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.”