When the sun set at eight-forty, they were still fifteen miles from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. The wind was dropping and shifting as they neared the Norfolk-Portsmouth area, blowing now out of the northeast at only six or eight knots. With the tide against them now, they started up the engine.
After the sun was gone and with the half-moon not yet risen, the blackness that descended upon them was depressing. Fallout was appearing on deck again, and the only lights they could see were from fires still burning in the blast area, one in particular blazing up sporadically like hydrogen flares from a dying sun. All the navigational aids seemed to have been destroyed; the lights of the bridge-tunnel were gone. They had seen no traffic except for one tiny sailboat in the late afternoon; now at night they had seen no running lights at all. As they headed south toward the northern opening through the bridge causeway that would lead them out to sea it was as if they were the last ship on earth, sailing alone away from a doomed land into the unknown.
Leaving Olly alone at the helm, Neil joined Frank, Jim, and Jeanne in the main cabin for a conference. Although he had ordered each of them to try to sleep for a couple of hours, they all looked exhausted. The men hadn’t shaved and hadn’t changed clothes since the war had started. Jeanne’s white clothes were dirty, her eyes red from fatigue or weeping, and her bruised cheek still ugly.
When Neil spoke, his voice was noticeably softer than it had been whenever he’d spoken to anyone on deck. He quietly laid out his plan of three-hour watches, with three watch teams, one led by each of the mates. Frank would work with the newcomer, Seth Sperling, a shy man who wore glasses and seemed uncertain of himself; Olly with big Tony Mariano; and Jim with Lisa. The third new passenger, a young woman named Elaine Booker, was to stay with her three-year-old child below in Jeanne’s cabin. Olly and Seth would sleep in Neil’s aft cabin; Tony in the forepeak cabin; and Jim with Frank in Frank’s cabin. He himself would sleep on the aft settee of the wheelhouse so as to be always on call.
Neil said that the amount of radiation they’d been exposed to so far was insignificant, but Frank wasn’t certain whether he really believed that or was merely saying it for the sake of morale. Jeanne’s queasiness, Neil insisted, was simple seasickness.
When the meeting seemed to be over, Jeanne unexpectedly spoke up.
“I don’t know how serious you were, Neil, but I warn you that I’ll try to stop you from throwing anyone overboard,” she said softly.
Startled, Neil looked at her, then his severe face broke into a small smile.
“I’d have to throw you overboard too,” he said. “Then who would look after your children?”
Jeanne flushed with anger and Frank quickly cut in. “He’d have to throw me overboard too.”
Neil stopped smiling and shook his head.
“I never said how close to shore we’d be when I threw someone overboard,” he finally replied.
“Is that a promise?” Jeanne asked, looking directly at him.
“On the other hand,” Neil went on, “the traditional punishment for mutiny is death. I’m afraid that is the way things are done aboard ship.”
“Not my ship,” Frank said.
“Let’s agree then,” said Neil quietly, after a pause, “that if there is a case of willful disobedience, I’ll convene a court of inquiry composed of all the ship’s officers and let them decide on the appropriate response.”
Jim nodded, and then Frank did too.
“Jeanne,” Neil went on gently, “please leave the management of the ship to me.”
“Not when it involves the lives of my family.”
“Your family?” Neil asked uncertainly.
“I consider everyone who comes aboard this boat a part of my new family.”
Neil frowned.
“Then in that sense every decision I make involves your family.”
“Then I am involved.”
Frank was amazed at how serenely she stared back at Neil, her eyes glowing with rebellion.
“All right,” Neil finally commented. “I understand your concern. If I seem cruel or capricious, you may complain to me, and we’ll try to resolve it.”
“Thank you.”
“And if we don’t, I’ll throw you overboard.”
He grinned.
“Not if I have my butcher knife,” she rejoined, grinning back.
“I believe it,” Neil said, standing up to end the meeting.
Back on deck in the darkness, Neil realized that the passage through the causeway, or the remains of the causeway, was going to be difficult to locate. He had taken a bearing on Fisherman’s Island just before dark, but since then it had all been dead reckoning. Even after the half-moon had risen, there wasn’t enough light to see anything on the horizon except the line of fires to the southwest. They would be able to see objects in the water no more than sixty feet away. Their depthmeter confirmed that they were in the big ship channel, but this by itself would give little advance warning of the presence of the causeway or the rocks of its wreckage. Vagabond was making toward the causeway at only about four knots.
Frank was sick, either from radiation exposure or ordinary seasickness, so Neil had Jim take his place on watch with Tony Mariano. When he ordered Tony to wash down the decks again just in case, Tony went to it quickly and energetically and finished with sweat pouring down his face and into his bushy beard. “Hell of a way to make a living” was his only comment.
“I wish we could see something!” Jim exclaimed a few minutes later as the three men stood sweating together around the helm.
“Alter course twenty degrees to the east,” Neil ordered.
“What’s up?” Tony asked.
“We’re not going to see anything until we actually reach the causeway,” Neil answered. “This way, when we do reach it, we’ll know we’re to the north of the channel. How are your night eyes, Tony?”
“Damn good.”
“Go forward and stand at the bow as lookout. Keep an eye out not only forward but also to port and starboard.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Tony crawled forward in the darkness, and soon his huge form was visible against the distant horizon like a black sail bundle tied to the forestay. Neil ordered Jim up to wash down the aft sections of the boat and ordered Tony to do the bow again.
A half-hour later they had still seen nothing. Jim wondered aloud whether they’d miraculously sailed through a gap and not seen either side.
“Or maybe the whole causeway got blown to pieces,” he suggested.
“Object to starboard!” Tony shouted, and Jim dampened the throttle and put her into reverse, bringing Vagabond slowly to a halt.
Neil turned on the twelve-volt spotlight and swung it to the right where Tony was pointing. A huge chunk of metal and some pilings appeared to be sticking out of the water. Neil swung the light in a slow arc, almost a full circle, but nothing else was visible. Although Vagabond was now in neutral, the tide was carrying her backward away from the strange objects to their right. The depthmeter showed they were in thirty-five feet of water—most likely on the edge of the big ship channel.
“Ease her over closer,” Neil said to Jim, holding the spotlight on the huge protruding metal chunk, which seemed to get longer as they approached it. Slowly Jim maneuvered Vagabond to starboard and forward.
“Okay,” Neil said after a while. “Back her off.”
“What is it?” Jim asked, still not able to put the huge metal object and broken pilings into any coherent pattern.