“With you around we’ll damn well need somebody’s medical skills,” Neil said.
When Jim came into the wheelhouse, dressed in his wetsuit, Neil stood up.
“If Frank agrees, we’re dumping you ashore at the first opportunity,” he said aloud to Macklin.
“I’m a fighter, Loken,” Macklin said in a normal voice. “You need another fighter.”
“I can use your .45,” Neil replied, nodding to Jim to pick up the new shaft. “The rest of you, no. Let’s get to it, Jim.”
Because she felt herself moving in a dream from which she might momentarily awaken Jeanne was partially detached from all she did. The pedestrian act of bringing groceries into the galley was slightly unhinged when she had to pass by the dark figure of Macklin, bound to the mast whispering to Neil. Later she could hear Neil and Jim grunting and swearing as they worked on the engine shaft, and as she traipsed to and fro between the two boats, she became aware that around Vagabond was a vast darkness. There were no lights to be seen now in any direction, and although stars shone above them, the whole northwestern quarter of the sky was ominously dark. She had managed to put away almost half the food in the galley when the propeller shaft was finally fixed, the engine tested, and the sails raised again. With the men shouting to each other on the deck above her, Olly poked his head into the galley and said an awkward good-bye. In another moment she felt the steady hiss of water along the sides of the hull at her feet; the anchor was up and they were sailing.
And then, in a casual, almost routine way, the nightmarish side of her dreamworld returned again. They had been sailing no more than a minute or two, and she was still working in the galley, now lit by a kerosene lamp, when the .companionway to the wheelhouse, which had been dark, was filled with light. She heard Neil shout “Don’t look!” and a moment later Frank’s voice: “Get the sails down!”
She braced herself, expecting the boat to be hit as her car had been by the force of the blast. She heard and felt feet thudding across the cabin roof and again Frank’s voice shouting something to Jim. The sails began to flutter and snap as they did when the boat came up into the wind. She still crouched by the galley stove, her teeth clenched, her hands clutching the counter top.
A screeching sound cut into the flapping sails—were the sails being lowered?—and then Neil’s face appeared in the cabin entranceway.
“Batten everything down!” he shouted. He started to leave but, catching her blank expression, he turned back. “Big waves may be hitting us from the blast. Store everything where it can’t get loose and fly around.”
As she began putting the dishes and remaining groceries away helter-skelter into drawers and cabinets, Jim leapt down into the cabin.
“I’ll help,” he said and, kneeling, pushed back the carpet and removed a section of the floor. “We’ll store the rest of the food in the bilge for now,” he added.
By the time they had stowed everything away in the main cabin and come back up into the wheelhouse, the glow to the south—over Norfolk, Jim told her—was large and growing, but not as bright as the blast over Washington had been. The sails were lashed down, and the boat headed slowly north under power, its diesel engine barely audible.
When Jeanne checked Lisa and Skippy, she was surprised to see that someone had tied them into their berth to prevent them from falling out: two half-inch lines across the top of the blanket attached to fittings in the far wall and at the edge of the berth near the cabin walk space.
“Hold on, Jeanne!” she heard Frank shout, and then came a hissing, swishing sound growing closer. She grabbed the handrail of her own berth just as Vagabond was struck by noisy, moiling wash of water. The breaking waves threw Vagabond forward, swinging Jeanne around and slamming her into the wall beneath her berth.
But that was all. The rushing sound continued and Vagabond seemed to be surging and rocking, but the blow seemed to have been relatively harmless. Her children didn’t even awaken.
Back up on deck she saw Frank, looking grim, handling the wheel and looking to his right, where she could see another boat, Lucy Mae, easing alongside. With Neil and Jim assisting, the two ships were tied together again, both moving slowly forward.
“I came back for dessert,” Olly said to her from his cockpit and smiled an elfin smile.
Neil returned to the wheelhouse.
“We ought to make for deeper water,” he said to Frank.
“You think there’ll be more waves like that?” Frank asked.
“In two or three hours there may be some huge waves,” Neil replied gravely. “The water around the blast area will have been hit with tremendous force and sent rolling up the bay. These little things that are hitting us now must be from the local shock wave.”
“How much time do we have?” Frank asked.
“If the waves are moving at twenty to thirty knots, probably about two hours. Maybe more.”
“In that time we could get ourselves into the lee of Tangier Island,” Captain Olly said.
“That would be good,” said Neil.
“Let’s do it,” agreed Frank.
Neil and Olly were both frowning over at Lucy Mae.
“Olly,” Neil said. “Vagabond’s made for big seas, but the Lucy Mae will be swamped and sunk if the big ones hit before we make the lee of the island. I think you ought to anchor and come with us.”
“How much warning you figure we’ll get?” Olly asked.
“If this light holds, we should be able to see big waves coming from quite a distance… about a minute’s warning,” Neil answered. “But Christ, Olly, we can’t know even that for sure.”
Olly nodded.
“Why don’t we both go side by side,” he said. “I’d like to try to make it.”
“Okay,” agreed Neil. “Stay close to leeward. If we see danger, we’ll signal with the air horn and turn due north, away from the waves. You get over here and board us. Figure you have about thirty seconds. Why don’t we send Jim with you to help you get ready to abandon ship if the time comes?”
“Sounds fine to me, sonny,” Olly said. “How big you figure these waves’ll be?”
“Too big,” Neil replied.
The two vessels were soon speeding through the rough water, thirty feet apart, headed northwest to take shelter behind the northern end of Tangier Island, fourteen miles away. Jeanne could see Lucy Mae rolling and pitching in the short, steep waves sent northward by the local shock waves. Vagabond’s motion was less pronounced, since her three hulls made her more like a huge sailing raft, but the waves still smashed into the port hull with ominous crashing sounds.
After she became queasy while preparing some hot tea in the galley, Jeanne remained in the wheelhouse. Frank was steering while
Neil with the binoculars was keeping a lookout south for the anticipated larger waves.
It must have been something like two hours later—Jeanne had fallen asleep on the settee—with the two boats still running side by side, and now only a half-mile from Tangier Island and nearing the protection of its northern tip, that Frank’s shout awakened Jeanne.
When she sat up, she saw Neil, at the helm, grab the air horn and shoot out four loud blasts. Frank, with the binoculars, ran into the cabin and stood beside him.
“It’s a wall of water!” he shouted.
“Help Olly and Jim get aboard,” Neil shouted back, glancing to his right, where Lucy Mae was already approaching. “Jeanne! Get below!”