Long Voyage Back (31 page)

Their destination was the West Indies, initially Puerto Rico. But with the southeast wind forcing them to sail directly south by the end of the third day Neil felt they were already so close to the Bahamas that they should make a landfall on Great Abaco Island. There they might barter for more food and water, even, if they found the right conditions, try to settle. However, radio Nassau reported debilitating food shortages throughout the islands, and Americans were not welcome. If the principal food 'was fish, they might as well continue at sea.

Fishing was, in fact, the focus of each morning and evening's effort. They had two ocean rods and reels with good

line, but only five lures, one of which they lost on their second day. At dawn and dusk they usually trolled with both rigs, one from each cockpit. The rods were usually jammed into place with a strong drag on the reels so that no one had to sit and hold them all the time. When a fish was hooked the helmsman would bring the boat up into the wind to slow it down, and someone would stand by with both a gaff and a large net while the other man on watch duty, who was responsible for the rods, would begin to reel in the hooked fish.

Because such fishing was new to most of them and because their lives depended on it, the bringing in of a fish was a major community event. They caught three bluefish their first evening, a twenty-pound tuna the next dawn, two dolphin and a tuna that dusk, then inexplicably lost two hooked fish and a second of their lures during the next dawn. The third evening, however, they recouped with two more dolphin and a barracuda. Neil himself, with his arm in a sling from cracking his elbow on the Moonchaser, couldn'

t help with the fishing, but it interested him to watch the different styles his crew had in bringing in and gaffing the fish.

When Frank was in charge of the gaffing there was shouting and confusion and irritability before Frank could get the man controlling the rod and reel to position the fish properly for gaffing or netting. Once the fish was flopping around in the cockpit there was always a delay and more shouting before Frank, looking pained, would knife the fish out of its misery.

When Olly was in charge everything proceeded as quietly as if all were in a silent movie, the only sound being Olly's soft talking to the fish. Olly never told the man at the rod or at the helm what to do, but by talking to the fish - 'Come on in a little closer, fella, my back hurts and I don't like leaning down none' - the man at the rod would know exactly what to do. When he had gaffed the fish, Olly would say something like Ùp you go, sonny, easy does it', as if the fish wanted to get aboard and all of them were involved in a co-operative

enterprise. Then, after the fish was aboard and flopping, Olly would take a minute to praise the fish to all the onlookers. `Look at those colours, will you? I ain't seen anything as pretty as that since my second wife bought herself that new dress', or `Now isn't that a big fella. Must weigh twenty-five pounds and not an ounce of fat. Bet he was an Olympic champ down below . . .

And when Olly killed, he always began talking to the fish again. 'Okay, big fella, afraid we got to quiet you down. I gave you time for your prayers but if you got anything else you want to say better say it now . . .' The fish would flop violently in response to this, or once, so everyone agreed, made some distinct grunting sounds, and then Olly, with one neat slice, would quiet the fish forever.

`Don't he look beautiful?' Olly would conclude. 'Just hope I look half as good when the Big Fisherman hauls me in and lays me out. I'm damn sure I won't taste as good.'

Conrad Macklin on the other hand gaffed and killed a fish with a fierce scowl as if involved in a life-or-death combat with a life-long enemy.

When Jeanne participated in the fishing Neil found himself focusing more attention. Her glistening dark skin and full lithe body distracted him considerably from the problem of boarding the fish, especially as she wrestled with the rod and reel or stuck her behind in the air to lean down to gaff, clad as she usually was only in shorts and a bikini top. She and Katya seemed to have the same effect on Tony, Macklin and Frank. Lisa's budding body, perhaps because of her shy dignity, was less observed, except by Jim. They were adapting to a world of scarcity. Neil restricted the use of their remaining two gallons of diesel fuel to the charging of the three batteries. Oil was now everywhere unavailable except to the military. To avoid having to charge the batteries any more than necessary, Neil used them solely for the shortwave radio. For illumination they used kerosene lamps, and, when necessary, flashlights. They had only four gallons of kerosene and that too might never again be easy to obtain. The two dozen candles aboard Neil stored as light of last resort. Even matches were scarce. Fortunately, no one smoked except Jim, who smoked marijuana and was abstaining, and Macklin, whose cigarettes had been confiscated by Neil to use in the West Indies as barter. But the bleakness of the land world and of shortages Neil and Frank and Olly kept to themselves. For all of them the sea represented a haven, a relief from the terrors and suffering they had experienced on land, and Neil wanted to try to keep it that way. For the first time there began to be casual joking among them that had been lacking before. On the second afternoon Neil had overheard Captain Olly teasing Frank about Vagabond.

