Long Voyage Back

Part Two ASHES

The moon, now almost three-quarters full, lit up the sea to port like a giant nightlight. It was after midnight, and Neil had enjoyed the last hour more than any since they’d fled the Chesapeake three days before. Vagabond was now rushing through the night at eleven or twelve knots, and Neil was feeling that exhilaration that, only a sailboat tearing through the sea at night could give him.

Behind were three trails of phosphorescent white, bubbling out so fast it seemed Vagabond must be doing twenty knots, no matter what the speedometer read. Ahead Neil could see almost nothing. The trimaran charged into the blackness, as if totally confident that nothing could halt her queenly progress.

They were now about a hundred miles east of the North Carolina coast, and Neil held his course at due south by lining up the cluster of stars that made up Orion’s belt with the upper port shroud. He had let Jim and Lisa, whose official watch it was, continue sleeping, rather than wake them for their midnight to three a.m. watch. Vagabond, plunging forward through the night, was just on the edge of being over-canvased, and Neil kept checking to feel if the wind was getting too strong for the sail area. So far it hadn’t, and part of his joy arose from the feeling that he, Vagabond, the wind, and the sea were in total harmony.

With moderate seas he had been able to adjust the mizzen so that Vagabond was steering herself. He could wander out of the wheelhouse into either cockpit to stare at the stars or watch the moonlight on the sea, and Vagabond, like a giant puppy unleashed and glorying in a midnight romp, hurtled forward by herself through the night. At moments like this she seemed to be human, and he loved her, urged her on in his mind, congratulated her when, after an errant wave had pushed her bow off course, her mizzen slowly pushed her stern around to get her back on course.

All the troubles of the day were flushing away in Vagabond’s bubbling wake. Although the familiar gray cloud masses, which had seemed to be permanently pursuing them, had dissipated two days earlier, Neil, Frank, and Olly had all suffered from radiation sickness. Frank was still nauseous after three days, and Olly still suffered from diarrhea. Although the men had told the others it was seasickness, they all knew that none of them were ever seasick except in exceptionally heavy seas. Neil himself had been queasy for two days and once—only he knew it had happened—vomited off the afterdeck. His sickness frightened and depressed him, but on this third day it appeared to be gone.

In addition, listening to reports of the war had been a depressing and divisive experience. Although a Pentagon spokesman that morning had made a vague report about the great devastation that had been wreaked upon the Soviet Union, about a decisive naval victory in the Indian Ocean, about the grudging way allied forces were giving ground in what was left of Europe; the idea that the U.S. might win the war seemed irrelevant in the face of a report that most of the population east of Cleveland, north of Philadelphia, and south of Boston was fleeing from the effects of the war—lack of food, water, electricity, and the reality and fear of radioactive fallout. It was implied that half the northeast might soon be uninhabitable for all except a tenth of its former population. Other sections of the country were equally endangered. How people were evacuating when all fuel was requisitioned by the military and the public transportation network had ceased to exist was not explained.

“They’re jogging,” Frank had commented, not mentioning that his wife and a daughter might still be alive and among the fleeing millions.

Neil wandered to the back of the cockpit to adjust the drag on the trolling rig that was jammed in place there. Although they rarely hooked anything at night, especially at ten knots, Neil had asked Olly to try. As he set the drag and checked the tension, he remembered that it was Jeanne who had finally gotten them out of their oppressive mood. Earlier that evening she had browbeaten them into a singalong. It had started out as lugubriously as a funeral dirge, but ended with giddy silliness. Captain Olly taught them a blatantly obscene sea chanty, and though Lisa blushed, little Skippy sang along loudly and triggered the last burst of laughter by announcing that he liked songs about pussies.

Pressing the rod back into place, Neil smiled at the memory. The world of the last several days had been one emotional somersault after another: the gloom of thinking about the war and personal losses alternating with the delights of sailing or of eating their meager meals or bringing in a fish. He wished he could control the lows. In the Chesapeake they had endured seemingly hourly threats to their survival, but now, ninety miles from land, he felt it was his task to create for them a new world of order, routine, and dependability. As he came back to lean against the entrance of Frank’s cabin and look forward, he thought of his watch teams.

Frank and Tony, Olly and Macklin, and Jim and Lisa were now working out well. At first he’d tried Tony with Olly, figuring Olly might need Tony’s extra strength, but it hadn’t worked. Tony was a huge athletic man of twenty-eight, outgoing, ebullient, used to running things—a former football star and successful salesman. He’d had trouble getting along with Olly. Although Olly never appeared to order Tony around, he assumed control of Vagabond as naturally as he had of Lucy Mae. He treated Tony as a minor tool, a winch handle perhaps, and didn’t tend to listen when the winch handle talked back. Once when Tony finished a brilliant analysis of why loosening the genoa sheet and altering course three degrees had increased their speed a half-knot, Olly responded with a brief silence, a puff on his unlit pipe, and the suggestion that Tony should tighten up on the genoa a bit and alter course three degrees back again. At the end of their first day at sea Tony had taken Frank aside to complain.

“The old guy’s senile,” he had said when they were off in the port cockpit after Olly had retired into the aft cabin to nap. “I don’t think he relates to people anymore.”

“Only when he wants to,” Frank replied.

“He spent an hour on watch today talking about the various positions he used when he was screwing his third wife. Claimed there were twenty-seven and started mumbling and swearing when he could only remember twenty-two.”

Frank smiled.

“You get a free stand-up comic every watch,” he said.

“I don’t want a stand-up comic,” Tony exploded. “I want to talk with someone who speaks English.”

“I’ll take it up with Neil,” Frank said.

“Why the hell can’t you change the watches?” Tony went on. “You own the boat, don’t you?”

“I own it,” Frank replied evenly. “And Neil is captain. I’ll speak to him.”

“Let me work with you,” Tony said. “Macklin is exactly the quiet sort that Olly will love.”

“You’re probably right,” Frank had said, smiling, and when he had reported the conversation Neil had laughed and changed the watch teams as suggested.

Jim and Lisa were an unexpected gift. Lisa hopped around the boat with the nimbleness of a cat, and although she had to be reminded to wear a life jacket when she went forward to change a sail, she otherwise followed orders quickly and well. Intensely serious most of the time, she seemed to glow when working with Jim, as if the physical work liberated her from her seriousness.

For a moment Neil was brought out of his reverie by the appearance of a light off the port bow, but he decided it was just the moonlight reflecting off a distant whitecap. He wandered from the starboard cockpit through the wheelhouse with its unattended wheel to the port side to get a better look and to take a piss off the afterdeck. As he approached he was startled to see a head and shoulders silhouetted against the reflection of the moonlight on the water. It was Jeanne’s profile, silent and motionless compared to the swirling, rushing roller-coaster ride of Vagabond through the ocean.

He stopped unnoticed a few feet away and looked with her out over the water; the night breeze stirred her long hair away from her face.

“Oh!” she said, turning her head as she became aware of his presence.

“Incredible, isn’t it?” he asked softly.

She turned away again to look out at the river of moonlight that sparkled across the ocean, flowing toward them from the east.

“Yes,” she said.

Neil stood close behind her, steadying himself with his right arm on the wheelhouse roof and smiling, in love with Vagabond, the sea, the night, the moon.

“Who’s steering?” Jeanne asked, turning briefly back to him, her face in darkness with her back to the moon.

“Vagabond,” he answered. “She told me she wanted to handle things herself for a while.”

Jeanne rose slightly to stare past him into the wheelhouse and saw the unattended wheel. Then she looked up at the sails and aft at the three white rivers of light bubbling out behind them. Finally she looked back at Neil.

“Amazing,” she said.

“As long as there are wind, sails, and sea, the world won’t be all bad,” he said.

“For you, ” she commented.

“For me,” he agreed quietly.

“I’m still not comfortable out here,” she said. “The idea that there’s a mile of water beneath me and no dry land within a hundred miles is a little terrifying. I’m sorry.”

“If it weren’t a little terrifying,” Neil replied after a pause, “it wouldn’t be so beautiful.”

She also took some time before replying.

“For a while I thought you weren’t emotional about anything” she said.

“I guess I’m not,” he replied, “except about the sea.”

“Millions can die, but a good wind cures all,” she said, not sarcastically but rather questioningly, as if trying to understand him.

“If I can’t save the millions,” Neil replied cautiously, “then I’m willing to enjoy a good wind.”

“But what if you can?” she countered.

“Then I’d like to know how.”

She turned away and stared out into the darkness.

“No, the millions are lost,” she finally said. “And I have to admit you’re good at saving the single digits.”

Still standing behind her, Neil didn’t reply.

“A ship’s no place for children,” Jeanne went on quietly. “Especially with reduced rations… no definite destination, people sick… their whole previous lives… gone forever…”

“I know,” Neil said, “but children who’ve just… lost their father, seen their mother beaten up, been hit on the head with a gun butt, aren’t likely to be comfortable in any new place.” He paused. “But Lisa’s doing great out here,” he went on. “Skippy will too. Give him time.”

“I suppose so,” she said, “but the portions of food you’re making us dole out are so pathetically small, it’s frightening.”

“I know,” Neil said, then had to grab the back of Jeanne’s settee as a swell sent him staggering. “But just ask yourself how you’re going to feed Skippy two weeks from today.”

She grimaced, nodded, and finally managed a small smile.

“I keep forgetting that the next supermarket may be a decade away.”

“If we’re lucky,” Neil replied. The radio reports made it clear that on the mainland supermarkets had ceased to exist even in the “untouched” areas. Everything—even in farming country—was being confiscated and rationed by the military. Food was going to be their major worry for a long, long time. He and Jeanne had set aside an emergency food supply on their second day at sea, good for ten days at half-rations, but not counting that emergency cache, they had enough food even at their present low rate of consumption for only four or five more days. Catching fish was their key to survival.

A random wave slapped loudly at the speeding hull and sent a fine spray up over them in the cockpit. As he stood there he suddenly got a strong sense of Jeanne’s fear and loneliness.

“I’m afraid stability and the familiar are gone forever,” he said quietly.

She was still looking out over the sea. “Even on land there’s no place left to stand,” she said in a low voice.

In a shattering rush Neil was aware of her as a woman, filled with the desire to hold her, protect her, care for her. He released his grip on the wheelhouse roof and took a stride toward her just as an unexpected swell lifted Vagabond’s port hull and then lowered it with a slam, sending Neil tumbling forward and down onto Jeanne. After clutching her right leg to steady himself, he ended up sitting beside her on the cockpit seat.

“What’s happening?” she asked him urgently. “Are you all right?”

Neil laughed softly. He could see her face clearly for the first time in the moonlight. The bruise on her check was almost gone, and she looked beautiful.

“I wanted to come over and comfort and protect you,” he said, smiling. “Instead I almost knocked you overboard.”

Gazing wide-eyed at him, she took awhile to absorb what he’d said.

“Maybe you’d better get us life preservers,” she commented, smiling.

For Neil the world was reduced to her eyes gleaming in the moonlight. He pulled her gently toward him, cradling her head against the side of his face, simply holding her close. He only noticed the stiffness of her initial response after he felt her suddenly sag against him, relax, and sigh.

“Oh, Neil,” she said, and he felt her arms tighten around his back, her powerful hug surprising him. After a long moment they drew apart, and Jeanne tilted back her head to look with her large glowing eyes into his. Their faces came together as slowly and inevitably and perfectly as Vagabond correcting her course; their lips touched, wetted, parted, kissed. Neil lost track of time and place, and when the kiss ended and Jeanne gasped for breath, he instinctively glanced at the sails and sea to assure himself that his ship was still on course.

Jeanne sighed.

“Well,” she said, blinking her eyes and looking a little dazed. “Well.”

“How beautiful you are,” said Neil. She looked up at him uncertainly.

“Neil!… Neil!”

When Jim’s voice invaded their world with cruel abruptness, Neil released Jeanne and stood up.

“Over here, Jim,” he said, looking into the wheelhouse and dimly seeing Jim standing by the wheel.

“Oh, there you are,” Jim said, rubbing his eyes. “I just came up to go on watch and saw there was no one at the wheel and panicked.”

“Vagabond’s sails are balanced,” he said. “She’s self-steering.”

“Really? That’s fantastic,” Jim said, coming toward Neil. “Isn’t it about time for me to take the helm. I thought you said… Oh!… Hi, Jeanne.”

“Hi, Jim,” Jeanne said.

“It’s about twelve thirty,” Neil said, glancing at his watch. “Since Vagabond was doing the job by herself, I thought I’d let you and Lisa sleep.”

“Thanks,” said Jim. “Wow. Look at that moon.”

Neil turned to follow Jim’s gaze out to the east, his eyes just meeting Jeanne’s briefly.

“It’s quite a night,” Neil agreed.

“I feel great,” said Jim. “I think I needed the extra sleep.”

“Do you want me to fix you some coffee?” Jeanne asked.

“Oh, no, I’m fine,” said Jim. “Besides, Neil says we can’t have any coffee at night except under pressure conditions.”

“‘Pressure conditions’?” Jeanne inquired, looking up at Neil.

“I think it means no coffee unless we’re sinking,” said Jim, grinning.

“I doubt we’ll be able to get any more coffee unless we end up in South America,” Neil commented with his usual seriousness. “It’s now a delicacy. Sorry.”

“Our Captain Bligh,” said Jeanne, smiling.

“He was a marvelous seaman,” Neil rejoined.

“But unpopular with his crew,” said Jeanne.

“I like Neil,” said Jim solemnly, and Jeanne and Neil both laughed.

A sudden violent snapping and flapping from the bow sent Neil rushing past Jim over to starboard. The genoa was luffing, and Vagabond was veering off course upwind. He turned the wheel to port, and when he saw her swinging back on course he realized that the genoa sheet had come loose.

“Winch the genny in,” he said to Jim, who had followed him over to help. As he steadied Vagabond’s course, he watched Jim pull in the line controlling the genoa, first by hand and then with three turns around the winch.

“Far enough?” Jim finally asked.

“A little more,” Neil said.

When the genoa was sheeted to Neil’s satisfaction, and Vagabond once again contentedly galloped southward through the night, Neil turned the helm over to Jim.

“I think she’ll steer herself still,” Neil said. “But you may have to adjust the genny or mizzen sheets to get it right. Do you remember how I showed you?”

“Sure. I’ve got her now.”

“Good.”

Neil turned to see if Jeanne was still there and saw her standing next to the entrance to her cabin. He walked over to stand behind her, just touching her, their backs to Jim, looking out to sea.

“How strange it is,” she said softly after a long pause. “Here my husband is dead, millions killed, millions more doomed, and all I can think of is wanting a man I’ve known for just a few days in bed with me.”

Startled, he turned to her.

“Jeanne—” he said.

“But I can’t—”

“…Jeanne,” he whispered again. “Life doesn’t offer us much these days… . We should take what we can…”

They were only a few inches apart; she turned to look up at him, the moonlight full on her face, his in shadow.

“No, Neil,” she said softly. “There are others. And, my God, only four days… I think I owe it to Bob, and to… Frank… to you even, to assume it’s just… temporary insanity.”

“Would we were always insane like this,” said Neil.

“No, Neil,” she said and, squeezing his hand once, disappeared down her cabin steps. Vaguely Neil thought she might also have whispered a “Good night.” He reluctantly slid her hatch closed and, feeling exhilarated and alive, headed back to the wheelhouse. Jim was sitting on the edge of the other cockpit combing, staring forward.

“I’m going to rest here in the wheelhouse,” Neil said to him. “And if you fall overboard,” he went on, noting Jim’s somewhat precarious perch on the side of the boat, “remember to leave a forwarding address.”

“An island in the South Pacific,” Jim responded immediately.

Stretching out on the cushions, Neil yawned. “You’d better be in good shape,” he commented.

“Good night,” he heard Jim say to him.

“That’s my impression,” said Neil, smiling to himself, until the sudden image of Frank chilled him.

Vagabond, indifferent to it all, plunged forward through the night.

After Neil had fallen asleep on the cushions in the back of the wheelhouse, Jim was forced to take the helm. The wind had picked up and was heading them more; he wasn’t able to get the sails adjusted so that Vagabond could steer herself anymore. Even though he looked forward to her company on their watch, he decided to let Lisa sleep a little longer. He wanted time alone to think.

Although Jim had disagreed with his father at the time, Jim admired him for trying to get back home to Oyster Bay to try to save his mother and Susie. Jim knew that Frank had a fierce loyalty to his family, a sense of family pride that often made him act too severely toward his children. Now that he himself was all the family that his father had left, Jim felt a sense of responsibility toward him he’d never felt before. This sense of caring was increased by his realization that, more than any of the others on board, his father still appeared to be in a state of shock.

Jim knew he had been hurt by Neil’s taking command of Vagabond, and that of course his radiation sickness must be depressing him. Jim could see that Frank lacked his usual dynamic energy. When Jim had been helping him tear down the remains of the shattered rear wall of the wheelhouse and replace it with a sailcloth awning that could be raised and lowered, Frank had been enthusiastic about the task for half an hour and then had lost interest, wandering away and leaving the project for someone else to finish. The only person who seemed to be able to bring him back to life was Jeanne. When she’d suggested that all the men should take a turn working in the kitchen, he had smiled at her and argued playfully, “What’s the sense of surviving if I have to wash the dishes?” but nevertheless had cleaned up the galley more cheerfully than Jim had ever seen. When Jeanne had become impatient with Skippy’s clinging, Frank had spent close to an hour playing horsy and card games with him. Since he knew that his father cared about Jeanne’s feelings, the way that Neil and Jeanne had been whispering together in the side cockpit earlier made Jim uneasy. For though he’d been too caught up in the rush for survival over the first four days to feel grief for his mother and Susie, now, when he was aware of his father’s problem, he felt a sense of loss. He would never be able to express his love and appreciation for his mother; she had been cheated out of the love that both he and Frank would have given her had she survived to be with them now. Jim’s feelings for his father were reinforced by this sense of having failed his mother. But how could he help him?

Lisa stepped from her mother’s cabin out into the moonlight and then into the wheelhouse.

