Long Voyage Back (26 page)

voice. 'We have no authorization to receive you. You'll have to leave the ship.'

`May I have permission to speak to your Captain?'

`You may not. Escort this man off the ship, Mr Haynes.'

Discouraged and angry, Neil was led back to the boarding ladder and down off the Haig. But in the open dock area he noticed and accosted another lieutenant and, with Mr Haynes looking on uncertainly, explained his situation again to this officer.

`The class of '71, is it?' the officer asked. He was a tired-looking, sloppily-dressed man about Neil's own age from the severely damaged destroyer.

`Yes, sir,' said Neil. 'If you have anyone aboard from '70, '71 or '72 they'll probably know me . . . or know of me.'

`Know of you, huh?' the lieutenant said, eyeing Neil speculatively. 'Are you famous for something?'

Ìt was a suggestion,' Neil said, side-stepping the question. Ì have none of my papers with me.'

`There are . . . were half a dozen Academy boys aboard this ship, but none that I can think of during those years. Maybe Captain Cohen. You know him?'

`No, I don't.'

`Then you're out of luck, I guess.'

`Could I see your commanding officer?' Neil persisted. Ì'm afraid Commander Bonnville wouldn't appreciate being disturbed by something as . .

`Bonnville?' Neil interrupted. 'Greg Bonnville?'

`That's right,' the lieutenant said, looking surprised. 'You know him?'

Ì served with him for eight months in 'Nam.'

The lieutenant hesitated, his exhausted face in a frown. `Maybe you should see him.'

Ì'd like to.'

In ten minutes Neil had been escorted up on to the destroyer Arcady. The Arcady was a mess. All its topside paint was blistering, its portholes and bridge windows shattered, bloodstains still evident, damaged weapons and debris everywhere. The Petty Officer who received him aboard looked sick, exhausted, or both. It took almost another ten minutes to complete communication with the Duty Officer and receive permission to see Commander Bonnville.

Greg Bonnville had been Neil's group leader for ten months in the South China Sea off Vietnam. He had been a fierce, dedicated, by-the-book officer who had made Neil for that first year in Vietnam a believer in going by the book. Two years later when he'd learned that Neil planned to resign his commission he had telephoned from Manila, where he was then stationed, to urge Neil to change his mind. As Neil was being taken to the bridge to see him again he felt a pleasant excitement, an excitement that was sickeningly dashed the moment he saw Bonnville. His old friend seemed to have aged twenty years beyond Neil rather than the ten years of their age difference. Slumped behind his desk in his cabin, he was grey-faced and hollow-eyed. His once eye-catching mane of dark hair was gone; he was almost bald. Scar-tissue marred his forehead and one cheek. He trembled when he stood to greet Neil, his lanky body badly stooped. 'I'm afraid I can't say "welcome aboard", Neil,' Greg Bonnville said. 'The Arcady is a deathship.'

Neil stood facing his friend uncertainly. Around him Greg's captain's quarters were strewn with clothes, books and papers. The ship's logbook lay on the floor propped up against a leg of the desk. Greg sat back down with a groan.

`What happened?' Neil asked.

`Wrong war,' Greg answered gloomily, not looking up. `We were steaming south fifteen miles off Cape Henry, probably thirty from Hampton Roads when "boom", we got . . . permanently decommissioned.'

`Did you . . . personally get hit?'

Ì look it, don't I?' he replied. 'I got some mild burns and cuts from the initial blast, but it was the radiation all that

morning that clobbered us. The only healthy men who may come through were the engine-room crew. Anyone who had to be out on deck or on the bridge that night is probably . . . not going to live.'

Ìncluding you?' Neil asked softly.

Òbviously including me.'

Neil turned and paced over to the shattered porthole and stared out over the waters of the Turning Basin towards the ocean.

Ìs the ship still contaminated?' Neil asked quietly.

Ìt's pretty clean except in the aft hold, which we've closed off,' he said. 'They almost wouldn't let us put in here 'til they got their own geiger counter man aboard and cleared us.'

`May I sit down?' Neil asked.

`Please,' Greg responded. 'You make me sad standing so erectly.'

Neil sat down on the edge of Greg's berth. 'What are your orders?' Neil asked hesitantly. Greg looked up blankly and then snickered. 'Stay here and die,' he replied.

`You're kidding.'

