Long Voyage Back

  Had they reached that point? Was Jeanne doomed, even when he felt he'd barely met her? Was Jim, who had gone from boy to man in two months, now literally to burn out at eighteen?

  Lisa was sick, cramps and fever. There was an enemy to be fought. They had the advantage of an infinite supply of cool sea water to fight the fever and a good supply of aspirin from the Arcady. Lisa, while thin, was not yet weak or severely undernourished from their long weeks of short rations. She would begin her personal battle with youth on her side.

  As for the disease spreading, Jim was probably infected, but whether others were or would be depended on luck and their discipline. The standing orders he'd given regarding food, sanitation and personal contacts had been taken with great seriousness . . . until today . . .

  And who is to care for and try to save the sick? Olly would do it. He didn't know about the others aboard Scorpio. Over here on Vagabond Jeanne would do it, would insist on doing it. Frank maybe; the old Frank would have. Sheila would volunteer. Himself? No. It wasn't his type of suicide mission.

  Well, time to go to it. He stood up, took a brush to his hair and beard, as if preparing for some formal visit, and left his aft cabin. From the kerosene lantern hanging down in the main cabin Sheila was visible at the helm. He could hear Jeanne's voice below in the main cabin. He stopped next to Sheila and impulsively put his arm around her.

  `How are we doing?' he asked.

  Èight knots southeast,' she said, glancing at him quickly, her small grey eyes looking at him slyly, like a cat, the lines of ageing around them crinkling nicely.

  `How's Philip?' he asked.

  `The same. A hundred and two.'

  Neil frowned. 'Well, a hundred and two won't kill him,' he said. 'But it won't have him raising sails soon either.' `No, it won't.'

  Òlly thinks Lisa has the plague,' Neil continued on abruptly. Sheila looked at him again and then half-leaned against him, taking her left arm off the wheel and letting it fall awkwardly on Neil's, still around her. Òh, Neil,' she said, slipping her arm around his waist. `What a bloody shame.'

  `You don't catch Death napping.'

  They stood beside each other staring forward another moment, then exchanged a warm look and a brief hug.

  'I've got to tell ... the others,' he said, and went below. Jeanne was there with Frank drinking tea and caring for Philip who, now that Vagabond was pounding to windward again, was propped into position on his makeshift dinette berth. He lay under a light sheet, awake, staring at the ceiling. The panelled room had a warm glow from the kerosene lantern which hung from a hook right above Philip. Frank was seated on the edge of Philip's berth, Jeanne standing. Both looked at him intently when he entered. Seeing them, Neil had the same impulse to embrace each of them. He went up first to Frank, leaned down close to him and put a hand gently on his shoulder. Frank gazed back at him in surprise. Neil smiled.

  `You're a wonderful man, Frank.'

  Frank flushed. 'You're stoned,' he said. 'You've raided Mollycoddle's pot.'

  `You still alive, Phil?' Neil asked, then straightened,

  leaving his hand on Frank's shoulder, gently kneading it.

  Philip smiled and turned his head slightly to look at Neil. Ì believe so,' he said. 'I just wet my pants again.' `Good sign,' said Neil. 'Corpses rarely piss.'

  When he turned next to Jeanne he saw that she, like Frank, was staring at him in surprise. He went up to her and took her in his arms, caressing her lower back, careful of her left shoulder. Looking down at her he asked: 'How are you?'

  Ì'm fine. What's wrong? Has something happened?'

  Neil, not smiling, nodded in reply. Then he released her, glanced at Frank and paced to the companionway steps before facing them. Òlly reports that Lisa has cramps and a fever,' he said. 'He assumes it's the disease we've been worrying about.'

  All three of them • looked at him without immediate response. He realized that his statement seemed so inconsistent with his earlier humour and affection that they briefly wondered if this were a sick joke.

  `We . . . I chose this risk,' he went on, feeling embarrassed at the way he had acted earlier though it seemed so appropriate at the time. 'Now we have to pay. I think there's a good chance we can pull her through. But we've got to take absolutely insane precautions to keep it from spreading further.'

  Ì'll go take care of her,' Jeanne said.

  Neil felt his heart sink.

  Ì'm not letting you go,' he said gently. 'I've already assigned Jim to care for her. I don't think she can give him now anything she hasn't already given him.'

