“All right,” he began in a loud, tense voice. “I want you all to listen, and I want you to get it.
“We’re at war, and I’m your commanding officer. I expect everyone here to obey me as if I were God incarnate, without hesitancy and without question. I’ve commanded regular Navy ships ten times this size, and I’ve been sailing boats like this for ten years. If anyone else on board feels he’s better qualified, he’d better speak up now.”
There was a silence, and when Neil felt some people begin to stir restlessly, he plunged on.
“Good,” he went on, still speaking loudly. “Frank Stoor, here beside me, who owns this boat, is first mate. You treat him as you would me. Captain Olly, the old fellow standing over there is second mate. And Jim, at the helm now, is third mate. They are the ship’s officers, and their word is law. If anyone willfully disobeys any of our commands, I will personally throw him overboard. Do you get it?”
No one spoke. Most were falling back into that listlessness they’d had before Tony stirred them up.
“Good,” said Neil after a pause, aware now of the sweat dripping down his face, of Frank staring at him uncertainly, of Tony looking at him with a mixture of fear and resentment.
“As captain I’m announcing that our course is through the fallout area around Norfolk and out into the Atlantic.”
A few groans greeted this statement, but Neil cut them off immediately.
“Shut up!” he shouted. “We’re heading south until I feel it’s safe to make a landfall. You may feel that we ought to have a democratic discussion of what we ought to do. I don’t give a shit how you feel. If you don’t like this policy, I’ll give you a life preserver and you can go in a different direction. You may decide later, when you’re out in the Atlantic, that you wish you’d never left land. Bitch among yourselves all you like, but obey. ”
“But what if—” someone began.
“Anyone who willfully disobeys one of my commands will be thrown overboard.”
When Neil paused again, no one spoke.
“You’re beginning to understand,” Neil went on more quietly. “Now for some commands. First of all I want all weapons—guns and knives with a blade longer than two inches—turned over to the ship’s officers immediately. These weapons will be returned to you when we part company. Anyone found with a weapon on his person or in his luggage ten minutes from now… will be thrown overboard.”
Silence.
“Second, I want this area around the wheel and around the winches kept clear. When an officer orders you to go sit someplace on the boat, you go sit there and don’t move without permission. Consider where he puts you to be your battle station.
“Thirdly, anyone who brought food aboard shall immediately contribute all of it to the ship’s stores. If you leave soon, it will be returned to you. We’re sharing our ship, our weapons, our water, our food, and our skills with you, and we expect you to do the same with us. Anyone caught hoarding a private stash of food or eating or permitting his or her children to eat any of the ship’s food not rationed out to them will be thrown overboard.”
Again Neil paused, aware that Jim was watching him.
“What if we have to go to the bathroom?” a woman asked in a frightened voice.
“If a man has to piss, he goes to the leeward side of the boat and pisses into the bay,” Neil replied in the same loud, tense voice. “If you don’t know which side of the boat that is, you ask an officer. Knowing which side of a boat to piss off is what made him an officer in the first place.” Olly chuckled, but the others were too frightened or awed to respond.
“Ladies will piss in buckets provided in the side cabins. A mate will see to it that their contents are tossed overboard.”
“Aren’t there marine toilets?” someone asked.
“Yes, there are. But the animal species capable of landing men on the moon and blowing the world apart has yet to develop a marine toilet that doesn’t clog if you stare at it too long. While we’re this crowded and while we have more important things on our minds, we won’t use them.”
This time when he hesitated, Neil felt that he’d gotten his point across, but perhaps too strongly.
“I sound harsh,” he continued. “I intend to be harsh. I intend this ship and those remaining aboard it to survive. My experience has been that in life-or-death situations the traditional Navy way of doing things is the only one that works. This policy is not open to discussion. Are there any questions?”
The silence aboard Vagabond as she sailed serenely down the Chesapeake in the direction most people thought they didn’t want to go was uncanny. No one spoke. Most of those he looked at simply looked numb.
“What if we have to vomit?” an elderly man finally asked.
“If you feel seasick, go to the leeward cockpit and lean over the combing. Vomit to leeward.” Neil paused. “Anyone caught vomiting to windward will be… thrown overboard. Anyone who vomits to windward will be so covered with vomit, he’ll probably be happy to be thrown overboard.”
A few nervous giggles.
“All right,” Neil concluded. “All weapons and food to the ship’s officers. Anyone attempting to resist these commands will be shot. Olly, Frank, get the weapons first…”
“Jesus, Neil,” Frank said a half-hour later, when Vagabond was as calm and orderly as a concentration camp. “Don’t you think you were a little hard on them?”
“No,” Neil replied. “We’re all trying to survive. Everyone on this boat, everyone, will lie, steal, cheat, and kill in order to survive. That speech served one purpose: to let their survival instinct know that the first thing it has to consider is me and whatever promotes the survival of this ship.”
“It was nice of you to let me be first mate on my own boat.”
Neil looked at Frank with total seriousness.
“It wasn’t nice,” he said. “You deserve it.”
Frank stared at him.
“You bastard.”
“You’d better believe it,” Neil said coldly. “When I said everyone obeys my commands, I meant everyone.”
“I see.”
“I hope so.”
At seven that evening Neil had them anchored off the coast near Cape Charles and began ferrying refugees onto the beach with the inflatable dinghy. Neil had stated his intention of continuing south, passing within fifteen miles of Norfolk before making it out into the Atlantic, where they would remain until fallout conditions and radio reports indicated that they dared return to the U.S. coast. Three people asked to remain on Vagabond, including the man who had started all the fuss in the first place, Tony Mariano. The second volunteer was a woman named Elaine with a young child, and the third a small man named Seth Sperling.
Although Neil had the .45 tucked into his belt and had armed both Frank and Jim for the evacuation and the redistribution of food and weapons, the event proceeded more smoothly than had the boarding five hours earlier. Even Conrad Macklin went meekly when Neil ordered him to go with the very first group.
As he helped people down into the dinghy Frank became aware that some of those who were leaving were afraid now that they had made the wrong choice and wanted to remain on board, but when an elderly man hesitated and was clearly intending to ask to come back aboard, Frank brusquely ordered Jim to cast off and ferry the last group ashore. The beach was only fifty feet away and so ten minutes after the last trip ashore Vagabond’s inflatable had been pulled back up on deck and stowed and the ship was under way again.