I've got to talk to Dad. There's going to be a war!'

`What are you talking about?' Neil asked, looking up at Jim. Ì just heard the news,' Jim went on. 'We rejected the Russian offer. Let me speak to Dad.'

Ùh, Frank, Jim wants to talk to you,' Neil said. 'We'll meet you tonight in Crisfield unless we're becalmed. If we are, I'll try to get a message through to Carter's Bluewater Marina. Got it?'

`What? Sure. Good.'

Neil hopped up the cabin steps and hurried to the wheel as Jim took over the radiophone'

s mike.

`Holy Jesus, Dad,' Jim said. 'We're going to be fighting the Russians. There's going to be a war!'

For a moment there was silence on the other end, then Frank's voice replied slowly and huskily. 'Don't worry about it, Jimmy,' he said. 'This is just another scare. Just like three months ago. Just like two years ago. This is international poker and the secret is never to call, just keep raising.'

`The radio said we rejected their offer of mutual troop withdrawals,' Jim went on. 'Why?'

Ìf we withdraw any troops now,' said Frank, his husky voice again coming in only after a pause, 'we'd be seen as giving in. Our President may be a jerk, but he's a macho jerk, so we can be sure that now that our troops are in Arabia they're going to stay, even if no one's around to kill.'

`Dad, we ought to take the boat back south,' said Jim, gripping the mike in both hands. '

When the war starts—'

`Now cut that crap,' Frank interrupted with abrupt

annoyance. 'This is just another game of international brinkmanship and neither their assholes nor our assholes are stupid enough to go to war. The Russians don't really care about Saudi Arabian nomads and we don't really care about Asian democracy.'

`But we care about oil!'

`Not enough to blow up the world,' said Frank. 'Now give me Neil. No, don't bother. Just hang up and get your ass up to Crisfield.' The line went dead. Jim stood alone in the aft cabin. He was angry. He hated the way his father dealt with him. Since he'd been only an average student and never held a job, his father had always made him feel he was something of a good-for-nothing. He enjoyed rock music, playing his guitar, getting high with his friends and partying, and making it with Celia or an occasional other girl. None of these qualified in Frank's eyes as anything but being a waste of time. The three or four occasions he'd sailed with Frank on Vagabond there'd been a lot of older people aboard who'd helped Frank handle the boat. Jim had ended up retreating to his cabin to get stoned and listen to music. His father had inevitably come to shout at him to turn it down and to criticize him for not helping more with the sailing. It had been a downer. He didn't even think he liked sailing much until this sail from Florida alone with Neil.

He climbed slowly up the ladder from the aft cabin and went back into the wheelhouse. Neil, who'd heard Jim's end of the conversation and its abrupt termination, stared forward.

`There's going to be a war,' Jim stated angrily. 'And Dad doesn't care.'

Neil glanced at Jim and then back forward. 'I don't know,' Neil replied. 'I suppose it's possible our troops and theirs may be killing each other in a month or two. But maybe the world will pretend everyone's a guerrilla and we won't have to call it a war.'

`But that retired general says we ought to hit Russia before they attack us,' said Jim. 'And those Protestant ministers said the same. If the Russians read that then they'll have to strike first. Don't you see?'

`No, Jim .

`They're going to do it,' Jim insisted, his long hair falling down his forehead so that when it obscured his left eye he tossed it back angrily. 'I know they are. I can feel it!'

Neil looked forward, reminded of a young sailor on his last patrol who had panicked from watching B-52s bomb the coast two miles away. He knew from Frank that when Jim was fifteen he'd had a bad acid trip, hallucinated a nuclear holocaust about to occur and kept insisting to his family that they leave the country and fly to Australia. He'd had to be sedated for most of three weeks, and since then, according to Frank, Jim tended to become upset whenever there was news of nuclear power plant accidents or nuclear test explosions or the threat of war. There'd been a lot to be upset about in the last three years.

`The Russians aren't going to start a nuclear war,' Neil said softly.

`Then we are!' he shot back. 'There's no way the two sides can go on this way. It's going to happen!'

`Take it easy, Jim,' Neil rejoined sharply, putting his hand on Jim's shoulder. 'Shouting isn't going to stop anything.'

`Damn it! You don't care either.' Jim stood facing Neil defiantly, but Neil didn't look at him.

`Look,' Neil persisted softly, 'it's no more appropriate to panic about this international storm than it is in a storm at sea. You just do what has to be done when it has to be done.'

`We should find a fallout shelter, stock up on food. We .

`Right now,' Neil interrupted firmly, 'our job is to sail Vagabond to your father.'

Òh, Neil,' Jim responded. 'It's so sad. It's so . .

`Drop it,' said Neil. He was still staring forward. 'Here, take the helm,' he went on. 'It's still your watch.' He walked away into the port cockpit and stood with his back to Jim. The shore was only dimly visible far off.