`Yep,' Captain Olly was saying. 'You gotta good ship here, Frank. All you got to do is take off those two side boats you got, and the masts, and put a bowsprit on her and paint her black and she'd be right pretty. Might not even have to paint her.'

Frank laughed as he sat down in the wheelhouse with a small cup containing his daily ration of beer.

`Thanks,' he said to Olly, who was at the helm with his own cup.

`Don't be embarrassed your boat don't look like a boat,' Olly went on. 'Brazen it out. Pretend you got yourself a beginner's boat. You know, a three-wheeler so you won't tipover.'

Frank laughed again and even as he did, Neil realized that it was the first time since the war had begun that he had laughed. 'I tell people I got a special three-for-the-price-ofone deal that I couldn't pass up,' Frank said.

`Yep. Good story. Good story. Got to tell them something, that's for sure, so they won't know you're nuts,' Captain Olly concluded.

While Neil assumed responsibility for the sailing of the ship, Jeanne began to assume responsibility for how they interacted with each other. At dinner their second day at sea she

suggested that at every evening meal they observe a half-minute of silence before eating, and if anyone wanted to offer thanks for the food or for life, he or she might. Jeanne usually spoke, occasionally mentioning some specific individual she wanted to acknowledge. Often Katya or Jim or Frank would also add a brief word. More rarely Tony or Neil.

That night too she embraced and kissed each of the others still topside before she went below to her berth. Although all she said to each was 'Goodnight' and the person's name, Neil could see that the physical contact loosened the isolation each tended to feel. Even Conrad Macklin flushed and looked pleased. Among the men, at Jeanne's prodding, there were more 'good job, Frank', and 'thanks, Jim', and 'that's good, Tony', where before there had been either cold correctness or nothing.

Captain Olly had the most trouble adapting to the more affectionate routine which Jeanne kept urging upon them. When Neil relieved him at the helm at the change of watch and said 'Nice job, Olly', he testily replied: 'Can't expect me to run aground in five thousand feet of water.' When Jeanne gave him a goodnight kiss the second time he grimaced and grinned. "T warn't much of a kiss,' he said. 'If you want to get laid you got to do better than that.'

Jeanne looked surprised and then smiled, 'Don't worry,' she had said, her eyes flashing. '

When I want to get laid, the man will know it.'

Most of them found the meals repetitious and skimpy. They were rationing themselves severely on the last of their canned foods and some remaining fruits and vegetables, and salting and drying some of their fish steak for later. They were cooking in salt water and had cut their fresh water intake to a quart per person per day. The six adults were all experimenting with drinking a cup or two of sea water each day. To help avoid unnecessary gloom Neil became a censor. He permitted only Frank and Olly to listen to the shortwave and

