We did, and behind the pilot house window, Turn waved back. He looked embarrassed.
“That dome,” Chief Maxey explained, “is a special storm-tracking antenna. In addition to its other duties, the Spratling also helped track storms for many years, until the use of more sophisticated storm-tracking satellites and radars became common. The antenna was reinstalled for posterity when she became a museum. Sadly, it is not active.”
I stared at the dome. A seagull was perched on top of it, watching us with interest.
“Now,” the chief continued, “for the nuts and bolts. We are powered by two diesel engines and two gas turbines with controllable-pitch screws. We have enough fuel onboard to last us about two weeks. Our top speed is just over twenty-one knots per hour. Not too shabby, folks. We also have two Boyle and Snyder boilers—a very dependable manufacturer. Luckily, the boilers are still operational and I know how to operate them, or else we’d still be sitting at the harbor. In truth, there’s not much that I don’t know how to do onboard this ship.
“As you can see, we are equipped with a helicopter flight deck. You’re standing on it, in fact. We also have a retractable hangar, which is still operational even though we no longer have the facilities to support helicopter deployment. The weapons systems are still functional, too. After years of service and several tours of duty, the Spratling was totally refitted and relaunched in 1965. One of the showcase displays in the galley contains newspaper clippings of the event. She was modernized again through the fleet rehabilitation and modernization program in 1979. Actually, she was one of the first coast guard vessels to undergo that upgrade. During that time, the original caliber big guns were replaced with much more modern versions. They do a lot more damage.”
Mitch and another man both whistled in appreciation.
“Finally,” the chief said, “she’s also equipped with both a seventy-six millimeter cannon and twenty millimeter Phalanx Close—in Weapons System, or CIWS, in military-speak. Sadly, though all of the weapons are still operational, we have no armament for them. After September Eleventh, the museum frowned upon keeping explosives onboard the ship, as I’m sure you can understand. I said before that the Spratling was a big ship.”
Professor Williams exhaled a cloud of cherry-scented pipe smoke and interrupted him. “That’s all very impressive, Chief. But what’s the bad news?”
“I was getting to that. To be honest, there is all sorts of bad news. The Spratling hasn’t actually been out to sea in years, and I’m afraid to push her. We’re doing okay so far, but the truth is, we could break down at any time. If that happens—well, let’s just say we’d have a difficult time getting replacement parts. But the engine and boilers are in good shape. As I said, we have two diesel engines and two gas turbines, and I estimate we have enough fuel for two weeks, if we conserve it. But if we run into trouble, we don’t have the weaponry to fight a sea battle, and we’ll have to run. The faster we go, the quicker we deplete our fuel supply.”
“What kind of trouble could we run into?” Mitch asked. “It’s not like the zombies can pilot a boat. They can’t touch us out here.” ‘ “No, they can’t. But it’s not just the dead that we have to worry about. With no law and no coastal patrols, I’m afraid the seas may be just as dangerous as the cities were. There are bad people who will take advantage of situations like this. They thrive on it. I’m sure all of you encountered them on land over the last few weeks. We could encounter them out here, as well. We might run across pirates or raiders at any time. And if that happens, we’ll have to run. We have no heavy armaments. We don’t have the means to defend ourselves, unless they board us and it comes down to small arms fire. I’ll come back to that in a minute, but first we need to talk about supplies.”
He turned to Hooper. “Cleveland, when we’re finished here, I’d like you and Tran to inventory our food supply. Obviously, we didn’t leave port with a full complement. This was a museum, not an active duty vessel. What little food we do have is stuff I managed to sneak onboard during the first few days of martial law.”
“You stayed here during the collapse?” Murphy, the man who’d lent us toothpaste earlier, asked.
Chief Maxey nodded. “I had nowhere else to go. I’m not married. I have no children. I don’t even have a pet. My apartment was just where I went to sleep. All of my free time was spent here onboard the Spratling. This was where I wanted to be. And by then, it wasn’t like we were open for tours, anyway. Early on, I raided the Whole Foods store, the aquarium’s cafeteria, and some of the restaurants at the Inner Harbor. But I was alone and couldn’t carry much at once. And to be honest, I wasn’t counting on feeding twenty people. Food and water will be our number one concern. The good news is we have fishing tackle onboard—I used to fish in the evenings after we closed to the public. And one of the displays has deep sea rods that previous sailors used. So we can supplement our rations with fish. We can catch and collect rainwater, as well. The ship has a small supply of fresh water. It was used for the water fountains and the head—that’s a rest-room for you civilians who don’t speak military. But the water tank isn’t at full capacity. I’ve shut off the showers and sinks so that we can better conserve it. The toilets and urinals are shut down, too, but I kept the head in the engineering compartment operational. We’ll show you how to get there later on. But that is the only functioning head and I ask that when you use it, you adhere to the following rule—if it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down. That will help to save water.”
We laughed at the joke, and then he continued.
“The showers in that head are also functional. Again, I ask that you adhere to a strict time limit. No longer than two minutes per person to shower. Once we fill our tanks, I’ll lift that rule. My plan is to find a base or station where we can take on supplies. Maybe we’ll try the naval base in Norfolk, or Hampton Roads or Portsmouth. There are a number of bases and commercial docks we could try. We could possibly even anchor off Ocean City or one of the other seaside resorts along the coast, and take a lifeboat in to shore.”
“But the situation in those places will be just like it was in Baltimore,” Mitch said. “Do we have enough people to fight our way into and out of a storage depot or fueling station if it’s overrun with zombies?”
“I don’t know,” the chief admitted. “But I’m glad you brought that up, Mister…?”
“Sorry. My name’s Mitch Bollinger.”
“Well, Mr. Bollinger, you raise something else that we need to talk about. Officer Runkle and I were talking earlier this morning about law and order onboard ship. Like it or not, this is our home for the foreseeable future. Now, I’m sure that all of you are very nice people, but the fact of the matter is, I don’t know for sure. Neither do you. With the exception of Mr. Bollinger and his three friends,” he nodded toward me and the kids, “all of you boarded the ship on your own last night. None of you were traveling together. It was simple luck—and the fires of course—that brought you all to the harbor at the same time. So even though we might all seem nice, we really don’t know each other. Many of you brought weapons onboard: rifles, pistols, knives—I think I even saw some grenades, though I can’t remember who had them. Officer Runkle and I feel that our best course of action is to lock all of those items up in the ship’s armory. It’s for your safety as well as everyone else’s onboard. We have children present, and it wouldn’t do for one of those weapons to find its way into their hands.”