Authors: Luke Rhinehart
Frank was sick from either radiation sickness or 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, finishing with sweat pouring down his face and into his bushy beard.
`Helluva way to make a living,' was his only comment when he had finished. Ì wish we could see something!' Jim exclaimed a few minutes later as the three men stood sweating together around the helm.
Àlter 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.' Àye, 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. Half an hour later they had still seen nothing. Jim wondered aloud whether they'd miraculously sailed through an opening and not seen either side. Òr maybe the whole Causeway got blown to pieces,' he suggested. ÒBJECT TO STARBOARD!' Tony shouted, and Jim dampened the throttle and put her into reverse, bringing Vagabond to a slow halt.
Neil turned on the 12-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 in a full circle, but nothing else was visible. Although Vagabond was now in neutral, the tide was carrying her backwards away from the strange objects to their right. The depthmeter showed they were in 35 feet of water - most likely on the edge of the big ship channel.
Èase her over closer,' Neil said to Jim, holding the spotlight on the huge protruding metal chunk, which seemed to get longer as they neared it. Slowly Jim moved Vagabond to the right and forward.
Òkay,' 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.
À sunken freighter.'
`Wow.'
Jim backed Vagabond away and put her into neutral at Neil's command.
`She was either sunk by the blast or may have hit the submerged Causeway. All we can do is ease forward some more, but we may be near it or on it.' Neil left Jim to climb up on the cabin roof to see better.
It was ten minutes later that they spotted the Causeway. It emerged in front of them like a long spit of land, which it was, as solid as the rocks that it was made of, Their spotlight revealed, however, that the roadway was shattered and dozens, no hundreds, of burnedout cars gleamed brightly in the ship's spotlight. No living being responded to their presence.
Neil had Jim swing Vagabond to the right, and they motored south about two hundred feet from the Causeway, Neil and Tony watching for the break in the wall that separated them from the sea. The air was still, almost windless. The sight of the endless mass of blasted cars, motionless bodies sometimes visible within, made the humid air seem even more oppressive than it was. They were all in full foul-weather gear, except that Jim had pushed back his hood.
Tony spotted the end of the Causeway first and shouted the information back to Neil, who, nevertheless, kept Vagabond's course due south, as if they were going to motor right past it. But when the changes of depth registered by the depthmeter indicated that they were definitely in the middle of the big ship channel, Neil was sure the opening hadn't been created by the explosion.
`Take her through,' he said quietly to Jim. 'And on the other side alter course to due east magnetic.'
`What about speed?' Jim asked.
`Slow her to five knots. We don't want to hit something now that we're so close to being out.'
As they began motoring through the opening - the other
end of the Causeway was now also visible with the spotlight on, off to their right - Jim became aware of the gentle swells of the open sea, lifting Vagabond's bow like a mother'
s gentle hand and then lowering it again, the ship pitching so gracefully it was like a rocking cradle.
`WHAT'S THAT?' Tony shouted, pointing now to his right.
When Neil swung the spotlight in that direction something huge appeared to be thrashing around in the water, sending gigantic bubbles bursting up to the surface of the sea, not far from the beginning of the Causeway. As Neil held the light on it they all stared, until finally Jim realized what it must be: air escaping from some hole in the undersea automobile tunnel over which they were crossing must be bubbling up to the surface. Agreeing, Neil shut off the light with a grim nod.
As Jim slowly altered course to due east, he smiled to himself with the excitement of breaking free to sea. Except for the unlighted buoys, sunken ships, derelict hulks, nuclear fallout, and further explosions, it was all clear sailing, he thought almost gaily. Ahead of him he could see only darkness, even Tony now not visible.
Lisa came up out of the main cabin with three cups of water and handed one to Neil and then one to Jim.
`Thanks, Lisa, we're sweltering up here,' Jim said, smiling down at her. 'But we're out of the Bay.'
`We're in the ocean?' she asked him.
`Yep. And no new fallout either.'
Seth Sperling suddenly appeared in the darkness beside them.
