Neil pushed his way through three or four people and stood in front of the desk. Frank looked up abstractedly, as if Neil were an old college friend who had turned up unexpectedly.
“Fallout’s coming this way,” Neil said as quietly and unemotionally as he could. “We’ve got to leave, sail—go south. You and Jeanne have got to come.”
Frank emerged from his abstracted state and looked at Neil with a tired frown.
“You’re running?” he asked.
Neil flinched.
“Everyone in Morehead City will probably have to relocate,” he replied, aware of the half-dozen faces watching him attentively.
“Says who?” Frank asked.
“Frank, let’s talk this over in private,” Neil appealed.
“Look, mister,” the Army lieutenant cut in abruptly. “If there’s any danger to this area, the Army will let people know.”
Neil looked up at the man coldly.
“You’ll be lucky if they let you know,” he said.
“You think we should all evacuate Morehead City?” Frank asked. He spoke heavily, as if the thought of moving again depressed him.
“Yes. Everyone.”
The crowd around the desk began murmuring.
“No one goes nowhere,” the stubby lieutenant burst out a second time, “unless the Army says so.”
“I want you to help me to save Jeanne and her children,” Neil went on desperately, ignoring the lieutenant.
“Another ocean voyage?” Frank asked. He gazed at Neil a moment more and then turned to look at the refugees around the desk, who were looking at him as if he were about to hand down the verdict on their fate. Then he peered sullenly down at his chart.
“It’s up to Jeanne,” he said in a low, husky voice.
“Frank, please.”
“No one’s going anywhere,” the lieutenant said.
Neil found Jeanne working alone in a small room with a dozen elderly women. She was serving them cups of water and giving them instructions on the routine of camp life, the location of the bathrooms and so on. She looked tired, her hair, tied back in a bun, was damp with perspiration. She had on jeans and a green sweatshirt. Surprised and smiling, she came out into the hall with him.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, sensing his urgency.
“There’s massive fallout coming,” he said in a low voice. “We’re sailing out the inlet tonight. You, Lisa, and Skip have got to come with us.”
As she looked up at him he could see the fear and uncertainty in her eyes. She slowly shook her head.
“I… can’t believe it,” she said.
“Jeanne, it’s a life-or-death decision. No one who stays in this camp will be alive in another two weeks.”
“You… Isn’t it illegal for you and Jim to leave?”
“Everything is illegal now except staying here and dying.”
“How are you going to get past the Coast Guard?”
“I don’t know,” he continued in a whisper as two women passed by. “I just know we have to do it.”
“But…” she began, gazing numbly down the hall after the women as if she expected them to help her somehow. “Why… tonight?”
“Because the sword may fall at any moment.”
“If fallout’s coming, they’ll warn us, won’t they?” she asked him next, resisting the decision that would force her to run again. “They’ll bus us south, or put us on a train.”
Neil grabbed her fiercely. “They won’t,” he hissed at her. “There are no buses or trains, except for the Army.”
“Oh, Neil,” she said, twisting in his grasp.
“Don’t you trust me?” he said sharply, still holding her. “Do you think I’m lying to you?”
She searched his face for certainty and saw with a shock that if she didn’t leave, she would die.
“Oh, Neil, of course I trust you,” she said, and found herself trembling violently as she accepted their danger.
“Then come,” said Neil with relief, taking her arm. “Let’s get the others.”
After they picked up Frank, they started back to Jeanne’s room to get Lisa and Skip.
“What about Jim?” Jeanne asked Neil as they hurried along.
“We’ll get him,” Neil answered.
“Tony? Seth?” she asked.
“If they want to come.”
“How about Elaine?” Frank asked. “She’s here in the building.”
“No,” Neil said firmly. “I’m practicing triage. Having her on the boat might mean that sooner or later someone else might have to die.”
“You don’t know that,” Frank said.
“No, I don’t. But she can’t come.”
“There’s another woman who wants to join us,” Jeanne interrupted as they began walking again.
“No. No one else,” Neil replied promptly, striding on.
“But I promised her—”
“No,” Neil repeated as they entered the third-grade classroom. Lisa and Skip looked up at their mother. “Where’s your suitcase?”
“It was stolen,” Jeanne replied as she went over to Skip and gave him a hug. “Get our stuff together, Lisa. We’re going back to the boat.”
“What about Jim?” Lisa asked, not moving.
“We’ll get him,” Neil said.
“Go!” Jeanne said sharply to Lisa, who hurried back to the corner where she had been reading. “Neil, you must speak to this woman,” Jeanne added.
“No more,” said Neil. “Come on, let’s get going.”
But as the five of them were leaving, Neil’s path was blocked by the small, defiant figure of Katya.
“I can sail, sew, cook, and I’m tough,” she said without introduction. “I want to go with you.”
“We’re overloaded,” Neil replied automatically, looking down at her, stopped by her almost comical fierceness.
“But, Neil—” Jeanne began from beside him.
“I weigh a hundred and six pounds,” Katya countered. “Pound for pound I’ll be the best crew member you’ve ever had.”
Neil smiled in spite of himself, then shook his head.
“Look… we simply can’t take on any stranger who wants to join us,” he said. “If you’re tough, you’ll understand that.”
“I understand that,” she replied. “But you need another woman aboard. Jeanne can’t handle everything.”
Neil hesitated, thinking of Jeanne’s seasickness, of Elaine’s banishment.
“I can sail, I can sew, 1 can cook, and I can fuck,” Katya went on firmly, looking Neil in the eye.
“A Renaissance woman,” he murmured, wishing she hadn’t alluded to her sexuality, since he knew he’d already made up his mind when Katya had reminded him that Jeanne needed another woman’s help.
“All right,” he said firmly. “Jeanne needs you; therefore, we need you.”
“Thank you,” she said, reaching up on tiptoe to kiss him quickly on the lips.
“But try to remember that it’s your first three skills we’re taking you for and not the fourth,” he said, moving on past her.
“Please, let’s get Jim,” Lisa pleaded.
And they hurried on.
“The Battle of Cooper’s Henhouse”, as one rather stoned corporal had dubbed it, had a gloomy effect on the men of C Company. None of them had been killed and only three of them wounded, but Captain Ames had made it seem like it was all a mistake. Four of the farmers had been killed—three of them teenagers—and seven wounded before the officers got the shooting to stop. The henhouse had burned down, but most of the chickens had escaped. The soldiers had had more trouble rounding up the chickens and hogs than they had winning the battle. Ames had radioed for an ambulance for the wounded but was told to bring them back in the trucks instead. With the farm animals and wounded taking up two of the trucks, most of the company had to march back the fifteen miles to Morehead City.