  Ìs Jim all right?' Frank asked.

  Àpparently. Olly said only Lisa is ill.'

  Ì'm going over to her,' said Jeanne

  So this is how it ends, thought Neil again. Modern

  technology finding ever new ways to kill brave people and brave people rushing to get their share.

  `No,' said Neil. 'Jim will care for Lisa.'

  Ì CAN SEE MY OWN DAUGHTER, CAN'T I?' Jeanne suddenly shouted at him.

  `No, you can't,' Neil replied quietly. 'As you once said, we're all one family now and you can't endanger the rest of us unnecessarily.'

  Jeanne turned away against the sink and began to cry. Both Neil and Frank went to her and made comforting sounds and caresses and even as they did, Neil realized they were also trying to comfort themselves and each other as well. But of course there was no comfort or reassurance for any of them.

  `NEIL!' Sheila shouted from the helm.

  Neil left and hurried up on deck. She was pointing to starboard where a bright red glow was visible off Scorpio's stern.

  À red flare,' she said. 'Doesn't that mean an emergency radio transmission?'

  `Yes,' Neil said, hurrying by her. 'I'll go take it.'

  In his aft cabin he groped for the flashlight and turned it on to the VHF radio that he used for shortrange ship-to-ship communication. It was already tuned to the correct frequency and in less than half a minute he had established contact with Scorpio. The voice that came back at him was Tony's.

  `Scorpio reads you, Vagabond. This is Tony. Lisa's got the plague. Those of us on Scorpio can't stay with her. Either she's got to go or we do. Over.'

  Neil at first wondered if he had heard correctly, but then knew he had.

  `What the hell do you mean?' he shot back nevertheless. Òver.'

  Ì mean Lisa should be . . . buried at sea. Now. Before she fucking kills us all. Or . . . or .

  . . those that are willing to risk their lives for her come stay on Scorpio and we'll shift to Vagabond . . . Over.'

  So that's what it's all about.

  `Let me speak to my captain over there,' said Neil. 'Over.' `You're speaking to him.'

  Ì want Captain Olly.'

  When Neil shifted to receive he got nothing. He waited. `Captain Olly can't make it,'

  Tony finally said. `. . . Over.' Ì'll speak to Jim,' Neil fired back.

  `Jim's locked in with Lisa,' Tony replied. 'He can't talk to you either. Look . . Neil snapped off the radio and stood up. What selfish cowards. Who were they? Tony, Oscar certainly, the two young women . . . Would they be so heartless or frightened?

  Probably. Gregg and .Arnie? They were passive. He went back up on deck and back to Sheila at the helm.

  Ì'm afraid Jeanne's gone to her cabin to get ready to go over to Scorpio,' Sheila reported. Neil looked at her and then nodded. 'There's been a

  mutiny on Scorpio,' he announced. 'Tony has deposed Ol1y

  and wants to abandon ship or toss Lisa overboard.'

  `Good Lord,' said Sheila. 'Poor stupid Tony . .

  `Your poor stupid Tony is a . . .' Neil started to vent his rage with a string of unimaginative obscenities but stopped himself.

  `We should head for land, Neil,' said Sheila suddenly. `There we can quarantine the sick and get the best treatment for them . . . and for Philip.'

  So this is how it ends, thought Neil again. The dying rushing to the dying for help. The well
murdering the sick. What horrors were next in line?

  `We've no right to take our sickness to land,' he said. 'We fight our battle here, at sea. Some of us will live, some die, but we don't carry death to others.'

  Tut you're forcing those on Scorpio to accept the worst risk,' Sheila pointed out.

  `No,' he answered wearily. Ì'm ordering Lisa and Jim and 01ly returned to Vagabond.'

  Neil radioed Scorpio his intention to take off Jim, Lisa and Olly but said that they should wait until dawn to make the transfer. In the six-hour interim Jim and Lisa should be kept isolated in their cabin. Oscar, who took the message, made no comment. When Macklin came on duty at midnight he was informed of the situation. Macklin grunted, asked Neil if there were anything special he wanted said to Scorpio at the regular two A.M. radio contact, and took the helm. Jeanne was down in her cabin with Skippy, satisfied that Lisa would be returned to her. Sheila, off-watch, was down with Philip. Neil took over the helm while Macklin had a cup of tea, compliments of the Mollycoddle. The kerosene lantern was hanging in the main cabin entrance, giving light to the area around the helm.