“It’s our watch,” she said. “Why didn’t you wake me?” She was wearing jeans and a blue Windbreaker, her hair, dark and long like her mother’s, tied into a ponytail. Since none of them could wash with fresh water, everyone’s hair was getting stiff and straggly.

“Until the wind got too strong, Vagabond was self-steering,” Jim replied in a low voice, motioning toward Neil. “Careful, Neil’s sleeping.”

“Oh,” she responded, glancing to her right.

Jim felt a little burst of happiness at her nearness as she came to stand beside him at the helm. He took her hand in his. Even though they had flirted with each other the previous summer and were even closer now, since the horrors of the war, Jim had felt almost asexual, as if anything too pleasant must be obscene. But they needed to touch each other, and they often held hands while on watch.

“Mom’s pacing woke me up,” Lisa said softly. “She was going up and down like a subway shuttle.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Jim said, thinking of Jeanne and Neil embracing but not wanting to tell Lisa. For a moment they stood silently, Vagabond plunging and hissing through the night. “Vagabond’s really moving, isn’t she?” Lisa said.

“It’s great,” Jim whispered back.

“You want something to drink?” Lisa asked.

“No, I’m okay.”

“Did you check on Seth?”

“Oh, no, I didn’t.”

Lisa took a flashlight and went aft to Neil’s cabin to see if Seth needed anything. Seth’s right thigh had become infected, and whether the antibiotic Macklin was administering would clear up the infection still hadn’t been determined. Seth had tried to make a joke of the whole thing by saying, “That’s the last time I come up on deck to find out what’s going on.”

As Lisa pushed back the hatch and started down the short ladder she was startled to see a dim light and the figure of Conrad Macklin sitting in the darkness beside Seth, who seemed to be sleeping.

“Oh!” Lisa said, frightened.

“Can I help you?” Macklin asked quietly.

“I…I didn’t know… I was checking on Seth.”

“He’s alive,” Macklin stated indifferently.

“What… what are you…?”

“You ever tried sleeping up forward?” Macklin answered. “I was bouncing like someone was dribbling me.”

“Oh,” said Lisa, noticing a red glow, indicating Neil’s radio was on, and that Macklin had some papers in his lap.

“I’m sleeping back here,” Macklin went on, “until your boyfriend stops trying to smash my skull against the forward cabin roof.”

Lisa left; the surge and sway belowdecks had left her feeling slightly nauseous, and her encounter with Macklin made her uneasy. On her way back to the wheelhouse she noticed a light in Frank’s cabin, and she mentioned to Jim that Macklin was with Seth and that his father seemed to be up.

“Dad’s not sleeping well,” Jim said. “He’s still sick.”

“I know,” said Lisa, taking Jim’s hand in hers. “Do you think… it’s…”

“I hope it’ll go away in a few days,” said Jim. “Neil and Olly don’t seem too bad, and they were exposed almost as much.”

“Mom thinks he’s a little depressed about losing… your mother.”

Jim merely nodded, staring forward into the darkness.

“Do you think she’s dead?” Lisa asked softly.

“Yes, “said Jim.

“My dad’s dead too,” said Lisa. “Sometimes it seems like he never lived… Everything is… so changed.” Lisa released his hand and steadied herself against the control-panel shelf.

“It’s strange,” Jim said, putting his arm around her waist. “Everything I used to be interested in, you know, sports, music, cars, seems sort of far away. I tried listening to some of my favorite tapes and I started to… you know, I felt like crying. It was pretty funny.”

Lisa didn’t reply but gently moved closer. She wanted to put her arm around him, but felt awkward and left her hands on the molding.

“I’m glad you’re here, Lisa,” Jim went on very softly. “I get kinda lonely with my dad… sick and Neil all wrapped up in the boat. You’re about the only part of the old world that seems… all right.”

“I… I’m glad you’re here too,” she said, letting her head rest against his shoulder. “We will be all right, won’t we, Jim?” There was a wistful quality in her voice that Jim felt viscerally.

He hesitated, all the horrors, past and still possible, clamoring for his attention.

“Yes,” he replied simply, pulling her more tightly against him and ignoring the clamor. “But not unless we take down the genoa and reef the main.”

She looked up at him, puzzled.

“The wind’s gotten too strong,” he went on. “I think the number-one watch team better reduce sail.”

She smiled and took over the wheel from Jim, who smiled back and went off to get his safety harness and go forward.

By midmorning of the following day Neil’s midnight romance had become unreal. Reality was upon him in the form of a crowded wheelhouse and thirty-knot winds out of the east southeast. A little after dawn Jeanne had gotten up to prepare the watch of Frank and Tony a breakfast and given Neil a polite, perhaps warm smile, but with no more apparent passion in it than the one she gave to Frank.

After breakfast he and Frank had listened to another appalling news summary. Refugees were flooding southward all over the world and being resented and rebuffed by the local populations in the traditional ways of treating war refugees. Cuba, the Panama Canal, and Venezuelan oilfields and refineries had all been struck by some sort of nuclear weapon; the Caribbean too would be a disaster area. It wasn’t even clear who had attacked Venezuela, since she, like all the rest of South America, had loudly declared her neutrality and was refusing to sell oil to the United States.

And later, at eight A.M., with the wind now beginning to screech through the stainless steel rigging and Tony cracking a rib in a fall while trying to bring in a torn jib, reality had regained its usual harshness. In the crowded wheelhouse, under an overcast and darkening sky, Skippy was whining about the taste of fish, Lisa had just vomited up her breakfast on the wheelhouse floor, and Jeanne, feeling queasy herself, was trying to deal with them. For Neil, battling at the helm, there was no room for romance with a torn jib, an injured crewman, rising winds and seas, and Frank and Tony arguing with him about their course.

By dead reckoning from their noon position of the day before Neil calculated that they were about a hundred miles east southeast of Cape Lookout, North Carolina, a spit of land that tipped the long sand barrier that stretched south of the notorious Cape Hatteras. Without consulting the others, Neil had been maintaining a southerly course, partly because he was considering a run to the Bahamas and the West Indies rather than trying to put in again on the mainland. Frank had complained the previous afternoon that they seemed to be staying unnecessarily far off the coast and suggested they angle more to westward. Now with large angry swells sweeping up against them from the south and the wind still rising, a choice was being forced upon him. They could either continue to work their way south, or they could turn and run back toward land.

They had been unable to pick up a radio station in the Morehead City-Pamlico Sound area of North Carolina, and they had no way of knowing what conditions would be like there.

Reports from the Bahamas about the West Indies were discouraging. The Bahamian government had declared a state of emergency and martial law, warning Bahamians that the food imports on which they had depended for more than eighty percent of their normal supply had been cut off by the war. Foreign ships, by which Neil knew must be meant American ships, were urged to go elsewhere. After panic buying had eliminated most of the island’s stores of food, the Bahamians were not welcoming the sudden influx of sick, injured, and foodless Americans fleeing from the two nuclear explosions over Miami and Cape Canaveral. There had been at least one ugly racial incident already, or so Neil concluded from Radio Nassau’s report that five American “yachtsmen” had been killed by several unapprehended black Bahamians “in a street fight.” If Vagabond had to bypass the Bahamas, they would run desperately short of food and water before they could hope to reach Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands. Jim and Lisa’s success the last two mornings at hooking three big fish was encouraging, but they were in the Gulf Stream now; if they continued south, in another day or two they’d be east of it and the fishing less dependable.

As the wind freshened and storm clouds gathered on the southern horizon like thick black smoke, Neil had to admit that he was also worried about Vagabond: she was badly overloaded. A good trimaran normally sails faster than a good monohull because of its light weight, which permits it to skip over the water rather than plow through it.

But Vagabond was now almost two thousand pounds heavier than the ship they had sailed north and was moving two or three knots slower, which made her pound heavily into the huge seas that were rolling at her.

Although altering course to run before the storm would put an end to this slamming, which was the greatest source of anxiety for Neil and discomfort for the crew, Neil knew that even then the buffeting of the wind and seas would continue to drain the energy from everyone aboard. In his own experience thirty-five-knot winds and twelve-foot seas were bearable, but for most of the others they represented a danger far more immediate, palpable, and unpleasant than anything on the mainland. Everyone was seasick except Neil, Tony, and Elaine, and since none of them were the type to go cleaning up other people’s messes, most of the cabins were beginning to stink of vomit. With Seth’s bullet wounds, Tony’s cracked rib, and general seasickness, their crew was considerably weakened.

But despite the problems he hated the thought of turning back toward the fallout and explosions and people-evil of the land. A storm at sea was something he could deal with; the effects of man’s madness on land were not.

As he made the rounds of the ship before meeting with Frank, Tony, and Macklin to discuss their course, he knew that to continue southward against these seas would create serious morale problems. It might be exhilarating to escape from explosions, pirates, and radioactive fallout, but with those dangers now distant and remote, the endless slamming, the awful whine of the wind in the rigging, the woeful roll, pitch, and plunge of the trimaran, the seasickness, and worst of all, he knew, no indication of any safer haven to the south than to the west was depressing most of the ship’s company. Only Elaine and Tony had complained directly, but the averted gaze of Jeanne and the sardonic humor of Frank and Seth revealed similar feelings.

He, Tony, Frank, and Olly gathered around the dinette table at eleven thirty that morning, the four of them swaying and bumping in their seats as Vagabond plunged and smashed forward through the huge seas. Jim was at the helm while an almost useless Conrad Macklin sat miserably on the little seat in the corner of the cabin. Everyone else was below in a berth. Frank, pale and weak from vomiting, and Tony, seeming as energetic and healthy as ever, had both been urging Neil to change course for several hours.

Even before they could begin their discussion, Vagabond struck a big roller with a savage smash that spilled silverware out of a drawer and toppled a half-dozen books out of the dinette bookcase. Neil went immediately up on deck and instructed Jim to bring Vagabond around ninety degrees to head due west while they had their discussion. As he watched and instructed Lisa in adjusting the sheets of the storm jib and double-reefed mainsail, Neil felt immediately how much easier the motion of the boat became. Vagabond now began surfing along and down the big swells instead of having to plow through them, and though the noise of the water and wind was scarcely diminished, the actual strain on the boat had probably been halved.

When Neil returned to the main cabin, Frank and Tony looked pleased.

“What a different feeling,” Tony announced triumphantly. “Thank God we didn’t wreck poor Vagabond before we changed course.”

“Yes,” Neil commented dryly. “How lucky.”

“Are we going to hold course back toward land?” Frank asked.

“Not necessarily. That’s a decision that I’ve decided should be. made by the four ship’s officers,” Neil replied.

“What about the rest of us?” Tony interjected. “Don’t Seth and me and Jeanne count for anything?”

“That’s right,” said Frank. “I’m not sure it’s fair not to include all the adults.”

Neil glanced at Olly, who was leaning back with his eyes closed holding his unlit pipe in his mouth, and at Tony, also sitting opposite him, who was flushed with excitement.

“Are you prepared, Frank,” Neil countered, “if outvoted by Tony, Seth, Macklin, and Elaine, to surrender the ship’s fate to a majority decision?”

Rubbing his big hands in front of him, his face sweaty from seasickness, Frank scowled.

“No, I guess not,” he answered slowly. “We should consult with everybody, but the decision should be made by the four officers.” He didn’t look up at Tony.

“Well, Tony,” Neil said neutrally to Tony, who had flushed at Frank’s decision. “What do you advise?”

“You know what I advise,” Tony answered angrily. “That we stop beating our brains out and get back to land. You promised us in the Chesapeake that we’d be landing back on the U.S. coast. You can’t go back on that.”

“Would you feel that way if we began to run into fallout?”

“Of course not,” Tony snapped back. “But we should try to get back. Especially when the damn boat is getting smashed to pieces.”

“Frank?” Neil asked quietly.

“We should run before the storm and get back to land,” he said, again not looking up.

“Olly?”

“Whatever you want, cap, is all right by me,” Captain Olly replied promptly, without even bothering to open his eyes. “I like it out here, but if you feel we ought to go unload a few landlubbers, it’s okay by me.”

Neil smiled and stood up.

“I’ll go consult the others,” he said.

Five minutes later he returned.

“Jim and Seth say they’d rather I decided,” Neil announced quietly as he resumed his seat opposite a now-dozing Captain Olly.

“What the fuck is this shit?” Tony exploded. “You.got everybody but me and Frank under your thumb?”

“I doubt it,” Neil replied. “I’m sure that if Macklin here had the strength to comment he’d want to return to land.”

“You’re damn right,” Tony said. “And what about Elaine?”

“She was sleeping, but I’m sure she’d vote the way you do.”

“You’re damn right.”

“And Jeanne?” Frank asked softly.

Jeanne’s vote would have been decisive for Neil, but fortunately— or unfortunately—she had been as ambivalent as Neil himself. She was miserable with her seasickness, her own and Skippy’s, and frightened of the crashes of the waves against the seemingly flimsy plywood of the hull, but she had at first joked by urging Neil to “take me away from it all” and to “take me someplace where I can die in peace.” But just before he left she had clutched his arm and said earnestly, “You’ve saved me and my children twice already. I’d be a fool to question how you plan to do it a third time.”

“Jeanne essentially left it up to me also,” Neil finally answered Frank.

“None of this proxy shit,” Tony persisted. “The fact is that most of those with minds of their own know we ought to be getting back to the mainland.”

“Frank votes your way, and Jim and Olly abstain,” Neil went on quietly. “My personal decision—”

“I insist you consult the others,” Tony interrupted.

“My personal decision,” Neil went on, “is that we continue on a course to close with the mainland until the weather moderates or we encounter the danger of radioactive fallout.”

“It’s only fair that— what?” Tony said, taken aback by Neil’s decision.

“Frank, when you and Tony go on duty an hour from now,” Neil said, turning to his friend beside him, “try the transistor radio every hour to pick up news about conditions along the North Carolina coast.”

“Fine,” said Frank.

“We’re about a hundred miles off the coast now,” Neil continued. “At this rate we’ll close with the coast during the night. We’ve got to find out if the big navigational lights are in operation.”

“They’ve got emergency generators,” Frank said.

“I know. They should be working. However, I’d prefer not to sail onto the Hatteras or Lookout shoals to find out they’re not.”

“We’re going back to the mainland?” Tony asked, still adjusting to his unexpected victory.

“If the mainland will have us,” Neil replied, rising again. “I’m going to check with the shortwave to see if I can find out more about this storm. See you later.”

After Neil had left, Olly announced that he was going to take a nap and went forward to lie down. Frank poured himself and Tony a tiny amount of whiskey in water and sat down again.

“Well, we won that one,” Tony said.

Startled, Frank looked up at him.

“I think Neil realizes,” Tony went on, “that he can’t run this boat without our support. He’s made himself captain, but in effect we have veto power.”

Frank sipped at his drink.

“And I want you to know, Frank,” Tony went on, leaning forward and putting one of his hands on Frank’s arm, “that if push ever comes to shove, I’m behind you one hundred percent. You understand?”

Frank stared at his drink.

“One hundred percent,” Tony repeated, standing up. “As far as I’m concerned you already are the captain.” He paused, staring down at Frank, who didn’t look up. When Vagabond surfed down a big wave, Tony staggered forward, steadying himself against the wall behind Frank.

“I gotta take a piss,” he concluded and disappeared into the small head located opposite the stove.

Frank stared at his drink another ten seconds, then, grimacing, tossed the rest of it off. The grimace continued until, looking sick and swearing irritably under his breath, he went hurriedly up the hatchway steps for fresh air.

When Tony came out of the head, Conrad Macklin was seated at the dinette and had poured himself a shot of whiskey. Tony sat down opposite him.

“I thought you were too sick to drink,” Tony said.

“I’m only too sick to stand watch,” Macklin answered indifferently, looking coolly at Tony and pouring the other man a drink.

“You hear what I said to Frank?” Tony asked, holding his plastic cup of whiskey.

Macklin nodded and took a short swig from his cup.

“But you know, Tony,” he said after a short silence, “Frank will never be captain of this ship.”

“No?” said Tony, steadying the bottle when it slid a few inches after Vagabond surfed along the face of a wave.

“He’ll be dead in a month,” said Macklin. “And, besides, he hasn’t got the guts to be captain.”

“Well, all I know is that Loken makes like a dictator.”

Macklin nodded and sipped gingerly again at his drink, his round eyes examining Tony without expression.

“Sooner or later, Tony,” he went on softly, “he’s going to kick you and me off the boat.”

Tony looked up quickly.

“You, maybe,” he countered. “But why me? I’m as good a sailor as he is, maybe better.”

Macklin smiled and nodded meaningfully.

“That’s exactly why he has to get rid of you,” he said to Tony. “He knows you’re the only other man aboard with captain potential.”

Tony looked at Macklin uncertainly, the sway of the kerosene lantern creating shadows that made it difficult to decipher Macklin’s expression.

“Sooner or later,” Macklin went on softly, “either you’ll get kicked off… or you and I will have to take over the boat.”

“No one’s kicking me off anything,” Tony snapped back.

“That’s right, Tony,” Macklin replied, nodding. “That’s right.”

Macklin held his half-filled cup toward Tony, and after a pause Tony understood. The two men clicked their cups together and drank.

When the rain began falling that afternoon, Neil called out all hands that had the strength to come up on deck to catch and store as much water as they could. Because the winds were gusting by then to over forty knots and the double-reefed mainsail couldn’t be used as it normally could to channel rainwater into buckets, Neil had his crew use a small jib and two nylon Bimini covers instead. They caught as much as they could in these, then channeled the water into buckets and at last into the main storage tanks and their large plastic containers. With the winds making their nylon collectors difficult to control and his crew never having tried this maneuver before, there was much swearing and quite a bit of spilled rainwater. However, Neil had also stopped up the drainage holes in the cockpits so the water could be scooped up later. By late afternoon they had gathered almost fifteen gallons, more than half of it quite clear, and even the water that was rescued from the cockpits was potable. Because they were at last headed back toward land and many were seasick, Tony and Elaine and a few others complained it was all an unnecessary game, but Neil kept them at it for two hours. By dusk there were quite a few grumblers.

