He, Tony, Frank, and Olly gathered around the dinette table at eleven thirty that morning, the four of them swaying and bumping in their seats as Vagabond plunged and smashed forward through the huge seas. Jim was at the helm while an almost useless Conrad Macklin sat miserably on the little seat in the corner of the cabin. Everyone else was below in a berth. Frank, pale and weak from vomiting, and Tony, seeming as energetic and healthy as ever, had both been urging Neil to change course for several hours.
Even before they could begin their discussion, Vagabond struck a big roller with a savage smash that spilled silverware out of a drawer and toppled a half-dozen books out of the dinette bookcase. Neil went immediately up on deck and instructed Jim to bring Vagabond around ninety degrees to head due west while they had their discussion. As he watched and instructed Lisa in adjusting the sheets of the storm jib and double-reefed mainsail, Neil felt immediately how much easier the motion of the boat became. Vagabond now began surfing along and down the big swells instead of having to plow through them, and though the noise of the water and wind was scarcely diminished, the actual strain on the boat had probably been halved.
When Neil returned to the main cabin, Frank and Tony looked pleased.
“What a different feeling,” Tony announced triumphantly. “Thank God we didn’t wreck poor Vagabond before we changed course.”
“Yes,” Neil commented dryly. “How lucky.”
“Are we going to hold course back toward land?” Frank asked.
“Not necessarily. That’s a decision that I’ve decided should be. made by the four ship’s officers,” Neil replied.
“What about the rest of us?” Tony interjected. “Don’t Seth and me and Jeanne count for anything?”
“That’s right,” said Frank. “I’m not sure it’s fair not to include all the adults.”
Neil glanced at Olly, who was leaning back with his eyes closed holding his unlit pipe in his mouth, and at Tony, also sitting opposite him, who was flushed with excitement.
“Are you prepared, Frank,” Neil countered, “if outvoted by Tony, Seth, Macklin, and Elaine, to surrender the ship’s fate to a majority decision?”
Rubbing his big hands in front of him, his face sweaty from seasickness, Frank scowled.
“No, I guess not,” he answered slowly. “We should consult with everybody, but the decision should be made by the four officers.” He didn’t look up at Tony.
“Well, Tony,” Neil said neutrally to Tony, who had flushed at Frank’s decision. “What do you advise?”
“You know what I advise,” Tony answered angrily. “That we stop beating our brains out and get back to land. You promised us in the Chesapeake that we’d be landing back on the U.S. coast. You can’t go back on that.”
“Would you feel that way if we began to run into fallout?”
“Of course not,” Tony snapped back. “But we should try to get back. Especially when the damn boat is getting smashed to pieces.”
“Frank?” Neil asked quietly.
“We should run before the storm and get back to land,” he said, again not looking up.
“Olly?”
“Whatever you want, cap, is all right by me,” Captain Olly replied promptly, without even bothering to open his eyes. “I like it out here, but if you feel we ought to go unload a few landlubbers, it’s okay by me.”
Neil smiled and stood up.
“I’ll go consult the others,” he said.
Five minutes later he returned.
“Jim and Seth say they’d rather I decided,” Neil announced quietly as he resumed his seat opposite a now-dozing Captain Olly.
“What the fuck is this shit?” Tony exploded. “You.got everybody but me and Frank under your thumb?”
“I doubt it,” Neil replied. “I’m sure that if Macklin here had the strength to comment he’d want to return to land.”
“You’re damn right,” Tony said. “And what about Elaine?”
“She was sleeping, but I’m sure she’d vote the way you do.”
“You’re damn right.”
“And Jeanne?” Frank asked softly.
Jeanne’s vote would have been decisive for Neil, but fortunately— or unfortunately—she had been as ambivalent as Neil himself. She was miserable with her seasickness, her own and Skippy’s, and frightened of the crashes of the waves against the seemingly flimsy plywood of the hull, but she had at first joked by urging Neil to “take me away from it all” and to “take me someplace where I can die in peace.” But just before he left she had clutched his arm and said earnestly, “You’ve saved me and my children twice already. I’d be a fool to question how you plan to do it a third time.”
“Jeanne essentially left it up to me also,” Neil finally answered Frank.
“None of this proxy shit,” Tony persisted. “The fact is that most of those with minds of their own know we ought to be getting back to the mainland.”
“Frank votes your way, and Jim and Olly abstain,” Neil went on quietly. “My personal decision—”
“I insist you consult the others,” Tony interrupted.
“My personal decision,” Neil went on, “is that we continue on a course to close with the mainland until the weather moderates or we encounter the danger of radioactive fallout.”
“It’s only fair that— what?” Tony said, taken aback by Neil’s decision.
“Frank, when you and Tony go on duty an hour from now,” Neil said, turning to his friend beside him, “try the transistor radio every hour to pick up news about conditions along the North Carolina coast.”
“Fine,” said Frank.
“We’re about a hundred miles off the coast now,” Neil continued. “At this rate we’ll close with the coast during the night. We’ve got to find out if the big navigational lights are in operation.”
“They’ve got emergency generators,” Frank said.
“I know. They should be working. However, I’d prefer not to sail onto the Hatteras or Lookout shoals to find out they’re not.”
“We’re going back to the mainland?” Tony asked, still adjusting to his unexpected victory.
“If the mainland will have us,” Neil replied, rising again. “I’m going to check with the shortwave to see if I can find out more about this storm. See you later.”
After Neil had left, Olly announced that he was going to take a nap and went forward to lie down. Frank poured himself and Tony a tiny amount of whiskey in water and sat down again.
“Well, we won that one,” Tony said.
Startled, Frank looked up at him.
“I think Neil realizes,” Tony went on, “that he can’t run this boat without our support. He’s made himself captain, but in effect we have veto power.”
Frank sipped at his drink.
“And I want you to know, Frank,” Tony went on, leaning forward and putting one of his hands on Frank’s arm, “that if push ever comes to shove, I’m behind you one hundred percent. You understand?”
Frank stared at his drink.
“One hundred percent,” Tony repeated, standing up. “As far as I’m concerned you already are the captain.” He paused, staring down at Frank, who didn’t look up. When Vagabond surfed down a big wave, Tony staggered forward, steadying himself against the wall behind Frank.