  `So what's the use of staying at sea?' Frank asked after a silence from a seat behind Neil. The worst has happened out here. There's nothing left to run from.'

  Neil was struck with how resigned Frank seemed. He still had expressed neither rage nor grief that his son might soon be ill with an often fatal disease.

  `We're still welcome nowhere,' Neil replied. 'And now, carrying what we carry, people are justified in asking us to stay away.'

  `The whole world's dying, Neil,' Frank said. 'You'll never find a place that isn't.'

  `No, I won't,' Neil answered.

  `Then why stay out here?' Frank said with sudden vehemence. 'You're sick. You're becoming some sort of crazy Flying Dutchman dooming yourself and those stupid enough

  to follow you to spend eternity sailing around endlessly at sea. Ì don't see it that way, Frank,' Neil replied. 'I still see my best defences as being out here, the enemies still bunched mostly on land.'

  Frank rose and came up beside Neil. 'So now you're ordering Death brought aboard directly,' he said. Ìt's your son,' Neil countered.

  Ìf it were Tony or Conrad who were sick you'd throw him overboard,' Frank insisted quietly.

  Neil hesitated, then replied evenly: 'If it had been them at Salt Point I never would have let them back aboard. You're right there.'

  `You'd throw them overboard,' Frank repeated.

  Neil didn't answer. He knew he wouldn't literally throw them overboard, but he recognized that his response would be quite different.

  Ànd how would you handle things, Frank?'

  `Sail to land. Put the sick ashore. Split up. End this fucking running.'

  Neil smiled bitterly. 'I'll stop running when He stops chasing,' he said sadly.

  `You're mad.'

  `Let's just say we'd handle it differently,' Neil commented, turning the wheel over to Macklin, who had returned. 'Zero seventy-five degrees. Keep an eye on the number two jib. It may be too much for her. Wake me up at three forty-five. Goodnight.'

  But Neil was not awakened at three forty-five. He was awakened at dawn by the sound of something rubbing against Vagabond's port side. He sat up, instantly awake, listening for the sound again, and angry that daylight was there and he hadn't been called. The sound came again: a crunch and a squeal: something rubbing against her side. It even sounded like fenders rubbing against a dock, but Vagabond was hissing through the sea at good speed. The motion: Vagabond was

  sliding down a wave; sailing downwind. She had altered course and was running west. Glancing quickly at the compass he kept aft, he confirmed it. He stood up, pulled on some cut-off jeans and reached to slide his hatch open. It didn't open. He banged on it several times, almost instantly regretting that he had, as he realized that his orders had been disobeyed and he was probably locked in his cabin. He went to take his gun from beside his berth and saw it was gone. So. He could hear voices now, one of them Frank's and another Tony's. The peculiar sounds he was hearing must be those of Scorpio and Vagabond rafted as they sailed downwind together. Neil banged again on his hatch and shouted loudly, calling Frank. He kept it up for a solid minute until finally he heard someone fiddling with a padlock. The hatch slid open and Oscar, gun in hand, looked down at him warily. Neil climbed quickly up the ladder steps and, even as Oscar began ordering him to stay put, brushed past him to enter the cockpit. On the port side was Scorpio tied to Vagabond. Tony, Mirabai and Janice were transferring food from Scorpio to the trimaran, the two women taking it down into Vagabond's galley. Macklin, with his .45, stood guard. Sheila was at the wheel, Olly at Scorpio's. The two ships, under reduced sail, were sailing downwind in a moderate trade wind. The sun was only a few degrees above the horizon on a clear day. As Neil moved slowly towards the others, Frank, who was standing next to Sheila, turned to face Neil.

  Ì asked to be awakened at three forty-five,' Neil said to him, going instinctively to the first act of disobedience, as if being locked in his cabin and threatened with a gun were less noteworthy acts.

  Ìt's over, Neil, Frank said wearily, looking strangely beaten and resigned. 'I . . . I've taken, retaken command of Vagabond. We're splitting up.'

  Tony had waved off a cardboard carton of food Mirabai was about to hand him and pulled out his gun. He now came

  cautiously towards where Neil stood just outside the old wheelhouse area on the starboard side. Macklin's gun was now aimed at Neil.