`Where are we?' he asked, adjusting his glasses and staring at the dark shape of the starboard section of Causeway still visible behind them to their left.
`That's what's left of the northern section of the Causeway of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel,' Jim replied, but looking forward to where he could now just make out Tony crouching at the bow. 'We're out in the ocean.'
Ànd what's that boat coming towards us?' Seth asked
next, as casually as if they'd been in a crowded well-lit harbour.
`What?' said Neil, wheeling to face where he saw the little man staring. His instinctive reaction was fear.
A motorboat without its running lights, which must have been hidden on the seaward side of the Causeway, was barely visible angling in at them from the darkness of the Causeway.
`Get the guns!' Neil hissed at Jim. 'Aft cabin. Lisa, get below. Tony!' He shouted forward at the dim figure at the bow.
`What's up?' Tony asked as he began to amble back aft, stopping near the mast to retrieve the spotlight.
À boat coming!' Neil snapped back. ' May be pirates.'
Neil squinted into the darkness and suddenly saw the motorboat now only thirty feet away and closing fast, its big outboard engine now audible over Vagabond's diesel. Still seeing no sign of friendliness, he threw the throttle full forward, Vagabond slowly responding. Jim emerged with the weapons.
`Keep the .22,' Neil whispered fiercely to Jim, taking Macklin's .45, 'and take the helm. Seth, can you use a pistol?' Wide-eyed, Seth shook his head: 'No'.
`Then take it forward to Tony. Quick!'
Even as he spoke he could see the motorboat was already beside them only a few yards away, a twenty-footer with three or four men aboard. Neither it nor Vagabond was showing running lights and the men on the motorboat had not hailed them. Neil shouted at them but there was no answer.
Crouching in the wheelhouse doorway, and certain now of danger, Neil fired a warning shot above Vagabond's coaming and over the launch, which had now moved so close to Vagabond that he couldn't have hit it from the wheelhouse if he'd tried. The thump as the launch careened into Vagabond's port hull was both heard and felt.
`Get down, Jim!' Neil whispered, watching the coaming for the appearance of a figure. He could still hear the roar of
the outboard outside the line of his sight less than fifteen feet away. Crouching, Jim swung Vagabond sharply to starboard, for the moment tearing the two boats apart. The launch, speeding on in the old course, became visible twenty-five feet off Vagabond's port side and Neil fired a second shot, this time to kill, but Jim had swerved back again, throwing off his aim. Feeling sure he hadn't hit anyone, he watched tensely as the launch quickly closed on Vagabond disappearing behind her coaming.
`STAY BELOW!' Neil suddenly shouted, fearful that Jeanne or Frank, awakened by the shots, might emerge right in the line of fire. Then, again acting instinctively, he ran in a crouch across the wheelhouse out into the opposite cockpit and crawled on to the deck beside the entrance to his aft cabin. As he stared through the blackness at Vagabond's port side he suddenly became aware that the motorboat had dropped back into Vagabond'
s wake and .. .
The bam-bam-bam-bam-bam of the automatic rifle sent Neil rolling off the deck back into the side cockpit, the slugs slamming through the forward plexiglas windows of the wheelhouse, Jim swinging the trimaran sharply in another evasive turn to the right. Trembling, Neil quickly crept back up to peer aft, but the launch was no longer in the wake; from the sound of the outboard it was returning to the port side. Two quick shots rang out from forward, sounding like Tony with the .38, and a vicious answering barn-bam-bam bam from the automatic rifle.
Jim swerved again, this time into the launch, the two boats colliding with a crash that elicited a scream from one of the attackers. Jim held the trimaran at full left rudder, the two boats crashing again, and a man suddenly pulled himself up on to the deck behind the port cockpit and fired two shots at Jim crouched at the helm. Hearing rather than seeing what was happening, Neil
leapt aft to get around the wheelhouse, saw the man, shot him once, and then kept running across his cabin top to fire his last three shots down into the launch, speeding along joined to Vagabond. Then he dived into the port cockpit, rolling away into the wheelhouse. Jim, squatting low, pulled the wheel now full the other way, Vagabond sweeping right.