Àbsolutely not,' Greg countered. 'And damn good orders they are. This ship is dead and the engine-room crew has been transferred to the Haig. The rest of us will work with our little individual timebombs by ourselves. Whoever can walk off in a week will be reassigned.'

`Living Jesus,' Neil muttered.

`Quite an end to a distinguished career.'

`There's nothing you can do?' Neil asked, looking up at his friend as if appealing for himself.

`Remain on standby and if, by some miraculous stroke of luck, a Soviet sub should amble up the Morehead City Inlet, go down with my ship.'

Ì see,' said Neil, standing and again passing to the porthole, where pieces of shattered glass were resting like a cache of diamonds on the circular sill. 'Look, Greg,' he went on, turning back to his friend, who was slumped forward on his desk, staring down. '

What do you know about the overall military situation?'

Greg lifted his head and the two men gazed at each other. Àll I know is what I can read between the lines of the radio communiques and orders.'

`That's something,' said Neil. 'What do you think?'

Ì think we're planning to evacuate all remaining Naval personnel from the whole east coast. I think it's rapidly becoming a war of individual initiative, just the type we always wished we could be in.'

Tut where's the enemy?'

Àhh,' said Greg, straightening himself with a grimace. `That's the new twist. The enemy is in the sky, in the food chain, in the rain, in my bloodstream.'

Ànd the Russians?'

`They've shot their bolt,' he said. `There've only been two or three incoming missiles since the second day. Their Mediterranean and Indian Ocean fleets are gone. Their population has been decimated - which probably means wiped out. Any warfare still going on is only the last twitching of two corpses. The Russians and ourselves will probably fantasize to our last breaths of snatching victory from genocide.'

Neil looked at the sunken face of his friend and saw no sense of triumph.

`We ... ah . . . we've won?' Neil asked, feeling feeble and foolish. Ìf we've won, it's as the Arcady has won . . .' He looked dismally around the room. A third time Neil walked away to look out of the shattered porthole. Outside he saw the Coast Guard patrol launch begin its turn to sweep back out of the channel in its systematic guarding of the inlet.'

Ì've been ordered to report to duty,' he announced with his back still to Greg.

`Here?' Greg asked, astounded.

`No. To report somewhere. All men are supposed to report.'

`How'd you happen to end up here?'

Turning back, Neil briefly explained his voyage on Vagabond. Ànd you're all leaving her for here?' Greg asked in a low sad voice. Neil shrugged. 'The law . . .' he began.

`Neil, I told you,' Greg said, leaning painfully back in his chair and almost glaring at Neil. 'This has become a war of individual initiative and . . .' He grimaced and groaned once. . And the enemy,' he continued after a pause, 'the sole enemy . . . is death.'

Ànd the US Navy?' Neil asked softly.

Greg slumped forward again.

`Wrong war,' he replied in a low voice.

After Neil had left Captain Bonnville he searched out the infirmary and drug dispensary. There he found a sailor kneeling in front of two open drawers and a clutter of bottles and little cardboard cartons strewn around him on the floor. When the sailor looked up at him Neil saw that he was stoned. He was probably searching for some sort of dope - morphine or codeine or barbiturates, from the dull look in his eyes. Slowly a look of bewilderment made its way on to the young sailor's round face as Neil stood stiffly over him but dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt.

Àll right, sailor,' Neil said firmly. 'I don't have to ask what you're doing here, but I want you to find me any antibiotics that are still around.'

The small, weary-looking young man, his face pale and his eyes bloodshot, hesitated, still in confusion, still stoned.

Ì'm Captain Loken, sailor,' Neil barked in the traditional manner. 'And I gave you an order.'

Àye . . . aye, sir,' the sailor finally replied, wobbling to his feet.

. antibiotics don't work against radiation sick,

ness.

Ì know.'

`Nothing works.'

Ì know. Find them.'

The man stared around the room and then walked over to the opposite wall and began going through drawers. Neil came up beside him and began searching also. Eventually he found two vials containing liquid penicillin and a bottle labelled tetracyclin with a hundred capsules. He located two syringes in a glass cabinet. The sailor was now staring dreamily into an empty drawer. 'Is there still morphine available, sailor? Neil asked loudly. The man lazily shook his head and smiled. Neil made a further search for pain-killing medication, found a small amount of codeine, and left.