For Jeanne the day seemed endless. The smell of vomit permeated her cabin, and though the horrifying blasts of the sea against her cabin wall had ended, Vagabond still seemed to be thrown around like a tiny dinghy. Elaine, although thoroughly frightened most of the morning, had been reassured by a solicitous Tony for over an hour in the early afternoon and emerged from their tete-a-tete quite cheerful and as oblivious of the rolling and plunging of Vagabond as a globecircling sailor. Her daughter, Rhoda, was sick, but nothing seemed to disturb the bland Elaine, who, unable to concentrate on anything for more than a minute or two, was another source of misery for Jeanne.

A delicate wide-eyed blonde, Elaine let her child take up most of her time and was helpless at any job assigned to her. Jeanne had become so exasperated with her when she was sent to help in the galley that she and Lisa had decided to ask her to stay topside. Jeanne had offered Elaine and Rhoda the use of her berth and usually slept on the floor herself, but at night Elaine sometimes would wake her up to ask her to get Rhoda a cup of water since Jeanne “was already up,” namely on the floor. The child was cranky and slept poorly. Her toys and Elaine’s clothes and toiletries could never be confined to the cubicles Jeanne asked her to use but ended up sprayed all around the cabin as if by a particularly violent explosion.

Elaine was off somewhere with Tony now, and while Skippy, somewhat recovered from his seasickness, played on the cabin floor a few feet away Jeanne lay on her back staring at the ceiling and wishing she could express her fears to Neil and be reassured and comforted. She hated feeling so helpless, hated being unable to focus her thoughts on the war or on her feelings for Neil or on anything except the dizzying, nauseating motion of the ship.

Frank came down three or four times to comfort her and see if there was anything he could do, but when he tried to clean up some of the vomit, he himself became sick again and had to hasten topside.

Neil appeared only twice, once to ask her opinion on their course—an opinion she was reluctant to give since her mind felt like mashed potatoes still being beaten in the blender—and a second time in the afternoon. He suggested she try to come up and assist with the rain catching.

That time she had struggled out of her berth, stood weakly for about thirty seconds, and then fallen woozily into his arms. He had to pick her up and lift her back up into her berth.

“I hope you’re not blaming the captain for this,” he said.

“I’m beyond blaming,” she replied wearily, realizing sadly that she wished he would go away so he wouldn’t see her looking like a drowned cat, and smelling worse.

“You’ll be over it by tomorrow,” he suggested. “Get some sleep.”

“I’ll never be over it,” she moaned. “I’ll remember this moment as long as I live.”

“Since it’s so special, I plan to try to see to it that you live a very long time,” Neil said.

She looked over at him, tried to smile, and feebly squeezed his hand.

“I’m sorry I’m letting you down,” she said.

“Never,” he said. “I just hoped the fresh air might help.” Neil released her hand and wiped the perspiration from her face with the edge of the sheet. Frank came twice more, but she didn’t see Neil again until the next day.

The final indignity for Jeanne came that evening as the storm seemed to be getting even worse. Elaine came cheerfully down into the cabin and told her that Jeanne could sleep in Elaine’s berth that night, with little Rhoda. Elaine was going to be with Tony. So Jeanne, miserable, was left to babysit while Elaine spent the night being “comforted” by Tony.

She was too sick to be angry. She barely had the strength to wonder where the two lovers had had a chance to become lovers in the crowded boat. Someday she’d have to ask.

They picked up the light at Cape Lookout on the North Carolina coast at midnight. By two thirty a.m. they had left it on their starboard beam while making for the Morehead City inlet. The storm, Neil had concluded, must be coming directly at them. The winds, instead of becoming more northerly as he had expected if the storm was passing out to sea, were in fact becoming more southerly. The storm center must be moving right up the coastline. In any case, the winds were still blowing at about forty-five knots, with stronger gusts, and the seas remained between eight and ten feet. To turn south now would be impossible.

Fortunately the Morehead City inlet was wide, deep, and well marked. Immediate protection was available as soon as they got inside it and made for the turning basin. Neil had entered the channel on half a dozen occasions, and although he hated approaching land in storm conditions, he was not particularly worried under the circumstances, not with a boat and a crew he had confidence in.

As they neared the inlet it was Frank and Tony’s watch. Lisa and Jim, who had just come off duty, remained on deck more out of excitement than necessity. Still sailing under storm jib and double-reefed main, they had already picked up the white flashing sea buoy that marked the beginning of the big ship channel when Neil turned on the transistor radio. He wanted to try again to pick up local news about conditions in the Morehead City area. The best he could do was a station from Charleston, South Carolina. A voice announced that they were going to repeat the President’s address to the nation that had been broadcast at eleven o’clock that evening—four hours before.

With Frank handling the helm and the radio placed on the shelf to his left, the other three men and Lisa lined up along the front of the wheelhouse, peering through the Plexiglas windows with their half-dozen bullet holes out into the darkness and listening to the President’s voice.

“Good evening, my fellow Americans,” the voice began, slow, somber, and sincere. “It is my sad duty to speak to you on this fifth day of this horrible conflict. Our nation, a victim of an unprovoked attack by the Soviet Union, has suffered immense devastation. So many of our cities have been destroyed that, as you know, our ability to communicate with each other has been considerably reduced. The ability of your government to deal with the chaos and suffering, which have overtaken many parts of our land, is extremely limited. It is the task of our military forces to continue to wage war on the Soviet Union, not only to avenge the horror they have inflicted upon us, but also in order to try to destroy their nation before the freedom of all peoples has vanished from the earth.

“Those of us who have survived the initial Soviet onslaught must always keep in our hearts that we are fighting on now both for our individual survival and for the survival of the very idea of freedom. Mankind is at a terrifying crossroads: whether we shall all fall under the yoke of Communist dictatorship or live on with our cherished principles of individualism and freedom intact. I urge you all to do everything in your power to contribute to this struggle.

“I have unleashed the full power of all our military forces against the Soviet Union. I am happy to report to you this morning that though more than half of our great nation lies in ruins, even more of the Soviet Union has been destroyed. We have received no further reports of effective enemy action in the last twenty-four hours. The Russian people are also suffering for the crimes committed by their masters.

“However, despite our successes, I’m afraid that this morning I must issue a momentous warning that will take the form of an executive order. I have been advised by our best scientists working with the National Security Council that all Americans still living in certain areas in the northeastern part of our country must evacuate immediately. I am speaking now to the people of eastern Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware. Within ten days to two weeks the radioactive fallout from the war will have accumulated to such a degree that its effects will make life in these areas almost impossible. Residents are to move as quickly as possible either to Canada or areas in the far north of the region, or south at least as far as North Carolina. United States military forces will provide all the assistance at their disposal, but airplanes and vehicles are in extremely short supply. In most cases you will have to provide your own transportation.

“Do not be deceived if your area has not yet received significant radioactive fallout. All indications are that radioactivity and its effects will spread and become worse, causing not only death to humans immediately, but contaminating water and food supplies, which will make these areas uninhabitable in the future. Thus, I hereby direct all citizens…”

The President’s voice went firmly on, reporting next on the greatly reduced level of fighting in Europe caused by the high casualties sustained on each side and indicating that he considered the stalemate to be a victory for the forces of freedom, although the destruction of most of Europe was, of course, a great historical tragedy.

He also indicated that he had sent a stern note to the governments of all thirteen nations of South America. He threatened grave consequences if they continued to profess strict neutrality in the world conflict. Although most of these governments were fascist dictatorships, they were still historically part of the free peoples of the American continent and their refusal to permit United States military forces to use certain ports, air bases, and fuel depots for repairs and resupply was hampering the war effort. In particular, the decision of Venezuela and Trinidad-Tobago to stop selling oil to the U.S. was tantamount to an act of war and would not be tolerated. He also condemned the governments of Mexico, the Bahamas, and several unnamed South American countries for their unjust, shortsighted, and sometimes cruel treatment of American refugees. He concluded his address with the announcement that with Congress unable to meet, he was using powers granted to him as Commander-in-Chief under martial law to order all Americans between the ages of eighteen and forty-five to report immediately for military service. His last words were an appeal to his fellow Americans to stand tall in this great crisis.

When the President had finished speaking and a commentator began summarizing his address, Neil turned off the radio. Jim and Tony went and sat down on a settee while Frank remained at the wheel; Neil sat down opposite them. They all became aware again of the sound of the wind and of Vagabond rushing down the seas in the darkness.

“It all seems so impossible,” Frank finally said, still staring forward. “The President talks about the depopulation of the whole northeast as if they were evacuating a small town because of a gas leak.”

“I wonder why the big cities got hit so bad,” Tony mused. “I thought I read someplace that Arizona and North Dakota were the places that were going to get clobbered. You know, our missile sites.”

No one answered.

“I wonder what ‘standing tall’ means?” Tony went on in a low voice.

“It means we’re all drafted,” Neil commented.

“Except for Frank,” Tony commented.

“I may not be drafted,” Frank said from the wheel, “but there’ll be things for me to do too. Our country needs us all now.”

Again no one spoke. Vagabond surged and roller-coastered forward in the darkness, rolled and surged again. The three men behind Frank sat silently staring at the deck between them, swaying with the ship’s swoops and swerves. Neil stood up for a moment to look forward and then sat back down.

“I’d like to fight,” Tony burst out after a while. “But where the fuck are the Russians? Are they supposed to invade?”

“I don’t imagine either side sees much of value left to invade,” Neil replied after a pause.

“What about Cuba?” Tony asked. “Are we going to take Cuba?”

Neil didn’t answer.

“I hope everyone just stops fighting,” Jim said.

“Not until we’ve won,” said Tony. “The Army needs us. They’ll find something for us to do.”

“I’m sure they will,” said Neil ironically.

“What’s that mean?” Tony shot back, sensing the cynicism.

“It means I can’t imagine what good a bunch of civilian draftees inducted now are going to be in the final stages of thermonuclear war.”

“There’re a lot more useful things a man can do than run away,” Frank said. After a brief, awkward silence, he added: “Here’s the number three red-flashing bell. We’re in the channel.”

Fifteen minutes later, in quiet water for the first time in four days, Vagabond’s sails were down and she lay drifting on the incoming tide awaiting a launch from the Coast Guard cutter that was idling nearby, with its cannon manned by three sailors, barely visible in the darkness.

The launch party consisted of a lieutenant and four men, two armed with pistols in holsters and two with automatic rifles.

“Who’s the captain of this vessel?” asked the lieutenant, a short, stocky man with a neatly trimmed mustache.

“I am,” said Neil. “What’s the problem?”

“Where are you headed?” the officer rejoined.

“Morehead City obviously.”

“Your purpose?”

“Get out of this storm, put some passengers ashore, take on supplies,” Neil answered, finding the interrogation bordering on the ridiculous.

“How many draft-age persons do you have aboard?” the officer persisted.

“Three or four,” Neil answered.

“They are to report to the induction center on Main Street within twenty-four hours,” the lieutenant said, looking around at the five men. “How much diesel fuel do you have?”

“About fifteen gallons,” Neil answered, lying for some reason he didn’t understand yet.

“Unless you’ve got a special exemption, we’ll have to requisition that fuel later today. Do you have weapons?”

“Only an old .22,” Neil replied quietly.

“All weapons are requisitioned. We’ll take your rifle now.” The officer stared at Neil. “Also,” he went on, his gaze not wavering, “my men will search your boat.” He nodded to the bos’n, who divided the four crewmen into two teams and began a search.

“Jim, you can go get the .22 for the nice men,” Neil said, then turned back to the officer. “What’s the trouble? Why can’t we keep our rifle?”

“Civilians are going around shooting each other for food, fuel, fallout shelters, you name it,” the lieutenant replied. “The only way the military can regain control is to make unauthorized possession of a weapon illegal.”

“How are we expected to defend ourselves?” Tony now asked.

“That’s the trouble,” the officer countered. “Everybody’s been defending themselves so vigorously the morticians can’t keep up with it. Leave the defending to the Army, Navy, and us.”

“Couldn’t someone authorize us to keep the .22 aboard?” Frank interjected.

“I doubt it. If you want to waste time, the district military headquarters for this region is located about six miles outside Morehead City.”

“What’s the food and fallout situation here?” Neil asked.

“We haven’t had any fallout since a small amount came down on the third day of the war,” the officer said, peeking down into the main cabin. “This rain has some, but it’s not supposed to be a problem.”

“And food?” Neil asked.

“All food distribution here is administered by the U.S. Army. If you want to eat, you’ll either have to be in the military or go to a refugee center.”

“Nothing special, sir,” the bos’n reported to his superior as he returned with the other three. “Just a few fishing knives.”

“Good,” said the officer with a tired smile. “Okay, captain, welcome to Morehead City.” He motioned to his crew to return to their launch. “And by the way,” he added, turning back to Neil and the others, “without written permission from Colonel Nelson, no draft-age men are allowed to set out to sea.”

“What’s that?” Jim exclaimed.

“No vessel is permitted to go to sea without the permission of the local military commander,” the lieutenant replied. His eyes narrowing as he looked at Jim, he added, “We had to sink three ships who didn’t think we meant it.”

And he left.

Vagabond then proceeded slowly up the channel toward the small town of Morehead City, which lay in almost total darkness, and in another hour she was anchored a hundred feet off the main line of docks. Neil wanted them all to be able to get some sleep before they had to confront the world that awaited them on shore. Although it was four thirty, and dawn should have been breaking, the storm system kept the sky as dark as night.

As the boat was being anchored Jeanne came up on deck and went down to make hot tea for Neil, Frank, and Tony, who soon joined her in the main cabin. She was pale, with a gray puffiness under the eyes from her long bout of seasickness, but now that Vagabond was merely rocking gently in the gusting blasts of wind and not playing at roller coaster, she was feeling better. Olly was already slumped asleep in the little corner jumpseat in the forward end of the room.

“I could use a drink,” Tony announced, staring irritably at his tea. “Aren’t we supposed to celebrate a landfall?”

“Do you feel like celebrating?” Neil asked.

“I don’t feel a damn thing,” Tony answered, taking the bottle of brandy Jeanne put on the table. “I’m too beat.”

“Thank God we’ve made it back to land,” Jeanne said softly, standing with her back to the seated men. Neil, Frank, and Tony looked up at her, and then Frank stood up and went over to her. While the other two men looked on silently, he embraced her.

“Will we be able to find a place to live?” Jeanne asked Frank, looking up at him.

“They have a refugee camp,” Frank answered.

“Is… is that where we’re all going?” she asked with a surprised frown.

“It looks that way,” Frank said.

“All the men aboard except Frank and Olly have to report for military service,” Neil said.

“But why?” Jeanne asked, freeing herself from Frank’s arms and again looking surprised. “What possible use can any of you be in the Army?”

“We’re at war, Jeanne,” Frank replied, sitting back down opposite Neil.

“No, we’re not,” Jeanne responded passionately. “This isn’t a war. It’s… it’s genocidal suicide.”

They all looked up at her.

“We’re at war, Jeanne,” Frank repeated. “Our country has been attacked.”

“Neil, you don’t believe in this draft, do you?” Jeanne said, looking flushed with anger or excitement.

“I suppose it’s like this ship,” Neil answered after a long pause. “In a survival situation everyone has to belong to a military hierarchy, or there’s chaos. Drafting everyone is the government’s way of keeping us out of mischief.”

“And we’ll be needed in the Army too,” Tony said. “They’re not calling us up just to keep an eye on us.”

“They’ll need everybody’s help… if the war lasts long enough,” Frank suggested.

The silence was not a happy one.

“I’m not going, dad,” said Jim, appearing unexpectedly on the companionway steps.

“What do you mean, Jimmy?” Frank asked, frowning.

Jim came down the three steps and stood a few paces behind his father. Lisa appeared in the cabin entrance.

“I can’t report for military service,” he said nervously. “I won’t go.”

Frank turned to look at his son and then returned his gaze to Jeanne, who had sat down opposite him.

“I’m afraid the President has ordered almost all of us to serve,” he said.

“I know, dad. But I won’t fight in this war. Not unless the Russians land troops.”

“No one likes fighting nukes,” Tony said, “but we’ve got to serve.”

“It’s not the nukes and radiation anymore,” Jim said. “It’s just that I’ve decided this war is all wrong, no matter—”

“What about your country?” Frank interrupted, not looking at his son.

“I just think… I don’t know… I want to sail south with you, dad. Help Lisa and Jeanne and—”

“What about your country?” Frank repeated stonily.

“I know. I know,” Jim said, a flicker of anguish on his face unseen by his father. “I owe my country a lot. I know that. But the war seems so insane, the kind of killing so wrong… I don’t see how…”

“Jim can’t save the country,” Jeanne said as Jim trailed off.

“But he’s goddamn well going to try!” Frank spat out angrily, banging his fist on the table and tipping over the mostly empty bottle of brandy. As Tony righted it, old Captain Olly’s body jerked upright, and his eyes blinked open. “Huh?” he said. “What say?”

Frank swung his head around to look at Neil.

“Are you going to report for duty?” he asked.

“What I do isn’t relevant,” Neil answered. “With my naval experience in theory I can be of service, but untrained teenagers would only be cannon fodder. If Jim thinks the war is all wrong, he shouldn’t go. And I may not go either.”

Frank felt a strange sinking feeling and glared at Neil.

“I should have known,” he said. “You’ve taken wishy-washy positions so long you’ve forgotten a man’s duty to his country.”

“I know my duty to my country,” Neil snapped back. “I just happen to believe that my country is now located primarily on this boat.”

“That’s inconvenient,” said Frank, “because in that case I’m kicking you out of your country.” He felt both a senseless rage and an urge to cry. “In other words you’re fired.” The words seemed hollow even as he spoke them.

“Are you going to force Jim to be in this war?” Jeanne asked.

“He’s in it whether he likes it or not.”

“I’m not going to report, Dad,” Jim said, now more steadily. “I’d like to help sail everyone south.”

“You need Jim,” Jeanne said softly to Frank. “In this world if we’re lucky enough to have any children still with us, the last thing we should do is let them go.”