  Ànd what's all this transfer business?' Neil asked Frank, ignoring Tony.

  `Lisa and Jim are being left aboard Scorpio,' Frank said. `Those still healthy are all coming aboard Vagabond . .

  leanne's elected to stay with them,' Tony said. 'That's where she is now. So has Olly. We assume you will, too.'

  Ànd you're taking Vagabond to Barbados?' Neil asked Tony.

  `That's right,' Tony replied, holding the gun at his side. Ànd since most people are coming with us and you and Olly think you can supply yourselves from the sea, we're also taking most of the food. Besides, if things don't work out on Barbados we'll have to keep sailing downwind until we find some island or some place in Colombia or Panama where we can make a go of it. I figure the weak little countries of the West Indies or Central America are a lot safer than places like Brazil. There are already a lot more Americans where we're going too.'

  Ìf you're going to land and I'm staying at sea,' Neil said to Frank, 'then you should let me take Vagabond. You won't need either her space or windward ocean-going ability.'

  `That's settled,' Macklin said sharply. 'We're taking Vagabond.'

  `Scorpio's not seaworthy for the voyage I recommend,' Neil persisted to Frank, 'but as good for heading west. As soon as she stops having to beat to windward she'll stop leaking.'

  `Mac said it's settled,' Tony snapped back. 'If you leave you have to take Scorpio.'

  'He says it's settled,' said Neil with a rush of anger. There was a newly tense silence.

  `Frank also says as the ship's owner,' Macklin replied stonily. 'And this gun says.'

  `You're choosing to abandon Jim?' Neil asked Frank.

  `He chose to go to Salt Point,' Frank replied, looking dully at Neil. 'He chose Lisa. He chooses you. He has to pay the consequences.'

  `He's your son,' Neil said.

  `He's dying,' Frank said softly.

  `Jim's already got the disease,' Tony said. 'His temperature's already as high as Lisa's.'

  The two boats, rubbing and rolling, suddenly spilled rapidly down the face of a wave and everyone staggered or stumbled to regain his balance. Mirabai spilled a box of food on to the port cockpit deck. As he regained his balance Neil felt a heaviness stealing into him, the heaviness of giving up, the heaviness he'd experienced after long days of battling a storm at sea when the body says `no more', 'I'll do it later', `sink the fucking ship'. No matter how fast he ran, the forces of dissolution ran faster. He couldn't believe that the West Indies
or Central America would offer anything but slow death; he couldn't believe that any land was as safe as remaining at sea as long as possible. But with Scorpio he might no longer have such a choice.

  `Sheila and Philip?' he asked, almost to himself.

  `Philip's too sedated right now to decide,' Sheila answered. Ì feel . . . his life may depend on getting soon to see a physician. Scorpio . . . given the options Tony is giving us ... I feel that . . . Vagabond . .

  `You're right, of course,' Neil said, nodding.

  Captain Olly had turned Scorpio's helm over to Janice and he came over to where the two boats were rubbing.

  `Jeanne says she needs more of Vagabond's towels,' he said loudly to all of them. Neil saw now that the left side of Olly's face was badly bruised, his eye swollen almost shut.

  `What happened to you?' Frank asked, frowning, as apparently he too was seeing Olly up close for the first time.

  Ì ain't the ducker I used to be,' he said, sniffing. 'Sorry I let you down, Cap,' he added to Neil.

  `Tell her to use old clothes,' Tony responded. 'We're not

  parting with any of Vagabond's stuff.'

  `Get her some towels,' Frank said to Mirabai, who brushed quickly past Tony to go down into Jeanne's cabin to get them. Macklin started to stop her, flushed in anger, then let her go and didn't comment. In a moment she reappeared with three rather ratty-looking towels and handed them across to Olly.

  `You win, Frank,' Neil said loudly. 'I've decided I'm not going on that death ship either. I'

  m staying on Vagabond.'

  Mirabai, who was passing from the cockpit to the galley with Scorpio's food supplies, worked on indifferently when he said this, but everyone else who heard stopped and looked at him, Tony and Macklin with suspicion, Sheila and Frank with surprise. Ìt's a trick,' said Macklin. 'Don't trust him.'