He was feeling distinctly uneasy. Jim's fears struck a responsive chord; he could feel fear vibrating in his own gut. A part of him also wanted to return and run back out the mouth that he felt closing now behind them. His instinct was to get out to sea, away from the mess that men might make on land. He turned to Jim.

`We're meeting Frank in Crisfield instead of Point Lookout,' he said quietly. 'Our course is changed to zero one zero. You got it?'

`Zero one zero,' Jim answered, glancing once at the compass and beginning to turn the wheel to starboard.

As Neil stared ahead he was surprised to find himself wondering anxiously whether Vagabond's charts of the West Indies were still aboard. Annoyed at his irrationality, he held himself firmly standing in the port cockpit staring at the great expanse of bay lying before him. His course was zero one zero, ten degrees east of north. Getting to Crisfield without an engine was worry enough for one day.

Frank felt good. His adrenalin was really flowing. All morning he'd been marching in and out of his office ordering Rosie and Jason to phone here, phone there, get this, send for that, then marching back to telephone someone himself. It was one of those days that when he stared out his office window overlooking lower Manhattan and New York Harbour he felt like a king.

He loved this war crisis. He loved the way it was driving the stock market down, just as he'd known it would; loved the way it made people edgy, nervous, scared shitless. A few things had gone wrong for him during the day -Neil's report of the bent propeller shaft, the booked flights to Washington, Jim's panic, a real estate deal falling through . . . but he shook them off like so much dandruff. He was making thousands of dollars an hour on his short selling of stocks and by tonight he'd be aboard Vagabond in the Chesapeake and the whole world could blow up and he wouldn't give a damn. After he'd talked to Neil and Jimmy at noon and eaten the lunch Rosie brought into him, he'd put in a call to his stockbroker. As he waited he leaned back in his huge leather chair, the phone at his ear, his long lanky body stretched out comfortably. He was a good-looking man in his mid-forties with thinning grey hair, warm dark eyes and an easy grin.

`Hi, Al,' he said when he got through. 'Selling panic still in full swing? . . . Down thirtyfour points! Jesus, that's even worse than I thought it would be. Or better than I thought.'

He laughed briefly, then listened. 'Okay, good. Look I think there's going to be a turnaround sometime late today - this

thing can't look any worse than it does right now - so I want to take my profits in most of my shorts. Give me the quotes . . . Right. Okay. I want to cover the US Home at . . . what'

d you say it was at now? . . . at twenty-four then; the Datapoint at fifty-five, and the Microdyne at thirty. Got it? All the shares . . . Yeah, I'll hold the other two short positions .. .

Ì'm flying down this evening . . . I've got the radiotelephone on the boat but I don't like to think about stocks or real estate while I'm at sea. I'll phone you later today if I haven't left and we'll see what we did . . . Yeah? Thanks. I'm no genius. I just know that with the jerks who end up running countries, things have to get very bad before anyone can figure out a way to make 'em better . . . Okay, Al, thanks.'

Well well well: even Al seemed worried about a war, poor bastard. Hell, New York City didn't have anything to worry about. It was such an archetypal centre of capitalist decadence that the Russians would probably want to preserve it as an historical park for their tourists: porno shops here, Harlem there, Wall Street next . . . They wouldn't nuke New York; hell, it would destroy itself in just a few more years. Frank got up and paced back and forth across the deep rust-coloured carpet and then buzzed Rosie to see if Jason had returned yet with the propeller shaft from Hempstead. No, but he was on his way. Let's see, what else for the boat? The new charts for the Chesapeake - he had them. And the bag of specialities that Norah had got for him from Flynn's delicatessen: caviar, cashews, some of Flynn's incredible cheeses, two loaves of good bread, and Norah's own fantastic pies: the sort of stuff Neil never got aboard no matter how many commands he was given. It was Neil's one great flaw: he shopped and cooked as if he were feeding a reform school.

But Jesus, was he lucky to have got him as Captain. Imagine, a Navy officer! The guy sails a couple of thousand

miles with as little fuss as most men go to the corner drugstore. He loses his engine to a freak accident and still probably will make it on schedule. Oh oh. He hadn't got through yet to Jeannie Forester about the change of plans. He returned to his big chair, buzzed Rosie, and waited for her to place the call. He felt a warm anticipation for that throaty, sexy voice of hers, sexy especially because she didn't really mean to be sexy. For two years now Jeannie had become the only thing that ever took his mind off business, and he was aware that whenever he thought of her he fell victim to an almost adolescent melancholy and longing. They'd been friends for five or six years and he knew she must be aware that he'd developed feelings for her beyond friendship. But she wasn't so much rejecting his feelings as kind of ducking and letting them slide past her.

`Frank, hi. Everything still on for the sailing?'