Frank stared at the cushion between Jeanne and Neil and unseeingly added more brandy to his empty teacup, his eyes wet. A siren wailing off in the city a half-mile away underlined the silence in the cabin. Captain Olly again awakened.

“Don’t recommend telling grown kids what to do,” he said.

“No one asked you,” Frank muttered.

“’S okay,” Olly replied. “I don’t mind volunteering good advice. People who ask for advice generally made up their minds anyhow.”

Jeanne rose from her seat. “I’m going to get more sleep,” she said. “Good night, Captain Olly, Tony. Good night, Neil.” She paused. “Good night, Frank.” She leaned down and held his head in her arms and pressed her face against his hair for several seconds. “You’re a good man, Frank, a… but you’re absolutely wrong about Jim.” And she left.

“That’s one sweet lady, that is,” Captain Olly said. “Ain’t met a woman like her since my last wife. She married?”

The ship’s clock on the forward wall of the cabin struck six bells, and Neil glanced at it.

“We should set a watch this morning, Frank,” he said. “We haven’t seen the last of the pirates. I’ll take the first two-hour watch and wake Jim for the second. We can all get up at ten.”

Frank looked up dully.

“You still trying to run things?” he said, then let his head fall forward.

Vagabond was back on land.

Morehead City, over one hundred and fifty miles distant from the nearest nuclear explosion, a small town in the middle of a rich farming and fishing region, had, in a way, like most of the rest of the country, ceased to exist. Its restaurants, bars, drugstores, service stations, movie theaters, supermarkets, grocery stores, gift shops, banks, and most retail stores were closed. The only traditional commercial enterprises open for a few hours each day were the clothing and hardware stores, and one bar: all had become unofficial bartering centers.

The town had electricity, at least in theory, but the military authorities were systematically disconnecting electric service to all except businesses or institutions they considered necessary. The town had food, at least in theory, since a few fishermen still brought in their catches and neighboring farmers still had chickens, pigs, cows and a few early summer crops. But fuel was unavailable for either the fishing trawlers or farm machinery, and harvests from both sea and land were diminishing,. No food arrived from outside the county and all food inside it was being requisitioned for distribution and rationing by the Army; much of it was being shifted to areas where the need was greater. More than half the arable land was planted in tobacco.

Since no private vehicles were permitted on the road without authorization, most normal social life had ended. Local draft-age adults had disappeared either into one of the services or into the faceless masses of refugees fleeing even farther south. Those remaining consisted mainly of men over forty, the sick and the maimed, and women and children. Few people other than farmers and fishermen were still able to practice the same occupation they’d been in a week before.

All newspapers and television stations had ceased operating. Only one radio station went on the air on a limited schedule, its sole function being to transmit official information and instructions from the national government or local military authorities. There was no music. The national networks had ceased to exist, but the government was able to use satellites to transmit messages to all stations at once.

All manufacturing not directly related to military needs had ceased. All large department stores had sold out of basic items in the first three days of the war—flashlights, generators, batteries, coolers, knives, hatchets, tools, guns, fishing equipment, camping gear, cooking fuels, and so on, and now, filled with useless nonessentials— television sets, phonographs, cosmetics, fashionable clothing—they remained closed, unguarded, and unlooted.

The churches alone were booming. Most held services of one sort or another every day, and streetcorner end-of-the-world preachers gathered small crowds around them immediately, people who listened apathetically and then wandered away.

The little town had received an influx of refugees from the areas around Washington and Norfolk, the first wave arriving by car and truck, those in the last few days by foot, bicycle, horse and cart, and by boat down the Intracoastal Waterway. Many were suffering from burns, blindness, and radiation sickness.

When the survivors on Vagabond were awakened by Jim at ten o’clock, they saw that boats were jammed into every available space, rafted two and three deep in places. Neil eased Vagabond in against an apparently unoccupied luxury yacht, the only space large enough to take the fifty-foot trimaran alongside.

After a reconnaissance ashore in the gusty wind and rain, it was clear that most of the boats had either been deserted for want of fuel or crew or were owned by people determined to get farther south. Some hoped to continue down the Intracoastal Waterway, and a few were planning to go out the inlet. Whether the latter would be carrying passengers who had been officially called to duty and forbidden to leave was unclear: most people were tight-lipped about their plans and personnel.

Posted prominently on several dockside telephone poles were posters, printed by hand and Xeroxed, warning mariners that no ships were permitted to leave the inlet with any male of military age aboard without written authorization from the district military commander.

Looking out toward the inlet, Neil could see two U.S. Navy vessels, one looking badly damaged, moored in the turning basin. He had never known warships to use Morehead City, but with the naval facilities at Hampton Roads near Norfolk destroyed, the Navy’s options were clearly reduced.

As the morning wore on Neil became increasingly frustrated by his inability to get any reports on the fallout situation in the southeast. There were only three stations left on the whole AM dial, each broadcasting only sporadically. Official statements never indicated what people in the Carolinas could expect.

He was depressed too by the breakup of the ship’s family. Jim was determined not to go into the Army, but he had only a few hours to come up with a workable alternative. After breakfast Jim and Lisa had spent forty minutes talking quietly to each other on the docks in the rain. Jeanne said little about her plans. After talking to Frank, she seemed to take it for granted that the refugee center was her only alternative. Although Elaine chatted pleasantly about being back on land—as if they’d just returned from an interesting cruise—Jeanne was silent. She finished packing, cleaned up the galley, and sat down in the wheelhouse with Skip.

As the boat-weary, war-weary, weather-weary crew of Vagabond gathered themselves together that late morning the wind moaned through the shrouds, halyards slapped rhythmically against masts, the rain drummed down on the decks and cabin tops. Although the seasick appreciated the lack of .motion, all were exhausted by thirty-six hours of storm at sea. Tony was the first to leave, escorting Elaine and Rhoda ashore to find the refugee center. Frank and Conrad Macklin left a few minutes later carrying Seth on a makeshift stretcher made from two oars and the last section of the jib they had used to jury-rig the awning for the new back wall of the wheelhouse. The plan was that they would take Seth to the hospital and that Frank would meet Jeanne later at the refugee center in the high school. Macklin, ineligible for the draft because of a foot shattered by a mine in Vietnam, had announced he was planning to try to get farther south by car. Neil hoped he would simply disappear.

When Olly went down into the cabin to hide the weapons and disable Vagabond’s engine, Neil was momentarily alone with Jeanne, but Jim and Lisa came in from the rain and stood awkwardly side by side in front of her. Jim’s face was partly hidden under the hood of his yellow foul-weather jacket, from which rain was still dripping. Lisa seemed lost in the over-sized foul-weather gear she was wearing, and they both seemed to Neil ridiculously young.

“Jeanne,” Jim began uncertainly. “I… I’m not going into the Army, and I guess I have to hide.” He hesitated. “Lisa wants to come with me.”

Jeanne looked at him with a strange kind of serenity and nodded once, glancing briefly at her daughter.

“Where will you go, Jim?” she asked quietly.

Jim looked uncomfortable. “Neil said last night he thought my only chance was to get a small boat and head down the waterway,” he said. “I don’t know.”

Jeanne now looked up at Neil.

“Well, captain?” she asked.

Neil resented her addressing him as “captain.”

“I’m beginning to think we were crazy to come in that inlet,” Neil replied almost angrily. “Jim is trapped. If the Army is rounding up young people, sooner or later it’ll round up Jim. The only haven from the government is out at sea.”

“Can’t he stay with Olly on Vagabond!” Jeanne asked.

“Yes,” said Neil, “but a man on the ketch in front of us said that the military police came through earlier this morning searching all the boats along the docks.”

“But why?” Jeanne suddenly burst out. “What possible use can Jim and the others be?”

“How do people like Jim eat?” Neil replied gloomily. “They have to steal to survive. If they have guns, they may end up killing. The government is trying to control chaos.”

“Then perhaps Jim should just go in,” Jeanne said. Neil shrugged and Jim stirred uneasily.

“We shouldn’t have come here, Mother,” Lisa said.

“What do you expect to find here?” Neil asked Jeanne in a low, tight voice.

Startled, Jeanne stiffened. “I’m not sure,” she replied tentatively. “A place to help other people, I guess. A safer place for Lisa and Skip.”

“Safer than what?” Neil asked.

“Safer than the Chesapeake,” she answered, looking at him, adding, less surely, “safer than the ocean.”

“Land will never again be safer than the sea,” he replied.

“We’re here, Neil,” she countered quietly.

“I hate your going… back… out there,” Neil said in almost a whisper.

Conrad Macklin suddenly burst in from the rain, stamping on the floor, seemingly unaware that he might have interrupted anything, and announced that all private housing had already been taken over either by the military or by earlier refugees. There was absolutely no food being sold anywhere. The hospital they’d taken Seth to was so overcrowded they were treating people in tents and garages, or rather not treating them—hundreds of victims of burns, radiation sickness, and retinal blindness were not being treated at all as far as he could see. Frank had stayed behind to try to get medical attention for Seth. There were no vehicles available for going south and roadblocks on every major highway. Macklin ended his report and went below to change and dry off.

Jim and Lisa were left standing in the center of the wheelhouse with Jeanne, her face averted, staring at the floor.

“Look,” Neil said, striding forward so Jim and Lisa could see him. “I’m going to find out from the Army or the Navy what the food and fallout situation is going to be here. If I’m needed in the Navy, I’ll serve. But I don’t think, Jim, that you and Lisa should go anyplace by yourselves. Hold up a bit. Stay here on the boat with Olly. Lisa, at least for now, you should go with Jeanne to the refugee center.”

“Why can’t we all stay on the boat?” Lisa asked.

“Because—” Neil began.

“Because we can’t run forever,” Jeanne replied. “Our duty is to find a place here on land to live and work. There’s both farming and fishing here. It must be better than most places. And the only way we can get more food is at the refugee center.”

“What about Captain Olly?” Lisa asked.

“He’ll stay here to guard the boat,” Neil answered. “In case… we need it again.”

Lisa looked up at Jim to see what he was deciding.

“All right,” said Jim. “I’ll hide here for a while. Lisa… you… better help your mom…”

“When… when…?” Lisa began.

“We can visit the boat, honey,” Jeanne said quietly. “We’re all just finding out what the new world has in store for us. Nothing is final.”

Lisa took Jim’s hand and, after exchanging a look with him, stared down at the floor.

“I’ll risk helping you take your things to the high school,” Jim said. Together he and Lisa began to gather up the duffel bags and small suitcases and transport them to the docks. After they’d left the wheelhouse, Jeanne stood up and went over to Neil, who was standing with his hands gripping the stainless steel wheel.

“I wish… we didn’t have to go,” she said.

“You don’t,” Neil answered.

“I mean… but you too… have to leave Vagabond.”

“I don’t have to go,” Neil replied quietly.

As Jeanne gazed at him she realized that he was making a subtle appeal to her.

“But… what would we all do on Vagabond?” she asked after a pause, Skippy holding on to her skirt.

“We would sail south out of the probable path of the fallout,” Neil answered. “To the West Indies.”

Jeanne visibly flinched.

“They wouldn’t let you and Jim out of the inlet,” she said softly.

Neil hesitated. “Cowards and lovers will always find a way,” he said.

Jeanne gazed at him, flushed, and then impulsively threw herself into his arms. She squeezed him, burying her head against his chest. She felt his arms tightening fiercely around her. After half a minute, aware of Skippy tugging gently at her skirt and murmuring her name, she looked up, tears in her eyes.

“I don’t want to go,” she said.

“Then don’t,” Neil whispered to her.

“Everything okay, Jeanne?” came Jim’s voice from close behind her. Still in Neil’s arms, when she turned and saw him, the image of Frank in his boyish face reminded her of all the complications and uncertainties involved in her staying with Neil.

She looked back up at Neil, saw his feeling for her, but pulled herself roughly out of his arms.

“Good-bye, Neil,” she said and brushed past Jim out into the rain.

After she had gone, Neil turned to see Macklin sitting behind him with a cynical smile.

“Well, captain,” he said softly. “Nothing like a little pussy to turn a solid upstanding Annapolis man into a deserter, is there?”

Neil went at him, his fists clenched, but when Macklin ducked and cowered on the settee, he checked himself and strode to the back of the wheelhouse to watch Jim and Jeanne drift out of sight on shore. She was gone. He stood there silently for half a minute.

“I thought you said I lacked heart,” he finally said.

“Oh, you do, you do,” Macklin agreed affably, “but I never said you lacked cock.”

“Thank you,” said Neil and then went quickly down into the main cabin to find Olly.

He wanted both to be rid of Macklin and also to advise Olly on taking care of Vagabond before Neil himself reported for duty. He had decided to proceed directly to one of the ships in the turning basin and find out what the military situation was and whether he was really needed or not. For him, as for Jim, the war was madness and both sides insane, but the U.S. Navy, insane or not, was his team, and if the game were still being played, he had reluctantly decided it was his duty to take the field.

Even Captain Olly seemed depressed as Neil went over the boat with him. Neil had requested, and the others had agreed, that the remaining food aboard should stay aboard for at least the next few days. Neil told Olly where Jim had hidden their emergency food supply. He also showed Olly where the two pistols were hidden behind the partition in Jeanne’s cabin; he showed him the five-gallon jerry jug of diesel fuel lined up with the water containers and now labeled “Water.” Since pirates were still a threat, Olly had disconnected the battery cables from the engine and hid both the cables and the two ignition keys, letting only Neil know their hiding place. In addition,

Olly decided to stash one of the two pistols in the galley where he could reach it on short notice.

When they had finished going over the boat, Olly stopped in the rain in the side cockpit and began chuckling.

“You sure don’t act like a man who’s leaving his boat forever,” he said.

“I wish I weren’t,” Neil said.

“You joining the Navy?”

“If they need me.”

“Who’s gonna decide? Them or you?”

Neil shrugged.

“Me,” he answered.

“Then I’ll keep the tea water hot,” said Olly, smiling.

“Cynical old bastard, aren’t you?” Neil shot back, smiling in spite of himself.

“I figure you got too much sense to get involved in a war where if you don’t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes, you’ll die of old age without firing a shot.”

“I already fought in that kind of war,” Neil said.

“And loved it, didn’t you?” Olly said, ducking into the wheelhouse out of the wind and rain, leaving Neil to face a rush of gloom.

Frank, already depressed by his confrontation with Jim and by his lingering nausea, was overwhelmed by what he found on land. His first encounter with chaos and panic came when he and Macklin, carrying Seth between them on the stretcher, left Vagabond late that morning. Frank, in the lead, had not even gotten his feet on the dock when a man in a wet, wrinkled business suit, his graying hair plastered to his forehead, accosted him.

“Are you the owner of the trimaran?” the man asked. A woman and three children stood behind the fortyish man watching intently.

“Yes, I am,” Frank replied as he waited for Macklin to lower himself and his end of the stretcher onto the dock.

“I want to book passage for myself and family on a boat going south,” the man said, his drawn face belying his calm voice.

“I can’t help you,” Frank answered dully. “We’re not going south, and if we were, we’d have a full boat already.”

“I have gold,” the man said, lowering his voice. “Fifteen thousand dollars’ worth. You’ll need it wherever you’re going.”

When Macklin put his end of the stretcher momentarily on one end of a bench, Frank rested his on a nearby railing and looked at the man with surprise.

“Well, you’re fifteen thousand dollars richer than I am,” he said. “But I still can’t help you. A trimaran can’t take the extra weight.” Despite the rain, five or six other people had clustered around and were listening to this exchange.

“Then take just my wife and children,” the man said. “They don’t weigh much, and they can sleep on deck.”

“No, Harry,” the woman interjected. “I’m not going anyplace without you. I won’t.”

“We’re not going south, I’m afraid,” Frank repeated, depressed that a man should be so desperate to leave this place that he was willing to sacrifice himself to get his family on a boat. Depressed too that he couldn’t help.

“Let’s go try somewhere else,” whispered the wife.

Harry, sensing Frank’s sympathy, kept staring, the woman tugging at his arm, the youngest_ child tugging at hers, the rain streaming down everyone’s faces.

“How about me, captain?” another man asked. “I’m all alone. I’m a good—”

“Me, too!” shouted a woman from the back of the small group. The crowd pushed toward Frank, shouting and holding up money, but picking up the stretcher, he and Macklin plunged roughly through the crowd and strode away.

At the hospital Seth was put on a mat on a garage floor. No doctor or nurse or administrator seemed to know who was responsible for the patients in Barnaby’s Ford Garage, and so none of the seven patients lying around the room, some on mats used by the mechanics to work under cars, were being treated. They were out of the wind and rain: that was their treatment.

Macklin had quickly disappeared, and Frank crossed the street to the main hospital grounds to find a doctor. He saw a bulldozer digging up one whole section of the side lawn in the rain, an act which struck Frank as senseless. He assumed it was part of some long-range construction program. There were large tarpaulins covering what he thought were building materials, until he saw two soldiers carrying a body on a stretcher out into the rain, across the still untouched section of lawn, and then dumping the body unceremoniously in the mud next to the tarpaulin. An hour later, when he finally left the hospital, the cover had been removed and a pile of corpses was being bulldozed into a muddy hole.

Inside the hospital he discovered there were only three doctors left for all of Morehead City. All the other local doctors had been called up by the Army to serve elsewhere. One doctor was asleep, having just put in his fifth consecutive nineteen-hour day, or close to it. The second was a surgeon working in the OR on those with serious injuries, mostly burns. The third was a pediatrician, who was acting physician for the other thousand or so patients located either here or in the refugee center.

Frank appealed to the nurses and paramedics for help. At one point when he was exploding in anger at an indifferent and unresponsive nurse, he was dragged away by two military policemen whose purpose was to maintain order in the hospital. In the end the best he could do was to see a nurse write down Seth’s name and location and tell him that Seth was “sixteenth on Mr. Umberly’s list.” Mr. Umberly, he gathered, was one of two paramedics.