transistor radios with him. The violent, anti-white, anti-Americanism he was picking up from stations in the West Indies they kept to themselves. The probability of mass starvation on many of the islands within a month they did not mention. Officially they were sailing for the islands untouched by the war. In his heart Neil knew that no place and no one and nothing would ever be untouched by this war. Shortwave and transistor reports from the US mainland raised on the third day at sea a new spectre. A summer flu seemed to be afflicting many people in the west and southwest with an unusually high number of fatalities. One ham operator speculated that a biological warfare laboratory had been destroyed and that one of its germs had been responsible for the epidemic. In any case it now seemed to be killing more people than fallout. Typhoid had also become a problem. Of the fighting itself there was little news. The superpowers were still technically at war, but now like two exhausted and glassyeyed fighters who had landed such devastating blows in the first round that they seemed barely capable of standing, much less hitting each other. Thus it seemed that each day the ramifications and elaborations of the world disaster spread a little further, like a spilled bottle of black ink slowly soaking along a paper towel. Cuba had been heavily bombed by conventional means early in the war and when the Cubans tried to take the US Navy base on the eastern tip of their island, the US had used a tactical nuclear weapon to destroy much of the enemy force. Cuba's Air Force and Navy had allegedly been destroyed, but no effort made to invade. Guantanamo was being evacuated. Although nuclear explosions had destroyed -the Panama Canal, Miami, Cape Canaveral, American forces in Central America and oil refineries in Venezuela, the Caribbean area had been spared nuclear explosions since the third day of the war. Some rich Americans were flying to Puerto Rico and this influx of the privileged was being resented. Despite the presence of the US Navy, which, with the losses of its other Caribbean bases, now had its largest facility outside San Juan, pirate attacks were occurring on both private and commercial ships, both small and large. Food riots occurred on a regular basis in San Juan and smaller cities although officially there was as yet no starvation.

It was to this island that Vagabond was supposedly heading, but in the new world that all had experienced over the last ten days no one aboard expected anything. Neil set a course, they sailed on. In this new world the future was something that could only hurt or terrify or kill. To look beyond the next wave was dangerous. Neil set a course, they sailed on. To hope for more could only be done in whispers. On their third night at sea Lisa and Jim had the ten to two watch, with Neil awake in the wheelhouse. Near midnight Jeanne fixed some hot tea, one bag for three cups. Vagabond was still sailing due south with a good easterly breeze. An afternoon squall line seemed well behind them. With Jim now at the helm and Lisa watching the trolling rig in the side cockpit, Neil and Jeanne sat kittycorner from each other a few feet apart in the unlit wheelhouse, sipping at their weak tea.

`Do you think about where we're going to end up?' Jeanne asked him unexpectedly. Neil did think about it, frequently. It made for depressing thinking.

`Yes,' he answered.

`Will we be able to settle in Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands?' Jeanne asked after she saw he wasn't going to go on.

`Perhaps,' Neil replied, doubting it very much. As he looked at her he wished he could share his fears but wanted to spare her the burden. Even with the mostly overcast sky the nearly full moon gave light to Vagabond's decks and allowed Neil to see the outline of Jeanne's face and body. She was very still, her teacup held in her lap. The afternoon squalls had dampened the seas and, for a change, Vagabond wasn't pounding but rolling gently through the water.

Ì suppose, ultimately, it has to be South America, doesn't it?' she went on. 'Some place untouched, where the . . . infrastructure of civilization is still solid.'

Neil sipped at his tea. He'd heard a report that half a dozen South American countries - all of whom had by now declared their neutrality - had set up internment camps for American

refugees. The threat of-the mysterious plague-like disease which was spreading from the western US was increasing their fear of and resentment of Americans.

`Yes, I guess it will,' he said, without elaborating.

`That was a strange time we had that other night, wasn't it?' she said unexpectedly in her low, intense voice. Neil became aware of Jim at the wheel eight feet away, able to hear. Of Lisa too not far away. 'That other night' in the side cockpit had been . . . my God, almost a week before.

Ìt was a lot more than that,' Neil answered.

`Yes . . .' she replied in a soft voice.

For half a minute, as Neil stared at Jeanne's indistinct face, neither of them spoke.

`There aren't any rules any more, are there?' she said after a while. 'We have to create our own.'

`There are rules,' Neil said. 'Blowing up the world doesn't end rules.'

Ì mean . . . some of the old ones can't be applied any more.'

Like what? Neil wondered. Like widows and a period of mourning? Love leading to marriage? Love leading to bed?

`Like what?' he asked. He noticed Lisa coming in from the port cockpit to talk to Jim.

`The old rule that you could go to bed with a man for enjoyment,' Jeanne said in a low voice.

Startled, he waited for her to go on. It wasn't an old rule he had expected her to come up with.

Ìn the new world,' she continued softly, glancing towards where Jim and Lisa were also talking in low voices. 'In our new world, in this small world of Vagabond, that rule won't work. My sleeping with . . . a man would transform our universe.'