“Far enough?” Jim finally asked.
“A little more,” Neil said.
When the genoa was sheeted to Neil’s satisfaction, and Vagabond once again contentedly galloped southward through the night, Neil turned the helm over to Jim.
“I think she’ll steer herself still,” Neil said. “But you may have to adjust the genny or mizzen sheets to get it right. Do you remember how I showed you?”
“Sure. I’ve got her now.”
“Good.”
Neil turned to see if Jeanne was still there and saw her standing next to the entrance to her cabin. He walked over to stand behind her, just touching her, their backs to Jim, looking out to sea.
“How strange it is,” she said softly after a long pause. “Here my husband is dead, millions killed, millions more doomed, and all I can think of is wanting a man I’ve known for just a few days in bed with me.”
Startled, he turned to her.
“Jeanne—” he said.
“But I can’t—”
“…Jeanne,” he whispered again. “Life doesn’t offer us much these days… . We should take what we can…”
They were only a few inches apart; she turned to look up at him, the moonlight full on her face, his in shadow.
“No, Neil,” she said softly. “There are others. And, my God, only four days… I think I owe it to Bob, and to… Frank… to you even, to assume it’s just… temporary insanity.”
“Would we were always insane like this,” said Neil.
“No, Neil,” she said and, squeezing his hand once, disappeared down her cabin steps. Vaguely Neil thought she might also have whispered a “Good night.” He reluctantly slid her hatch closed and, feeling exhilarated and alive, headed back to the wheelhouse. Jim was sitting on the edge of the other cockpit combing, staring forward.
“I’m going to rest here in the wheelhouse,” Neil said to him. “And if you fall overboard,” he went on, noting Jim’s somewhat precarious perch on the side of the boat, “remember to leave a forwarding address.”
“An island in the South Pacific,” Jim responded immediately.
Stretching out on the cushions, Neil yawned. “You’d better be in good shape,” he commented.
“Good night,” he heard Jim say to him.
“That’s my impression,” said Neil, smiling to himself, until the sudden image of Frank chilled him.
Vagabond, indifferent to it all, plunged forward through the night.
After Neil had fallen asleep on the cushions in the back of the wheelhouse, Jim was forced to take the helm. The wind had picked up and was heading them more; he wasn’t able to get the sails adjusted so that Vagabond could steer herself anymore. Even though he looked forward to her company on their watch, he decided to let Lisa sleep a little longer. He wanted time alone to think.
Although Jim had disagreed with his father at the time, Jim admired him for trying to get back home to Oyster Bay to try to save his mother and Susie. Jim knew that Frank had a fierce loyalty to his family, a sense of family pride that often made him act too severely toward his children. Now that he himself was all the family that his father had left, Jim felt a sense of responsibility toward him he’d never felt before. This sense of caring was increased by his realization that, more than any of the others on board, his father still appeared to be in a state of shock.
Jim knew he had been hurt by Neil’s taking command of Vagabond, and that of course his radiation sickness must be depressing him. Jim could see that Frank lacked his usual dynamic energy. When Jim had been helping him tear down the remains of the shattered rear wall of the wheelhouse and replace it with a sailcloth awning that could be raised and lowered, Frank had been enthusiastic about the task for half an hour and then had lost interest, wandering away and leaving the project for someone else to finish. The only person who seemed to be able to bring him back to life was Jeanne. When she’d suggested that all the men should take a turn working in the kitchen, he had smiled at her and argued playfully, “What’s the sense of surviving if I have to wash the dishes?” but nevertheless had cleaned up the galley more cheerfully than Jim had ever seen. When Jeanne had become impatient with Skippy’s clinging, Frank had spent close to an hour playing horsy and card games with him. Since he knew that his father cared about Jeanne’s feelings, the way that Neil and Jeanne had been whispering together in the side cockpit earlier made Jim uneasy. For though he’d been too caught up in the rush for survival over the first four days to feel grief for his mother and Susie, now, when he was aware of his father’s problem, he felt a sense of loss. He would never be able to express his love and appreciation for his mother; she had been cheated out of the love that both he and Frank would have given her had she survived to be with them now. Jim’s feelings for his father were reinforced by this sense of having failed his mother. But how could he help him?
Lisa stepped from her mother’s cabin out into the moonlight and then into the wheelhouse.
“It’s our watch,” she said. “Why didn’t you wake me?” She was wearing jeans and a blue Windbreaker, her hair, dark and long like her mother’s, tied into a ponytail. Since none of them could wash with fresh water, everyone’s hair was getting stiff and straggly.
“Until the wind got too strong, Vagabond was self-steering,” Jim replied in a low voice, motioning toward Neil. “Careful, Neil’s sleeping.”
“Oh,” she responded, glancing to her right.
Jim felt a little burst of happiness at her nearness as she came to stand beside him at the helm. He took her hand in his. Even though they had flirted with each other the previous summer and were even closer now, since the horrors of the war, Jim had felt almost asexual, as if anything too pleasant must be obscene. But they needed to touch each other, and they often held hands while on watch.
“Mom’s pacing woke me up,” Lisa said softly. “She was going up and down like a subway shuttle.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Jim said, thinking of Jeanne and Neil embracing but not wanting to tell Lisa. For a moment they stood silently, Vagabond plunging and hissing through the night. “Vagabond’s really moving, isn’t she?” Lisa said.
“It’s great,” Jim whispered back.
“You want something to drink?” Lisa asked.
“No, I’m okay.”
“Did you check on Seth?”
“Oh, no, I didn’t.”
Lisa took a flashlight and went aft to Neil’s cabin to see if Seth needed anything. Seth’s right thigh had become infected, and whether the antibiotic Macklin was administering would clear up the infection still hadn’t been determined. Seth had tried to make a joke of the whole thing by saying, “That’s the last time I come up on deck to find out what’s going on.”
As Lisa pushed back the hatch and started down the short ladder she was startled to see a dim light and the figure of Conrad Macklin sitting in the darkness beside Seth, who seemed to be sleeping.
“Oh!” Lisa said, frightened.
“Can I help you?” Macklin asked quietly.
“I…I didn’t know… I was checking on Seth.”
“He’s alive,” Macklin stated indifferently.
“What… what are you…?”
“You ever tried sleeping up forward?” Macklin answered. “I was bouncing like someone was dribbling me.”
“Oh,” said Lisa, noticing a red glow, indicating Neil’s radio was on, and that Macklin had some papers in his lap.
“I’m sleeping back here,” Macklin went on, “until your boyfriend stops trying to smash my skull against the forward cabin roof.”