On his way back to Seth he wandered by mistake into a room where the authorities apparently were putting patients who had been exposed to severe and presumably lethal doses of radiation. About ten people were lying against the walls or on the floor of what must normally have been a custodian’s room, some groaning, one screaming, and at least two of them already dead. The room reeked of vomit. All of those sprawled on the floor were badly burned, and one man who had no eyes and whose face was hideously burned, the skin dangling down one cheek, begged in a singsong chant for water. Frank fled.

When he finally returned to Seth, he found him flushed and breathing rapidly. He explained about the shortage of medical help but withheld the other horrors he had witnessed.

“Well, they warned us,” Seth said in his high-pitched, self-mocking tone.

“Who warned us about what?” Frank asked, kneeling down beside him.

“Books,” Seth said, bright-eyed with fever. “The marchers. The protestors. They all warned us that a nuclear war would be inconvenient. Too many sick and wounded, too few surviving doctors. I should have known better than to get involved in a nuclear war.”

Frank stared down at him where he lay on an inch-thick mechanic’s mat covered by the sailcloth they had used for the stretcher. He couldn’t tell if Seth was delirious or not.

“It wasn’t the Russians and their missiles that got you,” Frank said. “It was… an American.”

“I know,” said Seth. “They warned us about that too. Someone predicted the Russians would win a full-scale nuclear war because their citizens were unarmed and thus unable to wipe each other out.” He grinned up at Frank as if it were all a good joke.

“I… ah… I’d like to go to the refugee center and check on Jeanne,” Frank said. “You think you can… ah… handle yourself okay until the doctor comes?”

“Of course,” Seth replied, still smiling. “I have exactly those qualities that will guarantee my safety in this world.”

“What’s that?” asked Frank.

“I’m useless and destitute,” said Seth. “I’m even less likely to be visited by a pirate than by a doctor.”

“I… I’ve got to go,” Frank said.

For the first time Seth was silent, staring past Frank at the ceiling, his grin frozen and lifeless.

“Will you come back?” Seth asked in a low, totally different voice.

“I… Sure,” Frank answered. “I’ll come back this evening.”

“I’d like that,” said Seth, still looking past Frank at the garage ceiling.

“So I’ll be seeing you,” said Frank.

“Please come back, Frank,” Seth whispered desperately through gritted teeth, and Frank, somber, rose and left.

Jeanne had no illusions about the difficulties she would encounter as a refugee in a strange town, but as she had told Neil, the sea was no home for her; every moment she’d been aboard Vagabond her heart had been eyeing the horizon for land.

Although she had anticipated scarcity and crowding, when she entered the long, low, modern high school building, she knew that her expectations weren’t going to make it any easier. The hall she entered with Jim, Lisa, and Skip was crowded with people as wet and weary-looking as themselves. The hard floors were covered with mud and water. Some were shouting, a round man with a red nose and bloodshot eyes was trying to herd people into a line, and twenty-five or thirty confused refugees stood or sat against the walls, a few crying, many looking sick. Four or five had visible burns. Skippy was pulling at Jeanne’s belt and periodically asking her questions about nothing. She could feel a numbness creeping into her, as if her life were again being threatened. With all the sick people around she wondered whether Jim had brought her to the hospital by mistake rather than the refugee center, but on the walls were the familiar official graffiti of a school: “Seniors taking SATs report on Tuesday to Mr. Owens,” “Graduation rehearsal at 3:00 on Thursday,” and “Support your Tigercats!”

“Mother, let’s not stay here,” Lisa said, looking frightened.

“There’s no place else to go, honey,” Jeanne answered mechanically.

“We should have stayed on the boat,” Lisa insisted.

“We’ve got to try this,” Jeanne replied, fighting off the panic she could feel invading her as it had Lisa. The boat was a refuge of last resort—it had only a few days’ worth of food left. This was now how people lived on land: it was necessary to try.

It took more than an hour before they were “registered” and assigned to a room. Jim said an awkward good-bye to Lisa, leaving her stricken and silent, and left to sneak back to the boat. They hiked down the hall to find their room, where a large matronly woman welcomed them “to the third grade.”

Forcing a smile, Jeanne stood tentatively in the doorway and finally urged Skippy and Lisa ahead of her into the room, which was occupied by four other families, though there was only one adult male among them. Each group had carved out a little space for itself by arranging the desks into a low wall. Although no mattresses were available, most families seemed to have sleeping bags or blankets, as did Jeanne. The lights were off, and with the wind and rain slashing against the big windows, the interior of the room was dark and depressing. Skippy, however, seemed to relax in the presence of desks and toys and began to play by himself with some blocks not far from another child his age, who seemed reluctant to leave his family’s walled-off space. There were seven children in the room.

For the next few hours, Jeanne left Lisa to watch Skip so she could tour the building and talk with her fellow refugees. She began to realize how lucky she had been. Many had been a hundred miles from the nearest blast and had still been overtaken by radioactive fallout and radiation sickness. Whether they were sick or not, most of those she talked to seemed confused and numb rather than terrified, and manifested a debilitating passivity. They accepted instructions, food, friendship, and hostility with a numb equanimity that she knew was a symptom not of spiritual maturity but of surrender.

She was appalled when a young woman who was caring for those with radiation sickness told her that only one doctor was available to come to the center and then only for an hour each day. Most of the sick were too weak to go to the hospital and had been instructed to stay in the school, where conditions were, in fact, better.

“Are you an official here?” Jeanne asked the young woman, almost afraid to look at the line of ashen, slumped figures propped up against one wall of the large fifth-grade classroom.

“No,” the woman answered. “I’m just doing what I can to help. My name’s Katya.”

Katya was a petite, ashen-haired woman in her early twenties wearing jeans and a sexy peasant blouse with a deeply scooped neckline that seemed strangely inappropriate in a roomful of sick and dying people. She wore no makeup, and she was not so much pretty as she was striking, especially her dazzling green-blue eyes.

Although Jeanne was still a little shaky from the aftereffects of seasickness, she worked for almost two hours with Katya lugging buckets for potties, cleaning up vomit, relaying messages, bringing water and food, and answering questions. At first she was disturbed by Katya’s indifference to and even disobedience of the various officials who appeared sporadically throughout the afternoon—one even ordered them to leave the room because “you aren’t sick or dying”— but she soon came to feel that the only worthwhile things being done were being done spontaneously by volunteers rather than as a result of any official system.

After they had fed patients who wanted to eat anything, at six o’clock Jeanne went with Katya to get Lisa and Skip, and they all headed for the school cafeteria with the other refugees. A tall, skinny young man with glasses, apparently Katya’s boyfriend, joined them at their table.

The food was fried fish, onion soup, and water. The cafeteria was packed, and the refugees elbowed into line as if they were scrambling for tickets to a first-run movie.

“I’ve been here almost three days,” Katya said when Lisa asked her about the food. “We had some meat the first day, but since then it’s been all eggs, fish, and a few vegetables, mostly onions. I think we had some apples the second day, but otherwise no fruit.”

“And the portions keep getting smaller,” commented the young man, whose name was Sky. He cleaned his plate of fish away with amazing rapidity and eyed Jeanne’s plate with interest.

“I’ll give you a joint for half your fish,” he offered.

It took Jeanne a moment to absorb the suggestion.

“No… thank you,” she replied. “What I don’t finish, I plan to save for my children.”

“That’s cool,” said Sky, although he was clearly disappointed.

“Where are you working?” Jeanne asked him, more to make conversation than out of genuine interest.

“What do you mean?” asked Sky.

“Katya and I are working with the people in the fifth-grade classroom,” she explained. “I wondered—”

“Oh. No. Katya likes to keep busy,” Sky said. “I like to take things easy.”

“Oh,” said Jeanne.

“Actually I volunteered to help in the kitchen,” Sky continued brightly. “But they had enough people there already.”

“What… what about military service?” Lisa asked.

“Medical disability,” Sky answered.

“Oh.”

“My mind’s all screwed up,” Sky explained.

Katya was eating quietly as if she were indifferent to the conversation.

“Do you plan to stay here?” Jeanne asked, trying to address her question as much to Katya as to the young man.

“Long as the food holds out,” Sky answered, grinning.

“Not me,” said Katya, her eyes flashing. “The first two days I felt safe here. No more. I’d be out in a second if I could figure a way.”

“Where would you go?” Jeanne asked, scraping the last of her fish from her plate onto Lisa’s. Skippy was having trouble finishing his.

“As far away from where the bombs are going off as I can get,” Katya answered. “If it’s like this now,” she went on, motioning at the crowded cafeteria and by implication at the whole refugee center, “I hate to think how bad it will get.”

“Perhaps we’ve already seen the worst,” Jeanne suggested.

“All I know,” Katya replied, “is that the alive people seem to leave this place after only a day or two. Most of those who stay have already given up.”

“What about me?” asked Sky with a sly smile.

“You gave up so long ago you can’t even remember when.”

“Thanks.”

“But… then why do you work so hard here?” Jeanne asked.

“Where there’s work to be done, 1 do it,” said Katya.

“Where there’s work to be done, I avoid it,” said Sky, grinning.

Frank suddenly appeared at their table, standing behind Katya and across from Jeanne; on his face was a look of relief that he had located her.

“Jim’s been drafted,” he announced. “No punishment, but they were marching him through the street when I was on the way here. I ought to be happy… I feel like shit.”

“Where will they send him?” Lisa asked, looking up wide-eyed.

“No one knows,” Frank said. “He’s alive, he’s being fed, eventually he’ll be able to serve: that’s all that counts.”

“How can we see him?” Lisa asked. Frank glanced at her painfully and shrugged.

“Sit down, Frank,” said Jeanne. “I’ll go get you something to eat.”

“It’s too late,” said Sky. “They’re closed up for the night. You’ve got to get here early.” He turned to grin up at Frank, who merely walked around the end of the table and came over to Jeanne. “You okay?” he asked, after a cold glance at Sky.

“I’m tired,” she said. “I’d like you to meet the woman I worked with most of the afternoon. This is Katya. Katya, this is Frank.”

“Glad to meet you,” he said.

“You own the trimaran, right?” Katya asked immediately.

“Yeah, I do. How’d you know?”

“Jeanne’s been telling me her adventures,” Katya replied. “If you decide to sail again, I’d like to join you.”

“I’m afraid I don’t think we’re going to be sailing.”

“You plan to stay here?”

“It seems that way,” said Frank neutrally.

“I’m getting out of here if I have to crawl,” said Katya, her eyes again seeming to flash angrily.

Lisa and Skip had gotten up by now, and Skip was pulling his mother’s hand to lead her away. As they started to leave, Sky looked up at them glowy-eyed and grinned.

“Never knock a place that serves free food,” he said.

The two U.S. Navy ships moored to the deepwater pilings in the turning basin had both been disabled on the first day of the war. The larger of the two, a destroyer, looked like it had felt the effects of a not-too-distant nuclear blast. Its paint was blistered, portholes shattered, struts and rigging broken. The second, a subchaser about two-thirds the size of the destroyer, was less visibly damaged, but it was listing to port like an old man with a bad back. Two Navy men, a petty officer and his messenger, stopped Neil at the gate. Both wore sidearms.

“Captain Neil Loken reporting for duty,” Neil said.

The petty officer eyed him skeptically. Neil was still dressed in his jeans and boat shoes.

“You have a pass, captain?” the petty officer asked.

“I’ve got nothing,” Neil replied. “All my papers were destroyed in Washington. Let me speak to the officer of the deck.”

“You say you’re reporting for duty?”

“That’s right.”

“Where’s your regular unit?”

Neil shook his head.

“I’m presently unassigned,” he answered. “Let me speak to your duty officer.”

The petty officer stared a moment longer at Neil and then went back into a small makeshift guardhouse and spoke into a walkie-talkie. When he came out, he said to the other sentry, “Take this guy… Captain Loken… to Lieutenant Margolis.”

Neil was then forced to precede the guard across the open dockyard area to the boarding ladder of the subchaser, the Haig. It felt strange to be boarding a combat vessel in jeans and a T-shirt rather than regulation Navy attire. The ship seemed to be in good order, and the sentry, as was proper, turned him over to the petty officer on watch, who walked Neil briskly forward. The officer of the deck, Lieutenant Margolis, was on the foredeck supervising the unloading of munitions from the large forward hatch.

“What is it, Mr. Haynes?” he asked. Lieutenant Margolis, a slight, pinch-faced man, looked at Neil with distaste.

“This man asked to speak to you, sir. He says he’s reporting for duty.”

“He does, huh?” Margolis said. “Well, sailor,” he went on, turning to Neil. “What’s your story? Where have you been for the last five days?”

“I’m Captain Neil Loken,” Neil replied. “Annapolis, Class of 1971. I just got in from sea. I want to be of service.”

Trying unsuccessfully to mask his surprise and uncertainty, Margolis continued to stare at Neil.

“Were you on active duty when the war broke out?” he asked.

“No,” Neil answered. “1 resigned my commission in 1975. I haven’t served since.”

“Then what are you doing here?” the lieutenant asked with careful neutrality.

“I served in CPB’s in Vietnam,” Neil said. “I believe I can be of more use on a combat vessel than anyplace else.”

Margolis frowned.

“That’s hardly your decision to make, is it?” he said. “Certainly we have no authorization to take in men… officers… off the street.”

“No doubt,” said Neil. “Still, I imagine this war is going to require quite a bit of improvisation.” Neil could see Margolis was struggling with the paradox of having to address a civilian in canvas shoes who claimed to be his superior officer.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Loken,” Margolis finally said in a cold voice. “We have no authorization to take you on here. You’ll have to leave the ship.”

“May I have permission to speak to your captain?”

“You may not. Escort this man off the ship, Mr. Haynes.”

Discouraged and angry, Neil was led back to the boarding ladder and off the Haig. But in the open dock area he noticed and accosted another lieutenant, and with Mr. Haynes looking on uncertainly, he explained his situation again to this officer.

“The class of ’71, is it?” the officer asked. He was a tired-looking, sloppily dressed man about Neil’s own age who had come from the damaged destroyer.

“Yes, sir,” said Neil. “If you have anyone aboard from ’70, ’71, or ’72 they’ll probably know me… or know of me.”

“Know of you, huh?” the lieutenant said, eyeing Neil speculatively. “Are you famous for something?”

“It was a suggestion,” Neil said, sidestepping the question. “I don’t have my papers with me.”

“There are… were half a dozen Academy boys aboard this ship, but none that I can think of from your time. Maybe Captain Cohen. You know him?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then you’re out of luck, I guess.”

“Could I see your commanding officer?” Neil persisted.

“I’m afraid Commander Bonnville wouldn’t appreciate being disturbed by something as—”

“Bonnville?” Neil interrupted. “Greg Bonnville?”

“That’s right,” the lieutenant said, looking surprised. “You know him?”

“I served with him for eight months in Nam.”

The lieutenant hesitated, his exhausted face screwed up in a frown.

“Maybe you should see him.”

“I’d like to.”

In ten minutes Neil had been escorted aboard the destroyer Morison. The Morison was a mess. All its topside paint was blistering, its portholes and bridge windows shattered, bloodstains still evident, damaged weapons and debris everywhere. The petty officer who received him aboard looked sick, exhausted, or both. It took almost another ten minutes to make contact with the duty officer and receive permission for him to see Commander Bonnville.

Greg Bonnville had been Neil’s group leader for ten months in the South China Sea off Vietnam. He had been a fierce, dedicated, by-the-book officer who had made Neil for that first year in Vietnam a believer in going by the book. Two years later, when he’d learned that Neil planned to resign his commission, he had telephoned from Manila, where he was then stationed, to urge Neil to change his mind.

As Neil was being taken to the bridge to see him again he felt a pleasant stirring of excitement, which was sickeningly crushed the moment he saw Bonnville.

His friend was only ten years older than Neil, but now he looked twenty. Slumped behind his desk in his cabin, he was gray-faced and hollow-eyed. His formerly eye-catching mane of dark hair was gone; he was almost bald. Scar tissue marred his forehead and one cheek. He trembled when he stood up to greet Neil, his lanky body badly stooped.

“I’m afraid I can’t say welcome aboard, Neil,” Greg Bonnville said. “The Morison is a deathship.”

Neil stood facing his friend uncertainly. Greg’s quarters were strewn with clothes, books, and papers. The ship’s logbook lay on the floor, propped up against one leg of the desk. Greg sat back down with a groan.

“What happened?” Neil asked.

“Wrong war,” Greg answered gloomily, not looking up. “We were steaming south fifteen miles off Cape Henry, probably thirty from Hampton Roads, when boom, we got… permanently decommissioned.”

“Did you… personally get hit?”

“I look it, don’t I?” he replied. “I got some mild burns and cuts from the initial blast, but it was the radiation all that morning that clobbered us. The only men who might come out of this all right are the engine-room crew. Anyone who had to be out on deck or on the bridge that night is probably… not going to make it.”

“Including you?” Neil asked softly.

“Obviously including me.”

Neil turned and paced over to the shattered porthole and stared out over the waters of the turning basin toward the ocean.

“Is the ship still contaminated?” Neil asked quietly.

“It’s pretty clean except in the aft hold, which we’ve closed off,” he said. “They almost wouldn’t let us put in here till they got their own geiger counter man aboard and cleared us.”

“May I sit down?” Neil asked.

“Please,” Greg responded. “You make me sad standing up so straight.” Neil sat down on the edge of Greg’s berth. “What are your orders?” he asked hesitantly.

Greg looked up blankly and then snickered. “Stay here and die.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Absolutely not. And damn good orders they are. This ship is dead, and the engine-room crew has been transferred to the Haig. The rest of us will stay by ourselves with our little individual time-bombs. Whoever can walk off in a week will be reassigned.”

“Living Jesus,” Neil muttered.

“Quite an end to a distinguished career.”

“There’s nothing you can do?” Neil asked, looking up at his friend as if he were appealing for himself.

“Remain on standby and if, by some miraculous stroke of luck, a Soviet sub should amble up the Morehead City inlet, go down with my ship.”

“I see,” said Neil, getting up and walking back over to the porthole, where pieces of shattered glass were resting like a cache of diamonds on the circular sill. “Look, Greg,” he went on, turning back to his friend, who was slumped forward at his desk, staring down. “What do you know about the overall military situation?”

