“I’ll give you ten thousand pounds,” a British man immediately shouts.
“Fifteen thousand,” shouts another.
de Salle purses his lips in contempt. “No paper. Gold. Jewels and gold. Platinum is good, too, of course.”
“You sail for Barbados now?” Don asks.
de Salle nods.
Don huddles with his wife, whispering heatedly. It is a discussion repeated throughout the crowd, husbands and wives cataloging what possessions they have to barter.
“We want on that ship. Don’t leave without us,” Don advises de Salle, and then hustles back to his bungalow with Amy to grab her jewelry from the safe.
They set off a stampede that has other guests running to do the same. Pamela stands near Gwen. For the first time since Bill’s death, there is a focus and awareness in Pamela’s eyes. I know she is calculating what jewelry she possesses to trade for a space on the ship.
“Wait, Captain, you’re making a mistake,” I step forward. I think of Dawson Hartford and the radiation cloud he sailed into that ruptured the cells in his body as though he boiled from within. “There’s a poisonous radiation storm out there. You’ll never reach Barbados. This is a suicide voyage.”
Captain de Salle turns to Jonas as if to ask, Who the hell is this guy? Before de Salle can say a word, an old British woman snaps at me, “Mind your own! Stay if you want. Those of us who can afford to leave should go if we choose. Don’t you listen to him, Captain.”
The old British woman looks as though a rough sea tossed her about and then belched her up on the beach. Her lower jaw protrudes like a bulldog. Any second I expect her to lunge at me and gnaw my ankle off. The crowd steps away from me. I hold my ground.
“Listen to me. Please, do not sail for Barbados,” I urge, my voice becoming strident. “On the ham radio there’s been no contact from anyone in Barbados.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” the same old British woman brushes my argument aside with an angry swat of her hand.
“You weren’t on Dawson Hartford’s boat,” I respond. “You didn’t see how the radiation affected him.”
Jonas places a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Be that as it may, Phillip, why haven’t we seen these poisonous clouds? Don’t you think they would have been here by now?”
I pause. It is an excellent question. I’ve been watching the horizon for signs of the deadly clouds. Why haven’t they come? Then something I read about in the National Geographic magazine about Isla Fin de la Tierra comes back to me.
“I think the reason the radiation clouds haven’t hit us is because of our location,” I explain. “This island is located in the middle of a wind tunnel that channels air from the south central Atlantic, towards the Caribbean Gulf Stream and up the coast of North America. The wind tunnel is the reason, for instance, we’ve got swarms of butterflies flying by every day. They’re using the wind current to facilitate their migration. It could be that the wind tunnel shields us from the radiation clouds.”
“And it could be that you’re talking out of your arse,” the old British woman scoffs.
The crowd around me grows increasingly hostile. For the first time since the E.M.P. blast, someone offers them a way out of this hell; they will not allow me to squash it. Still, if they decide to take this voyage they need to know the dangers they face. Despite the eagerness of the crowd to dismiss my warnings, the captain hesitates. Perhaps after many years studying the mercurial interaction between wind and sea, and knowing that a mistake in judgment when you are miles away from dry land can be fatal, the captain appears to mull over everything I said.
Just then, the first of the guests determined to sail for Barbados returns from their bungalows clutching handfuls of glittering jewelry, which they eagerly thrust towards the captain.
de Salle takes one look at the proffered loot and turns to me. “At the first sign of any poisonous clouds I will turn around and return.”
I am about to say something more when Conner pulls me to the side and whispers, “Shut up. Let them go. Look who’s trying to get onboard—the old and the weak. He can have ‘em. They won’t be much use defending this place from the islanders, and besides, it’s more food and water for everybody else left behind.”
Conner continues to grip my arm, staring me down, daring me to protest any further. Over his shoulder, I see Don and Amy come out of their bungalow. I shirk Conner’s hand off and head towards them. Amy drags a hastily packed suitcase and the front pocket of Don’s shirt bulges with bracelets and necklaces. I repeat my warnings of the radiation clouds. Don huffs but stops to hear me out, while Amy anxiously looks at the throng around Captain de Salle, each haggling for a spot on the ship.
“Don, c’mon,” she urges.
I stand before them knowing they are already gone—that my entreaties will not sway them.
Don regards me with sad, kind eyes. “Listen, kid, I’m an old man. I’m not cut out for war with the people on this island.”
Amy prods Don by pressing her hand on his back.
“Phillip, we’re sorry to leave you like this,” her voice catches. “I wish we could all leave together. Believe me, as soon as we reach Barbados we will send help back for you.”
I respond with a grateful nod.
Nearby on the beach, de Salle appraises the jewelry offered in trade.
Pamela remains near Gwen, making no effort to get on board de Salle’s ship.
“Don’t you want to go?” I ask her.
She looks to the anchored ship and shields her eyes against the sun. “I thought about it. Then I thought about what you said—that you couldn’t get hold of anyone from Barbados on the radio and that there are radiation clouds. Sailing for Barbados is a big risk, just as staying here is. Without Bill, I guess it doesn’t much matter either way.”
Nearly a third of the guests vie to sail with de Salle. Of those who do not, I estimate half seem like they desperately want to sail away but know they have nothing to offer to buy their passage, and the rest seem interested in the drama but have no desire to risk their lives on the open ocean.
Don plops a fistful of jewels in de Salle’s hand, easily purchasing space onboard the ship for Amy and himself. More people haggle to get onboard than there are spaces. It comes down to two elderly couples—one British and one American. The value of the jewelry offered by the American couple puts them in the lead for the final spots, but the old British husband turns to his wife and says, “Evelyn, I’m sorry, love, but we must.”
Evelyn, a tiny, white haired woman, wraps a protective hand around the large, antique diamond wedding ring she wears. She cannot even form a word, her only protest being an anguished little squeak.
Her husband gently takes her hand, looking as tenderly in her frightened eyes as he probably did when they first married so long ago.
“Love, please,” he says. “It is only a stone and some metal. It does not matter so long as we have each other.”
Slowly, she gulps, removes the ring, and hands it to de Salle. He gestures to his men to allow Evelyn and her husband aboard the ship.
“Pardon me, Captain,” Evelyn says with a tremulous voice. “How long is the voyage to Barbados?”
“With a good wind—two days.”
Evelyn’s husband, a slight man with fine, delicate features like a sparrow, licks his thin lips and asks, “And you have food to last us?”