He decided that since weapons had been officially removed from the Arcady his only hope was to search the quarters of the Petty Officers. There he encountered, in the four separate staterooms, one corpse, two dying men, and two men listening lugubriously to a newscast. He asked these two about weapons, but they stared back at him as if he were mad or they stoned. In the last stateroom, empty of its occupants, he discovered in a bureau drawer a nine-millimetre pistol -the official Navy sidearm - and a half-full box of ammunition. From this same room he also stole a bottle of aspirin, matches, razor blades, suntan lotion and a small cache of cocaine. When he found himself tempted to steal Kleenex he felt he was becoming a kleptomaniac and hastily left. Later, as he was leaving the dockyard, Neil ran into the Petty Officer who had originally heard his story.

`Well, Mr Loken, are you going to join us?' the Petty Officer asked. Neil hesitated only a moment. 'It doesn't look that way,' he replied. 'It appears I've been given . . . an independent command.'

And he left.

At ten P.M. that evening, after he had filled out forms, had a perfunctory physical exam from a corpsman, and been issued a uniform, Jim and other recruits of the last three days were rounded up and marched to the Rialto movie theatre. There about one hundred and fifty new soldiers, some even without uniforms, stood at attention between the rows of seats, most sweating profusely in the stuffy theatre, no longer cooled with air conditioning. Jim stood at the right rear, uncomfortable, resentful, curious. For fifteen minutes the men were kept standing thus. Finally a major marched out on to the stage in front of them.

Àt ease, men,' he shouted down at them, and a great groan broke from the group as the soldiers relaxed, many of them collapsing into their seats. The relaxed hubbub lasted for less than five seconds.

ÀTTEN-SHUN!' the major unexpectedly bellowed.

Surprised and confused, the men struggled back up to attention, a few, not hearing the new command, having to be urged up by those near them.

Àt ease, men,' the major shouted at them after less than twenty seconds. This time the relaxation was much less pronounced, almost all of the men remaining standing, looking at the major suspiciously, not talking this time as they had the last. Jim stood exactly as he had when he was standing supposedly at attention, staring up at the major with resentment. About twenty seconds passed this time, then thirty, and a few of the men began to whisper to each other, one or two to sit.

ÀTTEN-SHUN!' the major bellowed again, and again the men responded, many sullenly, until the non-coms spread out

around the auditorium began reinforcing the major'scommand. ÀLL RIGHT,' the major shouted, pacing now off to the left of the platform, his compact body moving with suppressed power, his dark face and neatly trimmed moustache accentuating his neatness and correctness compared to the ragtag bunch of men down in front of him. He glared down at his audience.

`You've just demonstrated the single most important attribute of a soldier: obedience. I don't give a fuck if you don't know your right foot from your left foot, an anti-tank gun from a twenty-two, or a platoon from a spittoon, but if you know how to obey, you'll make one helluva soldier.'

He paused and paced back to the centre of the stage.

Ìn this war, especially with the losses we've sustained already here on the mainland, it's absolutely necessary that everyone pull together, that we all work to get the country. back together again. And the only way that can happen is for the President to point, the officers to lead, and the rest of you to fall in line . .

The major wiped sweat from his brow, his bushy eyebrows and trim moustache still glistening under the row of bright lights even after the wipe.

`The Russians haven't landed yet,' he went on in a loud voice that seemed just on the verge of cracking from his effort. `We hope they never land, but there are already enemies loose in this country and it's our job to stop them. The enemy is anyone who thinks they know better than the President, anyone who selfishly puts his own interests above those of the whole nation. It's the Army's job to keep our country functioning, keep the food, medical and military supplies flowing. Your officers will determine how this can best be done, and then you and they will do it.

Ànd I don't want any of you assholes to try thinking you know better than your officer. There's only one right way to do things in the Army and that's the way it was ordered done . . . And don't you forget it . .

He paused, glared, sweat again pouring down his face, and Jim watched him with a feeling of dull dread and hopelessness. He felt trapped in a small room. Àny day now some of you may be sent on assignments that involve our using our muscle against misguided bastards who think their personal asses are all that count. I don't want any shilly-shallying. If you are ordered to shoot someone, you shoot him. There's no time -for you to complain that you haven't heard the guy speak Russian. Anyone who disobeys an order from a superior officer is a traitor and deserves to be shot. Don't you forget it . . .