Greg lifted his head, and the two men gazed at each other.

“All I know is what I can read between the lines of the radio communiques and orders.”

“That’s something,” said Neil. “What do you think?”

“I think we’re planning to evacuate all remaining naval personnel from the whole East Coast. I think it’s rapidly becoming a war of individual initiative, just the kind we always wished we could be in.”

“But where’s the enemy?”

“Ahh,” said Greg, straightening up with a grimace. “That’s the new twist. The enemy is in the sky, in the food chain, in the rain, in my bloodstream.”

“And the Russians?”

“They’ve shot their bolt,” he said. “There’ve only been two or three incoming missiles since the second day. Their Mediterranean and Indian Ocean fleets are gone. Their population has been decimated. Whatever fighting’s still going on is nothing more than the last twitching of two corpses. The Russians and us will probably both be fantasizing to our last breaths that we’re just about to snatch victory from the jaws of mutual destruction.”

Neil looked at the sunken face of his friend and saw no sense of triumph.

“We… ah… we’ve won?” Neil asked, feeling feeble and foolish.

“If we’ve won, it’s the way the Morison has won…” He looked dismally around the room.

For a third time Neil walked over to look out the shattered porthole. Outside he saw the Coast Guard launch begin its turn to sweep back out the channel in its systematic patrolling of the inlet.

“I’ve been ordered to report for duty,” he announced with his back still to Greg.

“Here?” Greg asked, astounded.

“No. To report somewhere. All men are supposed to report.”

“How’d you happen to end up here?”

Turning around to face him Neil gave a brief account of his voyage on Vagabond.

“And you’re all leaving her for here?” Greg asked in a low, sad voice.

Neil shrugged. “The law—” he began.

“Neil, I told you,” Greg said, leaning painfully back in his chair and almost glaring at Neil. “This has become a war of individual initiative and…”—he grimaced and groaned once—“and the enemy,” he continued, “the sole enemy… is death.”

“And the U.S. Navy?” Neil asked softly.

Greg slumped forward again.

“Wrong war,” he replied in a low voice.

After Neil had left Captain Bonnville, he searched out the infirmary and drug dispensary. There he found a sailor kneeling in front of two open drawers and a clutter of bottles and little cardboard cartons strewn around him on the floor. When the sailor looked up at him, Neil saw that he was stoned. He was probably searching for some sort of dope—morphine or codeine or barbituates, judging from the dull look in his eyes. Slowly a look of bewilderment made its way onto the young sailor’s round face as Neil stood stiffly over him, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.

“All right, sailor,” Neil said firmly. “I don’t have to ask what you’re doing here, but I want you to find me any antibiotics that are still around.”

The small, weary-looking young man, his face pale and his eyes bloodshot, hesitated, still in confusion.

“I’m Captain Loken, sailor,” Neil barked in the traditional manner. “And I gave you an order.”

“Aye… aye, sir,” the sailor finally replied, wobbling to his feet. “Uh… antibiotics don’t work against radiation sickness.”

“I know.”

“Nothing works.”

“I know. Find them.”

The man stared around the room and then walked over to the opposite wall and began going through drawers. Neil came up beside him and began searching also. Eventually he found two vials containing liquid penicillin and a bottle labeled Tetracyclin with a hundred capsules. He located two syringes in a glass cabinet. The sailor was now staring dreamily into an empty drawer.

“Is there still morphine available, sailor?” Neil asked loudly.

The man lazily shook his head and smiled. Neil made a further search for pain-killers, found a small amount of codeine, and left.

He decided that since weapons had been officially removed from the Morison, his only hope was to search the petty officers’ quarters. There he encountered, in the four separate staterooms, one corpse, two dying men, and two men listening lugubriously to a newscast. He asked them about weapons, but they stared back at him as if he were mad, or they were stoned. In the last stateroom, empty of its occupants, he discovered in a bureau drawer a nine-millimeter pistol—the official Navy sidearm—and a half-full box of ammunition. From this same room he also stole a bottle of aspirin, matches, razor blades, suntan lotion, and a small cache of cocaine. When he found himself tempted to steal Kleenex, he felt he was becoming a kleptomaniac and hastily left.

Later, as he was leaving the dockyard, Neil ran into the petty officer who had originally heard his story.

“Well, Mr. Loken, are you going to join us?” he asked.

Neil hesitated only a moment. “It doesn’t look that way,” he replied. “It appears I’ve been given… an independent command.”

And he left.

At ten p.m. that evening, after he had filled out forms, had been given a perfunctory physical exam by a corpsman, and been issued a uniform, Jim and other recruits of the last three days were rounded up and marched to the Rialto movie theater. There about one hundred and fifty new soldiers, some without uniforms, stood at attention between the rows of seats, most of them sweating profusely in the stuffy theater, no longer cooled by air conditioning. Jim stood at the right rear, uncomfortable, resentful, curious. For fifteen minutes the men were kept standing like this. Finally a major marched out onto the stage in front of them.

“At ease, men,” he shouted down at them, and a great groan broke from the group as the soldiers relaxed, many of them collapsing into their seats. The relaxed hubbub lasted for less than five seconds.

“Atten-shun!” the major unexpectedly bellowed.

Surprised and confused, the men struggled back up to attention, a few, not hearing the new command, having to be urged up by those around them.

“At ease, men,” the major shouted at them after less than twenty seconds.

This time the relaxation was much less pronounced; most of the men remained standing, looking at the major suspiciously, not talking among themselves this time as they had before. Jim himself stood exactly as he had been when he was supposedly standing at attention, staring up at the major with resentment. About twenty seconds passed this time, then thirty, and a few of the men began to whisper to each other, one or two to sit down.

“Atten-shun!” the major bellowed a third time, and again the men responded, many sullenly, until the noncoms spread out around the auditorium began to enforce the major’s command.

“All right!” the major shouted, pacing off to the left of the platform, his compact body moving with suppressed power, his dark face and neatly trimmed mustache accentuating his smartness and correctness compared to the ragtag bunch of men in front of him. He glared down at his audience.

“You’ve just demonstrated the single most important attribute of a soldier: obedience. I don’t give a fuck if you don’t know your right foot from your left foot, an antitank gun from a .22, or a platoon from a spittoon, but if you know how to obey, you’ll make one hell of a soldier.”

He paused and paced back over to the center of the stage.

“In this war, especially with the losses we’ve already sustained here on the mainland, it’s absolutely necessary that everyone pull together, that we all work to get the country back on its feet again. And the only way that can happen is for the President to point, the officers to lead, and the rest of you to fall into line…”

The major wiped sweat from his brow, but his bushy eyebrows and trim mustache still kept glistening under the row of bright lights.

“The Russians haven’t landed yet,” he went on in a loud voice that seemed just on the verge of cracking from the effort. “We hope they never will, but there are already enemies loose in this country, and it’s our job to stop them. The enemy is anyone who thinks they know better than the President, anyone who selfishly puts his own interests above those of the whole nation. It’s the Army’s job to keep our country functioning, keep the food, medical, and military supplies flowing. Your officers will determine how this can best be done, and then you and they will do it.

“And I don’t want any of you assholes to try thinking you know better than your officers. There’s only one right way to do things in the Army, and that’s the way you’re ordered to do them… And don’t you forget it…”

He paused, glared, sweat again pouring down his face, and Jim watched him with a feeling of dull dread and hopelessness. He felt like he was trapped in a small room.

“Any day now some of you may be sent on assignments that involve our using the muscle against misguided bastards who think their personal asses are all that count. I don’t want any shilly-shallying. If you are ordered to shoot someone, you shoot him. There’s no time for you to complain that you haven’t heard the guy speak Russian. Anyone who disobeys an order from a superior officer is a traitor and deserves to be shot. Don’t you forget it…

“All of you men here have just become part of this army. You are idiots, ignoramuses, assholes, zeroes. Don’t pretend you’re anything else. We’ll teach you to be soldiers. You’ll learn. But right from the beginning I want you to know that there’s really only one lesson: obey… And don’t you forget it…”

Later that night, as Jim spread out his sleeping bag next to Tony’s on the floor of a double room in the Moonlighter Motel—their temporary barracks—the other six men in the room, all of whom had been “in” since the second day of the war, were loose and joking. There were three blacks, two of whom were big men and the third a little runt of a man, and three middle-aged whites. They had all been at the theater and heard the major’s talk.

“Sheet, man, we’re the kings,” one of the big black men said as he spread his sleeping bag out on top of a double bed. “Ain’t no way you gonna get me outa this army. In here they look out after your ass. Out there it’s everybody’s ass for hisself. Ain’t no way.”

“I don’t like shootin’ no people,” the little black man said sullenly as he prepared to crawl into his sleeping bag, also on the floor. “You shoot anybody they ask you?”

“Sheet, I shoot my mother, man, if they says to,” the first black man countered. “That’s the way it is, man. This is wah!”

The other three men, the older whites, remained silent, two of them preparing to sleep on the second double bed and the third, a plump, red-faced man, bedding down near Tony and Jim.

“If they ask us to shoot somebody,” Tony announced loudly in the brief silence, “you can be damn sure that guy deserves to be shot.”

Jim, uncomfortable, unconvinced, was quietly unlacing his GI boots.

“Well, at least we won’t starve to death in the Army,” the plump man said with a hesitant smile.

“They feed us, they give us guns, and when a bomb comes, they tell us to duck,” one of the other white men said. “Compared to what I was facing four days ago, this is heaven.”

“You’re damn right,” the man next to him echoed.

Jim placed his boots and his fatigues in a neat pile at the head of his sleeping bag and, in his underwear, crawled into his sleeping bag.

“What this wah is, is a great big mother-fucking urban renewal program,” the big talkative black man said as he undressed. “Now Manhattan and Washington and Boston all get to look like Harlem.” He laughed.

The others were silent. Jim linked his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. He could feel the floor swaying underneath him, its motion the counterpoint to Vagabond’s during the last two days at sea.

He felt isolated, alone. Tony appeared to feel at home in the Army; Jim felt he would be lucky to last a single day. He tried to think about what he could do and where he could go if he escaped, but he was tired, the three blacks were laughing about something, and the two white men in the other double bed were whispering together. He heard Tony getting into the sleeping bag beside him.

“Don’t mind these shits,” Tony whispered to him. “Tomorrow we’ll be assigned to a platoon, and it’ll be a whole new ball game.”

Jim didn’t reply. He didn’t think the league he was stuck in now was going to be getting any better for a long, long time.

For most of his fifty-eight years George Cooper had thought that he would defend his country to the death. He had fought in the Korean War; two of his sons had fought in the war in Vietnam. So it was with some degree of confusion that he found himself standing behind a barricade of farm machinery, oil tanks, and hay with eighteen other farmers and a few of their teenage sons, preparing to fight a company of soldiers from the Army of the United States. Every decision he had made during the week that followed the outbreak of war had seemed logical, but there was nothing logical about what was happening now. His own government seemed about to kill him and his sons and friends because they felt they ought to be able to keep some of their farm animals and produce for their families and friends.

When four days earlier an officer had come and told him the Army needed all his eggs every day and all his spring corn, George had still been too stunned to resist. But when some of his neighbors began to complain that the Army was taking everything, and then yesterday a new officer came to requisition the rest of his spring vegetables and forty chickens, George began to feel that his country had already been invaded; it was just that the uniforms weren’t the color he’d expected them to be.

George understood that food was now gold and that he and his neighbors were millionaires in a poverty-stricken world. He understood that with real money almost meaningless he would have to give away most of his food without compensation so that others wouldn’t starve to death. What he couldn’t understand and couldn’t accept was that he had to give up everything to the government and depend on feeding his own family on what the government planned to give back to him.

Eggs and corn he could spare. But his chickens, or Bart Hasler’s cows, or Fred Lapp’s hogs, these they couldn’t give up without endangering their own families’ survival. Taking their animals away was like tearing down small factories.

The officer had arrived that morning for the chickens, and George had refused to surrender them. The officer had left, announcing he would return with reinforcements. He had. About sixty soldiers with automatic rifles were standing around three troop carriers parked two hundred feet away on the road. The chickens were in the henhouse behind them. About half of Bart’s herd of sixty cows and most of Fred’s hogs were in the big barn to their left. A large store of recently harvested vegetables was in the cellar of the main house. The women and smaller children were staying over at Fred’s farm a mile away. All the young men were in the service someplace, one of them, John Simpson’s son, Cal, standing with an automatic rifle among the sixty soldiers confronting them.

When the officer shouted at them through a bullhorn, the other farmers chose George to go out and speak to him. The soldiers began to fan out around the barns and henhouse, and Bart, who was in charge of tactics, had posted men in various defensive positions around the barn and henhouse to keep the soldiers at a distance. Their orders were that if any soldier got within fifty feet of the barns they were to fire a warning shot at the ground in front of them.

The officer in charge was a Captain Ames, a tall, skinny fellow with a nervous twitch on one side of his face. He didn’t seem too sure of himself. George wasn’t too sure of himself. He’d left his shotgun back with the others and ambled slowly out to talk to Ames.

“We’ve come for your chickens, Mr. Cooper,” Captain Ames said in an unnaturally loud voice. “My orders are to confiscate all edible livestock in this area.”

“All of them?” George asked in surprise. In the morning the order had been for just forty of his chickens.

“All of them.” Captain Ames held out a piece of paper, presumably containing written authorization for the confiscation.

“Can’t give ’em up, captain,” George replied, staring unseeingly at the paper but not taking it from Ames’s hand. “Until people are starving to death, I figure I can best take care of ’em here.”

“You’re not the one to do the figuring,” Ames countered. “The Army knows what’s needed, and we need chickens.”

“Can’t do it, Captain.”

“I’ve got sixty men here that says you can.”

“If that henhouse catches on fire, and that barn,” George replied, squinting back at his farmyard and watching the circle of soldiers grow tighter, “then nobody’s gonna eat the chickens. Or the hogs or anything else. Why don’t you go back and talk it over with your general or with whatever asshole sent you out here?”

“My orders were clear and irrevocable,” Ames said nervously. “I am to bring back the requisitioned food supplies from this area this afternoon and use whatever force is necessary to do so.”

“You can’t bring ’em back if we burn down the barns.”

Ames flushed.

“Why would you do that?”

“’Cause we don’t like having our property stolen.”

“Your country’s at war,” Ames shot back. “The President has declared martial law. If the Army orders something requisitioned, that’s not stealing.”

“I don’t figure the President had my chickens in mind when he declared martial law.”

“But he did,” Ames countered. “He had everyone’s chickens in mind.”

“Well,” George said after a pause, “I’m not too good at arguin’.” He stared off at a group of soldiers in back of the barn. “Fact is though if your soldiers get within fifty feet of our barns, bullets will hit three feet in front of them, and if they get within forty-five feet of the barns, then they’ll bump into our bullets. And if they get into the barns, then our boys will set the barns on fire. We figure there ain’t no way you can carry out your order.”

Captain Ames, seeing that his men were within seventy or eighty feet of the barns in some places, shouted out an order to halt and the noncoms passed it on. Ames told George to wait where he was, went over to the back of one of the trucks, and got on the radio back to headquarters in Morehead City. When he returned five minutes later, he looked pale and shaken.

“Look, Mr. Cooper,” he said with an anguished, pleading note in his voice. “The colonel says to get what food I can, no matter who gets hurt. He says radioactive fallout is coming this way, and all your animals will be useless as food in less than a week. The Army will be evacuating the area, and we’ve been ordered to take all the food we can find with us. You people should evacuate too. We’ll leave you plenty of food for your families, but most of it we’ll have to take.”

George Cooper squinted at the captain. The fallout bit might be an excuse or it might be true.

“You plan to kill us for a few chickens and pigs?” he said after a pause.

“I will have to kill you if you disobey the orders of the military commander of this region.”

“For a few chickens?”

“You seem to be all ready to destroy your barn for a few chickens.”

“My barns are useless without anything to put in them,” George said slowly. “I figure that you and your colonel can survive without my chickens.”

“Ten minutes, Cooper,” Ames said with a grimace as he glanced at his watch. “If you don’t put down your weapons and let us take what the local military commander has ordered requisitioned, my men will attack.”

George Cooper looked numbly back at Captain Ames.

“Seems like a pretty shitty thing to do,” he said.

“May be,” said Captain Ames, flushing. “But I’ll do it.”

George turned and walked slowly back to his friends behind the tractors, examining as he walked the positions of the soldiers around his farmyard. A few of them back of the henhouse seemed awfully close to fifty feet away from the buildings.

Bart, Fred, and two more of the older men met him by Fred’s harvester, and he began to recount his conversation with Ames. He had just gotten to the Army’s claim that fallout was coming their way when a shot rang out. Then two others. George wheeled to see Captain Ames crouched down next to one of the trucks, and the soldiers near him throwing themselves down onto the grass. Off to the left two soldiers were running away. To the right, a squad of eight or ten soldiers, in a crouch, were running toward the henhouse. A fusillade of shots erupted from the teenagers there, and one of the soldiers fell. Then the real firing began.

As he sat exhausted in his cabin and fiddled with the shortwave radio Neil was feeling baffled. The day and a half since his visit to Greg Bonnville when he had made his separate peace, had been frustrating. He’d found it easy enough to bluff his way out of the two confrontations with the authorities challenging him about his not being in uniform—he put on his captain’s demeanor and Navy lingo and said he was on special assignment from the Morison—but had found it difficult to learn what was really happening in the world.

Official radio announcements indicated that Morehead City was a safe area. Army policy was that refugees should stay put. They were offering no assistance to people who wanted to move farther south. As long as there was no danger in staying where they were, he didn’t feel he had any right to take Jeanne and Frank back out to sea, much less to help Jim desert. Although he himself no longer felt an obligation to serve his country, the transformation of Greg Bonnville was not an example he could use to persuade others. It was too personal. He himself felt the only safety lay in escaping the mainland to sea; to others this seemed to be simply his mania.