Again trembling and tingling with fear, Neil crawled behind the wheelhouse settee for protection, listening for the sound of gunfire, his shoulders and back waiting to feel the thud and sting of a bullet. He could feel the launch still bumping Vagabond's port hull and then there was silence as the two boats parted. He dared to peer up and out the shattered port plexiglas window, but could see nothing. He ducked around into the starboard cockpit again, staring aft, but again could see no sign of the attackers. Although he knew he must have hit some of those in the boat he was afraid Jim's manoeuvring had disoriented him and even now the attackers might be about to blast him.
`SETH! TONY!' he called forward. 'COME AFT!'
He needed a weapon now that his .45 was out of ammunition. He thought he had hit two of the three dark figures in the speeding boat, knew he had hit the man on Vagabond's deck. Checking, he saw the man still lying where he had been hit. Tony thumped down into the cockpit beside him.
`The little guy is hit,' Tony said. Tut that boat is buzzing off.'
`Where?' said Neil.
Ìt's way off the other side,' Tony replied. 'I think I hit a couple of them.' Even in the darkness Neil could see Tony's eyes were wide with excitement or fear. For half a minute he remained crouched, listening for the sound of the outboard, but he could no longer hear it.
Àre you all right, Jim?' he then whispered.
`Yes,' Jim answered, his voice cracking. Tut they really
wrecked poor Vagabond.' The forward plexiglas windows were shattered in five or six spots. They'd have to check for other damage.
`Head us back east,' Neil said. 'Keep us at full throttle.'
For a minute more Vagabond surged through the darkness, beginning, at almost nine knots, to smash into the swells with loud booming smashes, Neil, Tony and Jim remaining where they were. Then Neil walked over next to Jim and turned off the engine.
In a few seconds the noise of both the diesel and of Vagabonds ploughing through the swells had diminished to nothing and Neil strained his ears to hear the outboard. There was no sound of it. Jim suddenly left the helm and 'vomited into the sea from the port cockpit. Expressionlessly, he returned.
Òkay,' said Neil, feeling for the first time since the action started a measure of calm. '
Get her going again, Jim. Come on, Tony, let's see about Seth.'
In another thirty minutes the sense of danger had passed. Vagabond was almost four miles from the Causeway and, with a light breeze, was now sailing. On the dark night with her engine now off, she was both invisible and inaudible to any potential attacker except at very close range. Neil and Jeanne did their best to treat Seth Sperling's bullet wound, but they knew that the wound was beyond their limited skills. Seth had been struck by the first burst of automatic rifle fire, a slug tearing through his left thigh and embedding itself in his right thigh. The artery hadn't been severed so all they did was clean the wound, staunch the flow of blood, and give Seth some antibiotic. Later, when Neil emerged on deck he noticed off to his left that the man he had shot still lay on the aft deck. He went and knelt beside the body, that of a slender man, and searched the trouser pockets: wallet, a handkerchief, some change, several loose bills, a business card. Then he rolled the man over to
look at the face. In the dim light from the aft cabin where Jeanne was still with Seth he could see little, but something looked strange. He asked Frank to shine a light over and then he saw: the man's face was disfigured with recent burns. Neil wondered if the whole boatload of attackers was equally disfigured.
He briefly recited from memory the concluding verses from the Navy burial service and then rolled the man off the deck into the sea.
At dawn Neil, sleeping in the back of the old wheelhouse area, was half-awakened by he knew not what. Lying on his back he had the vague feeling of still being in a dream. He was disoriented. In the dream he was lying where he was lying, and Jim was at the helm, and another figure, also himself it seemed, was seated a few feet away over on the port settee. The third figure in the wheelhouse was both himself and an intruder, and he struggled in his half-wakened state to determine who the other person was. In the dream the figure began to take on a more ominous emotional tone; Neil began to have that nightmarish feeling of struggling to awaken himself in order to deal with a nearby danger.