Conrad Macklin had disappeared while Neil was on the Morison, and since he had stolen some food from Vagabond, Neil assumed that he’d seen the last of him. But he’d returned thirty hours later— just four hours ago—to inform Neil that though the Army had roadblocks up to prevent civilians from fleeing south, a caravan of Army vehicles with both military and civilian passengers had been streaming south on Route 17. Macklin had hung around and learned that the Army was having problems manning its roadblock units because some of the troops were panicking at the sight of so many others going south after they had been ordered to stay put. Macklin urged Neil to take Vagabond out to sea immediately, whether Jeanne and the others came or not.

Neil knew that if he didn’t take Vagabond out soon, Macklin would find somebody else who would. That meant he not only had to worry about choosing the correct course of action but about Macklin’s trying to hijack Vagabond again. With Olly often aboard alone there wasn’t much to stop him. Neil had tried to delay any precipitous action on Macklin’s part by telling him he planned to decide on his plans tonight. He had visited Jeanne, Frank, and Lisa at the refugee center briefly late that afternoon and had been discouraged to see that they seemed to be settling in; both were working hard, making friends, feeling they were making a contribution. Lisa had spent much of the day trying unsuccessfully to see Jim and had just returned in tears, so Jeanne was in no condition to make decisions. Her response to Neil’s announcement that he wasn’t going back into the Navy was a brief stricken look, as if she were frightened by the implications for her own life. Frank told Neil that he could take Vagabond, as if for Frank the struggle were over and Morehead City High School was now home. Neil had left frightened and depressed at their state.

“There was more fallout today. The total’s more than an eighth of an inch since we first got some four days ago. Some of the farmers are trying to get it off the leaves of the corn and squash and beans, and Pat Nerron reports the wind blows it off the wheat and rye, but it’s killing some of the plants even lying in the soil.”

The voice over the shortwave radio was that of the ham radio operator from east Tennessee who Neil had last listened to the evening the war started.

“Henry Tickney says his geiger counter shows it’s up to three roentgens in his soybean fields, which isn’t healthy for either him or his beans, but supposedly it’ll drop off every day unless we get more. Like most of us, Henry says he only goes out for a half-hour a day.

“Three new shelters were started yesterday and one’s already finished. Eight people moved in with enough food for two weeks. We put in Jesse and Marge Williams and their two kids, Gor and Hilda Lafson and their son Leo, and the Barletts’ sick girl, Tina. The Williams run the Exxon station east of town and are sick and don’t have anything they can do, and the Lafsons paid for all the material and labor on the shelter. Like I said, the Williams and Tina Barlett are pretty sick from the radiation, and we figure they need the protection. Course I guess we all do.

“Martha Peterson died yesterday. After her sons went away, we couldn’t get her to stay in the cellar.

“The Linkletters and Potts moved south today, using the Linkletter’s team of workhorses and a wagon Tim built out of an old truck flatbed. They’re the sixth and seventh families to leave. Most all of the young people are gone of course. Most of the old people have chosen to stay. We don’t know whether we’ll make it or not, but most of us decided it’d be. better to die here than live in those camps they’ve set up in northern Louisiana and Arkansas. I suppose if we had kids, it might be different. That’s why we help those who feel they have to go.

“It’s kind of sad though. You know you’ll never see each other again. The people leaving feel kind of like traitors, and the people staying feel kind of like fools… Still, we do what we got to do…”

After the frequency went dead, Neil turned off the set and continued to sit in the darkness of his cabin. He became aware of the faint glow of his wristwatch lying at the base of the radio. It was almost midnight. They were dying in east Tennessee, what?—perhaps six or seven hundred miles away. Not even that far.

Sighing, he turned the set back on, adjusted the earphones, and began a slow sweep of the ham frequencies. The first voice he brought in reported increased radioactive fallout and radiation sickness in southern Mississippi, with thousands fleeing out into the Gulf of Mexico. Military authority had ceased to exist; soldiers as well as civilians were stealing boats, commandeering barges and helicopters to get away. The voice speculated that to the west, toward New Orleans and Galveston, there were few survivors. Those fleeing east across the Florida panhandle would probably be overtaken by the lethal fallout. He mentioned some towns whose names Neil didn’t recognize, but when he checked his small atlas he concluded the broadcast had come from somewhere less than a hundred miles east of Pensacola.

Neil moved the dial, bringing in a ship, the Athena, three hundred miles out of Boston, asking for medical advice on the treatment of radiation sickness.

He brought in a station in Bermuda warning of starvation facing the islanders there.

Then his ear caught “Raleigh, North Carolina” on a frequency filled with static, and he tried to tune it in more clearly. Raleigh was about two hundred miles west of Morehead City. The voice, clearer now, a woman’s with a strong southern accent, was announcing that she was taking over for her husband, who was sick but who wanted her to keep up his daily reports. The radioactive fallout in the last day had increased tenfold, and now everyone was trying to stay belowground. Those who ventured out for more than a half-hour took sick quickly. Those who stayed in cellars or shelters did better. The ground was covered with ash, thick, black, ugly. They were drinking only bottled water, but most had only a limited supply. Electric pumps could no longer be used. They couldn’t figure why there was so much fallout, where it was coming from, and it was scary. They hoped it would stop raining soon.

When Neil switched off the radio this time, he was trembling with a great, deep dread, almost desperation. They were all doomed. Shelters, putting out to sea, joining the Army, the Navy, all seemed equally futile.

No, that was a lie. He knew it was a lie. Safety lay far to the south and out to sea. He knew that, could see that for a certainty now. Morehead City, bucolic, innocent, unimportant Morehead City was doomed. In a few days it would be overtaken by the fallout. So too would the rest of the East Coast. But the ocean and a run to the south represented hope and life, for him, for Jeanne, for Frank, for Olly, for all of his remaining friends. Only out there, where the fallout would be swallowed up by the insatiable sea, was there hope for survival, and he knew it was up to him to get them all to act, and to act now. The Army was lying. There was no safety left on land.

Having made his decision, he stood up, carefully turned off the radio, disconnected the batteries, and went up on deck. Captain Olly was sitting in the darkness of the wheelhouse talking in a lively monologue to silent Conrad Macklin. Olly stopped talking when Neil appeared.

“I’m taking Vagabond back out to sea,” he announced quietly after sitting down opposite the old man.

“Good,” Captain Olly replied. “Been wonderin’ how long it would take you.”

Neil turned to Macklin.

“To get out the inlet we’ll need another boat to act as decoy,” he said. “A boat with just enough fuel to get to the inlet and create a diversion. I want you to find one, devise a plan for stealing it, and when the time comes, steal it.”

Macklin stared back at Neil.

“You want me to be on one boat while you and the rest are sailing out the inlet on this?” he asked, scowling.

“One of us will be with.you,” Neil answered. “And, if possible, think of a plan that won’t mean your hitting or killing anyone.”

“If possible?” Macklin said with a sneer.

“Olly, about how many gallons of diesel fuel do you figure we’ll need to get two boats out into the ocean?”

“It’s three miles from here?” Olly asked.

“Yes,” Neil answered.

“Six or seven.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Neil went on. “Since they took all but five gallons this afternoon, we’ll need more. Macklin, keep an eye open for another three gallons of fuel. Or more.”

“Like everyone else in the world,” Macklin commented.

Neil, staring past Captain Olly with his eyes half-closed in concentration, ignored the comment.

“We leave tomorrow night at ten,” he finally said.

“Who’s coming with us?” Macklin asked.

“We’ll see,” said Neil, and he got up to return to his cabin to sleep.

Neil arrived at the refugee center and located Frank at four o’clock the next afternoon. As he moved through the halls he became distressingly aware that he was entering a little world that, no matter how dislocated, was permitting people to assume that they and this little world could continue to exist. This was a center where people came to be safe and to be taken care of, and the men and women in the halls had the look of those who saw danger as something they had survived in the past rather than something that might still be looming over them.

Neil himself was anxious and tense. He strode down the hall with the feeling that every moment they delayed might be fatal, that even now lethal clouds of radioactivity might be only hours away.

Frank was in what used to be the principal’s office supervising the relocation of some of the refugees. A harried-looking Army lieutenant was standing behind Frank, looking alternately commanding and bewildered. As Neil paused in the doorway he watched people come up to Frank for instructions, saw him consult the chart on the desk in front of him and then send the person running off on some errand or another while Frank carefully made a chalk mark on the chart.

Neil pushed his way through three or four people and stood in front of the desk. Frank looked up abstractedly, as if Neil were an old college friend who had turned up unexpectedly.

“Fallout’s coming this way,” Neil said as quietly and unemotionally as he could. “We’ve got to leave, sail—go south. You and Jeanne have got to come.”

Frank emerged from his abstracted state and looked at Neil with a tired frown.

“You’re running?” he asked.

Neil flinched.

“Everyone in Morehead City will probably have to relocate,” he replied, aware of the half-dozen faces watching him attentively.

“Says who?” Frank asked.

“Frank, let’s talk this over in private,” Neil appealed.

“Look, mister,” the Army lieutenant cut in abruptly. “If there’s any danger to this area, the Army will let people know.”

Neil looked up at the man coldly.

“You’ll be lucky if they let you know,” he said.

“You think we should all evacuate Morehead City?” Frank asked. He spoke heavily, as if the thought of moving again depressed him.

“Yes. Everyone.”

The crowd around the desk began murmuring.

“No one goes nowhere,” the stubby lieutenant burst out a second time, “unless the Army says so.”

“I want you to help me to save Jeanne and her children,” Neil went on desperately, ignoring the lieutenant.

“Another ocean voyage?” Frank asked. He gazed at Neil a moment more and then turned to look at the refugees around the desk, who were looking at him as if he were about to hand down the verdict on their fate. Then he peered sullenly down at his chart.

“It’s up to Jeanne,” he said in a low, husky voice.

“Frank, please.”

“No one’s going anywhere,” the lieutenant said.

Neil found Jeanne working alone in a small room with a dozen elderly women. She was serving them cups of water and giving them instructions on the routine of camp life, the location of the bathrooms and so on. She looked tired, her hair, tied back in a bun, was damp with perspiration. She had on jeans and a green sweatshirt. Surprised and smiling, she came out into the hall with him.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, sensing his urgency.

“There’s massive fallout coming,” he said in a low voice. “We’re sailing out the inlet tonight. You, Lisa, and Skip have got to come with us.”

As she looked up at him he could see the fear and uncertainty in her eyes. She slowly shook her head.

“I… can’t believe it,” she said.

“Jeanne, it’s a life-or-death decision. No one who stays in this camp will be alive in another two weeks.”

“You… Isn’t it illegal for you and Jim to leave?”

“Everything is illegal now except staying here and dying.”

“How are you going to get past the Coast Guard?”

“I don’t know,” he continued in a whisper as two women passed by. “I just know we have to do it.”

“But…” she began, gazing numbly down the hall after the women as if she expected them to help her somehow. “Why… tonight?”

“Because the sword may fall at any moment.”

“If fallout’s coming, they’ll warn us, won’t they?” she asked him next, resisting the decision that would force her to run again. “They’ll bus us south, or put us on a train.”

Neil grabbed her fiercely. “They won’t,” he hissed at her. “There are no buses or trains, except for the Army.”

“Oh, Neil,” she said, twisting in his grasp.

“Don’t you trust me?” he said sharply, still holding her. “Do you think I’m lying to you?”

She searched his face for certainty and saw with a shock that if she didn’t leave, she would die.

“Oh, Neil, of course I trust you,” she said, and found herself trembling violently as she accepted their danger.

“Then come,” said Neil with relief, taking her arm. “Let’s get the others.”

After they picked up Frank, they started back to Jeanne’s room to get Lisa and Skip.

“What about Jim?” Jeanne asked Neil as they hurried along.

“We’ll get him,” Neil answered.

“Tony? Seth?” she asked.

“If they want to come.”

“How about Elaine?” Frank asked. “She’s here in the building.”

“No,” Neil said firmly. “I’m practicing triage. Having her on the boat might mean that sooner or later someone else might have to die.”

“You don’t know that,” Frank said.

“No, I don’t. But she can’t come.”

“There’s another woman who wants to join us,” Jeanne interrupted as they began walking again.

“No. No one else,” Neil replied promptly, striding on.

“But I promised her—”

“No,” Neil repeated as they entered the third-grade classroom. Lisa and Skip looked up at their mother. “Where’s your suitcase?”

“It was stolen,” Jeanne replied as she went over to Skip and gave him a hug. “Get our stuff together, Lisa. We’re going back to the boat.”

“What about Jim?” Lisa asked, not moving.

“We’ll get him,” Neil said.

“Go!” Jeanne said sharply to Lisa, who hurried back to the corner where she had been reading. “Neil, you must speak to this woman,” Jeanne added.

“No more,” said Neil. “Come on, let’s get going.”

But as the five of them were leaving, Neil’s path was blocked by the small, defiant figure of Katya.

“I can sail, sew, cook, and I’m tough,” she said without introduction. “I want to go with you.”

“We’re overloaded,” Neil replied automatically, looking down at her, stopped by her almost comical fierceness.

“But, Neil—” Jeanne began from beside him.

“I weigh a hundred and six pounds,” Katya countered. “Pound for pound I’ll be the best crew member you’ve ever had.”

Neil smiled in spite of himself, then shook his head.

“Look… we simply can’t take on any stranger who wants to join us,” he said. “If you’re tough, you’ll understand that.”

“I understand that,” she replied. “But you need another woman aboard. Jeanne can’t handle everything.”

Neil hesitated, thinking of Jeanne’s seasickness, of Elaine’s banishment.

“I can sail, I can sew, 1 can cook, and I can fuck,” Katya went on firmly, looking Neil in the eye.

“A Renaissance woman,” he murmured, wishing she hadn’t alluded to her sexuality, since he knew he’d already made up his mind when Katya had reminded him that Jeanne needed another woman’s help.

“All right,” he said firmly. “Jeanne needs you; therefore, we need you.”

“Thank you,” she said, reaching up on tiptoe to kiss him quickly on the lips.

“But try to remember that it’s your first three skills we’re taking you for and not the fourth,” he said, moving on past her.

“Please, let’s get Jim,” Lisa pleaded.

And they hurried on.

“The Battle of Cooper’s Henhouse”, as one rather stoned corporal had dubbed it, had a gloomy effect on the men of C Company. None of them had been killed and only three of them wounded, but Captain Ames had made it seem like it was all a mistake. Four of the farmers had been killed—three of them teenagers—and seven wounded before the officers got the shooting to stop. The henhouse had burned down, but most of the chickens had escaped. The soldiers had had more trouble rounding up the chickens and hogs than they had winning the battle. Ames had radioed for an ambulance for the wounded but was told to bring them back in the trucks instead. With the farm animals and wounded taking up two of the trucks, most of the company had to march back the fifteen miles to Morehead City.

Tony Mariano was a member of C Company, and he was goddamned angry at Ames and some of the others. He knew the farmers had started the shooting because the first shot had kicked up dust five feet away from Tony himself. And even before the soldiers had fired a single shot, one of the men in his squad had been hit as they were running forward to hide behind a big fallen tree trunk about thirty feet from the back of the henhouse. So if a few farmers had gotten killed, they had only themselves to blame. The captain’s going around trying to find out who had advanced without orders was a waste of time.

But though Tony thought his company’s actions had been justified, he still found the whole business as unpleasant as most of the others. Tony himself had been wounded in the left side, but was laughed at by the other soldiers when the corpsman who examined the wound and extracted the bullet announced that it was a pellet from a BB gun.

“Hey, Mariano,” his corporal had shouted at him. “Aren’t pellet guns outlawed by the Geneva Convention?” and the whole squad had laughed. Tony had seen the fifteen-year-old that had been killed: the young body and face chewed up by at least three slugs from someone’s automatic rifle. Tony hadn’t killed him—at least he didn’t think he had—but he had sure blasted the henhouse pretty good before Sergeant Viagio had yanked the gun out of his hand and shouted for him to stop.

By the time they had marched back to Morehead, it was almost seven o’clock and he, like the rest, was exhausted and starving and filthy from wrestling with hogs and chickens. In the mess hall they were served another meal of fish and eggs, but with two or three cans of beer apiece, thank God. Jim Stoor was there, and he told Jim about the battle, trying to explain that it was a serious and necessary business, but he could see that Jim was appalled. Goddamn it, there was a war on!

At eight, when a soldier told Jim that his father was outside, Tony went along to see what was up. Frank and Neil were standing in the dusk at the side of the former restaurant that now served as the mess hall for the garrison. Frank quickly explained to his son about their decision to try to take Vagabond back out to sea.

“I’m coming,” said Jim.

“What the fuck,” Tony burst out. “You’re deserting? And you, Neil, how come you’re not in uniform?”

“Wrong war,” said Neil, echoing Greg Bonnville’s words. “Do you want to join us?”

Tony looked at Neil uncertainly, his loyalty to his country battling with the fear aroused by the sight of others fleeing an approaching danger.

“I’m no deserter,” he finally said sullenly.

Neil turned away.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Hold it!” Tony shouted. “If you take Jim now, I’ll be an accessory or something.”

The other three stopped and turned to face him.

“If everyone acted as selfishly as you guys, our society would be doomed,” Tony continued aggressively. “It’s my duty to report you to my superiors.”

“Come with us,” Neil said gently.

“You won’t make it,” Tony countered. “The Coast Guard won’t let you put out to sea. Don’t go, Jim. They’re shooting deserters.”

“I was going to desert even if the fallout weren’t coming,” Jim said. “I’m going.”

“I’m not letting you guys—” Tony began, but then Neil’s fist slammed into the side of his face. He staggered backward into darkness.

The night was overcast, as Neil had hoped, although on the northern horizon a few stars could be seen, which indicated an approaching high pressure system. With the wind blowing out of the east at fifteen knots, the passage out the inlet would be rough.

By midnight they were putting the plan they’d developed into execution. Conrad Macklin had stolen a small abandoned fishing vessel named Moonchaser and enough fuel to get it to where Neil wanted it. They had tied and tacked Vagabond’s blue carpets along her white port sides and decking to reduce glare and the chances of being seen by the Coast Guard’s searchlight. They had even packed mud on the lower part of the masts to cut down reflection.

Neil and Jim were on board the fishing smack, which was towing Vagabond’s dinghy with its outboard motor tilted up. Frank was at the helm of the trimaran, with Olly, Macklin, Jeanne, and Lisa as crew. Skippy was asleep in the port berth, Katya was on call, and Tony was tied up in the forepeak.

Neil had taken Tony back to the docks because he’d feared that he would get the authorities to investigate Vagabond. He had planned to leave Tony behind at the last minute, but Macklin had argued vehemently that Tony might still raise the alarm and, besides, was the best sailor they had for a long voyage. When Frank agreed, Neil decided they could abandon Tony in the Bahamas if he wanted off or didn’t work out.

The escape plan was for Neil and Jim to scuttle Moonchaser on the eastern side of the inlet, at Shackleford Point, to draw the patrol launch over while Vagabond would motor along the western side of the inlet a quarter mile away, pick up Neil and Jim, who would cross the inlet in the dinghy to join them, and make a run for it.

As Neil steered the sluggish Moonchaser toward the inlet a light rain began to fall. Neil had decided that he and Jim should take the decoy vessel, because he had confidence they could do the job and because if Vagabond were seen and stopped, without them aboard the Coast Guard might let the ship proceed, simply removing the deserter Tony. Of course he hadn’t told Macklin or Tony this line of thought.

As he brought Moonchaser to within three-quarters of a mile of the patrol path of the cutter he realized that with the rain falling he could no longer depend on seeing the unlighted buoys and stakes that he’d planned to use to stay out of the main channel to avoid being spotted. Now he’d have to stay in the main channel, hoping the rain would cut visibility so much that he could get the old fishing smack scuttled before the Coast Guard came close enough to see them taking off in the dinghy.

Jim stood beside him in the little wheelhouse, his face wet with rain from peering around the salt-streaked window trying to pick up the channel buoys and look for signs of shoal water. He could barely make out the flashing red light of the next channel marker, but beyond that he could see neither the running lights nor the searchlight of the Coast Guard patrol. Neil was keeping Moonchaser to the left of the main channel, motoring slowly forward against the incoming tide. Then, at a little after one, he opened up the throttle and headed for Shackleford Point and the planned scuttling.

Jim still saw no clear sign of the Coast Guard except for brief flashes of white that Neil said were the searchlight. The wind had picked up and seemed to be blowing the rain and seaspray directly into his face. Although it was a warm rain, he was shivering. He had on a foul-weather jacket, but his legs were bare and cold beneath his swimsuit. Then he saw what Neil had said would be the last two lighted buoys before the point: “a flashing red and a flashing green.” He had to yell now over the noise of the engine.

“I’ll take us just to port of the red one,” Neil shouted back. “Get its number. And watch for the cutter.”

They seemed to approach the blinking red light on the red bell with aggravating slowness, but once they were there, Neil steered to within a few feet of the loud mournful gonging and Jim verified that it had “16” stenciled in white paint on its side. Almost the moment he looked forward again after they’d passed the bell, he saw the green starboard running light and sweeping searchlight of the cutter. It seemed to be a quarter mile off in the blackness and wet wind, almost dead ahead. It was moving west across the channel—away from Shackleford Bank.

Jim shouted this to Neil, who brought Moonchaser to a complete halt in the water, waiting while the cutter moved farther west and away from them. Once the light swept in their direction and played over the smack, but rapidly, without pausing. Though the glare temporarily blinded Jim, the cutter apparently didn’t notice the black hull. Jim saw Neil look at his watch, grimace, and increase speed. The rain was only sporadic now, but the wind was gusty and blew in sweeping bursts of spray against the windshield. Ocean swells made the boat pitch from side to side as they approached the open water of the ocean.

In another two minutes the cutter was a little more than halfway across the inlet and still heading for the far side. Neil gave the boat full throttle, his face knitted in tense concentration, and Moonchaser pounded forward at seven knots into the tide and the ocean swells.

The small boat rose and smashed down on one big swell that seemed to rear up out of the darkness like some living sea mammal to lift them up momentarily and then toss them back into the water. Jim was thrown hard against the control panel, and Neil was swung around—still holding the wheel—to bang against the ship’s combing.

“We may really need that Mayday,” he shouted with a grim smile. Jim, shivering, felt a fearful exhilaration. He peered ahead and could see two flashing white lights, one after another—the lights of a range that normally guided ships down the center of the channel, but that Neil would use to guide them onto the sands of Shackleford Bank. The Coast Guard cutter was off to the right someplace, but Jim couldn’t make it out.

“Bring the dinghy up closer,” Neil shouted to him, and Jim stumbled aft, falling against the stern combing when Moonchaser plunged down another swell. Righting himself, he hauled in the towline to the dinghy until it was only a few feet off the stern, where he recleated it. Returning forward, he stared out into the rain and blackness again and realized Neil was easing the boat toward shore.

“Hold on!” he shouted. “Here we go!”

With a harsh, grating sound, the fishing vessel ran aground, slowing down at first and then, as Neil killed the engine, stopping abruptly. Jim grabbed the deckhouse shelf and held on, looking to Neil for orders. As Moonchaser seemed to sit contentedly in the sand, Jim turned to get into the dinghy; a wave smashed broadside into the boat with a tremendous crash. Jim was flung against Neil, and the two men smashed into the side of the deckhouse, then against the combing, and then they were in the sea.

It happened so suddenly and the chill water of the ocean was such a shock that Jim didn’t realize clearly what had happened at first. He was standing in four feet of water that suddenly became seven feet of water when a swell surged past.

“Get the dinghy!” Neil shouted from somewhere off to the left. Jim could barely make out Moonchaser heeled over in the surf a few feet in front of him, but he struggled over to her stern and felt for the rubber dinghy. It was there, bobbing and tearing at the towline like a wild horse. As he reached for it, the edge of the protruding outboard struck him on the shoulder. He swore, reached again to control the dinghy, and was submerged by a huge swell that slapped him in the face like a lazy porpoise flipping its tail. He spit out salt water and felt a sudden panic. He couldn’t get the dinghy. It danced away from him, then swung its engine shaft at him like a club.

“Cut the line!” Neil shouted, appearing beside him and handing him a knife.

Jim swam the few feet to Moonchaser’s stern, pulled himself up, and slashed the towline. In an instant the inflatable pulled its line out of Jim’s grasp, surged away on a breaking wave, and was swallowed up into the darkness.

“Get it!” Neil screamed, and Jim plunged away after it.

“Mayday! Mayday!” Olly’s voice crackled urgently as Frank stood by, operating Vagabond’s radiotelephone. “Damn engine went and killed himself. I’m aground on Shackleford Point. Mayday! Mayday! Do you read me? Over.”

Frank switched to receive, deciding that Captain Olly’s unprofessional way of sending a distress call was probably more credible than the scenario he himself had planned. He leaned backward to look up at Macklin in the wheelhouse, who was expected to keep Vagabond heading steadily into the tide barely inching forward. He nodded at him in reassurance.

“Roger, Mayday,” a distant static voice said from the radio. “This is the Coast Guard station at Fort Macon acknowledging Mayday. Identify yourself and your position. Repeat. Identify your vessel and your position…Over.”

Frank switched the button and nodded at Captain Olly.

“This is Cap’n Olly,” he said irritably. “Moonchaser is banging on the beach here at Shackleford Point and getting swamped. I’m at Shackleford Point just south of the range. My ship is beginning to…” Captain Olly banged his fist down on the console and shouted: “Jesus! Help! We’re foundering! Help!”

Frank cut the switch, and they listened for the Coast Guard’s response.

“This is Fort Macon Coast Guard calling Moonchaser,” the voice said with more urgency. “Please repeat position and clarify. Over.”

Frank shook his head no to Captain Olly and kept the button switched to receive. After twenty seconds the voice came through again.

“This is the Coast Guard calling Moonchaser. We have received your Mayday. Will send assistance. Do you read me? Over.”

Frank shifted the dial to the frequency he knew the Coast Guard usually used for routine traffic. For twenty seconds there was nothing, but finally the same voice crackled out, calling the cutter Avenger. After they had established contact the voice said: “A vessel called Moonchaser radioed a Mayday. Ship reports being aground and foundering off Shackleford Point. Can you provide assistance? Over?”

“Roger, Macon. Affirmative. Are you sure it was a genuine Mayday? Over?”

“Affirmative, Avenger. Sounded real to me. Over.”

“Okay, Macon. Avenger headed for Shackleford to provide assistance…”

“I’m going up and get us moving full speed to the rendezvous,” Frank said to Captain Olly. “Keep listening.”

After Frank went up on deck, Captain Olly lowered his head toward the radio. For a minute or so there was nothing. Then: “… Avenger now only about three hundred yards off Shackleford. No sign of a vessel aground… Okay, Macon, we’ve got our light on a fishing smack aground and partially submerged… She’s taking a pounding…Moonchaser?… It’s Moonchaser… No sign of anyone aboard. We’re sending the launch to investigate. Stand by.”

As the seconds ticked away Captain Olly realized that Vagabond was beginning to pitch and smash into the ocean swells as she rushed at full speed toward the inlet. He heard Frank saying something loudly to Jeanne but couldn’t hear what. Two minutes passed before the voice spoke again from the radio.

“This is Avenger. There’s no one aboard Moonchaser, Macon… When was your last radio transmission from the vessel? Over.”

“Just before we radioed you, Avenger. Over.”

Another long silence ensued, broken once by Fort Macon Coast Guard Station asking Avenger if it still “read me.”

“Affirmative, Macon. I’m waiting for my launch crew to report…”

Another silence. Captain Olly realized that Vagabond had slowed down and become stationary again. She was pitching and slamming more steeply into the swells. They must be at the rendezvous point.

After another minute, the voice returned: “Avenger to Macon. Something strange going on here. Launch reports there’s no radio aboard Moonchaser. How could she send a Mayday…?”

Bewildered by the nightmarish suddenness with which he had been pitched into the ocean and had the dinghy torn out of his grasp and flung into the turbulent darkness, Jim had dived clumsily into the water and struck out after it. He took six or seven strong strokes and saw no sign of the dinghy, when its rubber hull bumped the back of the head as if teasing him. He grabbed a trailing line just as another wave rolled indifferently over him. He found he could stand and, holding the dinghy and bracing himself for the next wave, called out into the darkness, “I’ve got it! Over here!”

There was no answer, and Jim could see neither the boat nor Neil. He shouted again.

“Neil! I’ve got it! Over here!”

“…Jimmmm!” came an answering yell from off to his left and slightly closer to shore. Jim began struggling through the water toward where the voice seemed to come from and was startled when a huge fish splashed almost on top of him.

“Help me,” he heard Neil’s voice say, and realized that it was Neil. He reached out with his free hand and grabbed hold of him. After a wave passed, Neil suddenly stood up, choking and gasping for breath and clinging to Jim.

“My arm,” he said, grimacing. “My elbow’s killing me. I can’t use it.”

The two men stood in three feet of water and braced themselves as another hill of water swept over them, slamming them a foot closer to shore.

“I’ll hold it now,” Neil gasped out. “You get in. Get in!” he shouted.

In a lull between waves Jim quickly hauled himself over one side of the dinghy and plopped into the middle. It was filled with five or six inches of water. As he got onto his knees, he heard Neil shout, “Start the engine!”

He turned around and groped for the release lever that would lower the prop into the water. A wave smashed into the dinghy, jerked it sideways, and spilled Jim over against the left side and almost overboard. He struggled to his knees again and groped for the lever. When he found it, the engine fell with an abruptness that pinched his first finger and he gasped out a Franklike oath as he pulled back his hand and grabbed the starting cord. He jerked it once, but the engine didn’t start.

“Start the engine!” Neil shouted again from someplace in the water near the bow.

Jim remembered the second time to pull out the choke and tried again. No catch. Again. The engine sputtered and died. Again. No catch. Again: sputter, sputter—he pushed the choke in—roar: the engine came alive.

“Help me in!” Neil shouted, now bobbing up right beside the dinghy; he could only throw one arm over the bulge of inflated rubber. “Grab the back of my belt!”

As Jim throttled down the outboard another wave broke over them and smashed them into even shallower water. Neil was then in only two or three feet of water, and his torso fell across the starboard side of the dinghy, permitting Jim to grab his belt and haul with all his strength to get him up and in. The next wave seemed to scoop Neil up and splash him down into the pool in the bottom of the swamped inflatable. Jim shifted into forward and pulled out the throttle.

The outboard roared, and the dinghy exploded against the next wave, plowing partly through it like a submarine rather than over it, then surged through fifteen feet of calm water before exploding through the next wave. Even with two men aboard and six inches of water, the dinghy was able to nose forward at four or five knots. Jim had no sense of direction, except the impulse to get out of the surf and back into deeper water. Crouched low in the plunging dinghy, he couldn’t see any channel lights and had only the vaguest idea of which way was west.

“Steer by the swells,” Neil shouted to him, kneeling beside Jim in the middle of the dinghy, one arm limp and held awkwardly in front of him. “Keep them coming at you on the port beam.”

Jim had been heading into them, but as soon as Neil spoke he realized that their destination was simply straight across the swells at a right angle. He swung the dinghy to starboard, squinted into the rain and spray, and steered at full throttle toward where he hoped to find Vagabond. A giant white eye suddenly peered at them from almost dead ahead, then swept away to the right. The Coast Guard cutter was coming directly at them.

“…Strange going on here. Launch reports there’s no radio aboard the Moonchaser.”

Captain Olly heard shouts from up on deck and felt something thud against one side of Vagabond.

“Okay, Fort Macon,” the voice from the Avenger went on. “We’re leaving our launch here to check for survivors, but Avenger is now resuming normal patrol duties. Something’s not kosher about this. Over…”

Captain Olly hurried up the cabin steps and bumped into Frank, who was scrambling across the wheelhouse to get to the controls and get Vagabond moving. Jim and Neil were barely visible in the darkness, hauling up the dinghy into the starboard cockpit.

“Coast Guard’s coming back,” he said to Frank, who simply gave him a wild look and put Vagabond into full ahead. Neil stumbled into the wheelhouse and collapsed with a groan on the cushioned seat. Jeanne followed and knelt beside him, then called Macklin over.

Captain Olly went to help Jim with the dinghy. He was pulling it off the open deck aft, up over the cockpit seat and into the cockpit. After the two of them had got it down into the cockpit, Jim asked, “Can we leave it here for now?”

“Sure. I’ll lash it down,” Captain Olly said. “Go help your dad.”

Jim took a long stride over the slightly squashed inflatable, went into the wheelhouse, and stood beside his father. Jeanne ducked past them into the main cabin, and then Jim leaned out to peer ahead into the rain.

They were motoring at full speed south along the western side of the inlet, headed directly out to sea. They were already far to the right of the big ship channel and pounding into the steep swells that rolled directly at them. Jim’s glance at the depthmeter told him it read four feet, which meant they were in only seven or eight feet of water. Vagabond, with her dagger board up but heavily loaded, probably drew a little less than four feet. There was a terrific slam and shudder as a big breaking wave smacked into all three hulls at once. Vagabond slowed seemingly to a halt and then surged forward again.

“Have we passed the point yet?” Frank shouted at Jim. “Look out your side!”

Jim stared out into the blackness off to his right, remembering that the point on which old Fort Macon and the Coast Guard station were located was the last land to starboard before the open ocean. He thought he could see a few lights, probably the Coast Guard station, slightly aft of their starboard beam.

“I see lights at about four o’clock,” he said to his father. “I can’t see anything directly abeam.”

Another breaking wave crashed into the trimaran, slowing her almost to a halt before she recovered and made good headway again.

“Two feet—dad!” Jim shouted to his father when he saw the depthmeter flicker at two feet, then zero, then three, then zero. “Zero feet!”

White-faced and grimacing, Frank swung the wheel to bring Vagabond around toward the channel and deeper water, but also back toward the Coast Guard cutter.

“It’s just turbulence!” Neil shouted from behind them. “Does it stay steady at one or zero?” he asked.

“It says zero now,” said Jim, frightened. “And just occasionally two or three.”

“It’s turbulence,” Neil said, staggering up between Jim and Frank to look at the controls while Jeanne seemed to be trying to hold something against his arm. “We should swing her southwest now. Away from the cutter.”

“I’m not running her aground,” Frank said urgently, holding his course back toward the channel. He stared down first at the depth-meter, which fluctuated erratically between zero and now four or five feet, and then at the compass, which showed them on a southeast heading.

“We’re free, Frank!” Neil insisted, grimacing in pain. “We’re out of the inlet. Head her southwest, even west. They’ll see us if we stay on this course.”

Frank, frowning, his face, like all of the others’, wet with rain and sweat, looked once briefly, fearfully at Neil.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Head her west!”

“Six feet!” Jim announced.

Frank turned the wheel back to the right, and Vagabond swung to starboard, first heading south, then southwest, where Frank straightened her out. As they surged into the blackness, taking the swells now on their port side, Jim took a long look aft and saw the light sweep along Fort Macon Point, then out toward them. A white beam blinded him as the wheelhouse filled with light, and then the light moved away out to sea.

None of those standing in the wheelhouse spoke, and Neil joined Jim in watching the subsequent movement of the light.

“They didn’t see us,” Neil said quietly. “Take her full west, Frank.”

“I’ll keep her on southwest,” Frank said, not looking at him.

“I tell you we’re free!” Neil shouted.

Frank didn’t answer.

“Five feet,” said Jim. All three men now looked at the depthmeter, which held at five feet for a few more seconds and then went on to six, seven, then ten feet. Frank eased the wheel a little to starboard, and slowly the boat swung more to the west until, after a half-minute, Frank steadied her at 260 degrees, ten degrees south of west.

And again the light, less bright now, exploded into the wheelhouse as the distant cutter swept the sea with its searchlight. Again it did not hesitate or return to Vagabond, which sliced and plowed away at full speed. For two or three more minutes the depthmeter read between ten and twelve feet, and then began climbing rapidly through the teens. Indeed, they were free.