“You think too much, Jeanne,” Katya said. “If you and a man love each other, that’s it, that’s first. The rest of the world doesn’t count. Family doesn’t count. A woman friend doesn’t count. Grab it.”
She stepped into her shorts, then grabbed a yellow T-shirt and pulled it over her head, shaking her hair and brushing it down when her head emerged.
“Everyone else does,” she added and, with Jeanne staring after her, she climbed the hatchway steps, slid back the hatch, and was gone.
According to Neil’s noon sunshots, Vagabond was now about fifty miles north of the reef and cays off the northeast coast of Great Abaco Island. Sailing at about seven knots, Vagabond might come within sight of land a little before sunset.
The thought gave Neil little satisfaction. He found himself approaching this landfall warily. He and Frank had already argued that morning about whether it was absolutely necessary to take on additional food and water before sailing on for Puerto Rico. Frank was concerned about cutting their rations in half for up to two weeks, while Neil felt that starvation was not their primary danger. The Bahamian government had announced that it was impounding any foreign vessel that landed in Bahamian waters without first clearing customs at Freeport or Nassau. All weapons aboard any ship were being confiscated. The rash of piracies that were infesting Bahamian waters could be stopped only by the rigid enforcement of these rules. All food was strictly rationed by the authorities. Foreigners unable to pay with gold, silver, or barter for their food were being forced to join labor gangs or—those who had them—give up their boats as exchange.
If the wind direction had not made a landfall on Great Abaco Island their most logical choice, Neil would have preferred to stay out at sea, away from the dangers he foresaw in closing with the land. The sun was shining brightly, the sky a deep blue, and the sea sparkled with small whitecaps from the twelve-knot breeze still blowing out of the east southeast. Frank, at the helm, was pinching Vagabond a bit east of south, because when they came to the reef they would have to proceed southeast alongside it until they decided if, where, and when to take Vagabond into land.
It was a little before the changing of the watch at two o’clock that Jeanne spotted a ship with the binoculars. At first this was all she could be sure of. Ten minutes later she and Neil, trading off the large pair of binoculars, had determined that it was a sailboat heading north, but without any sails up. A minute later, when the sailboat altered its course to the west, Neil thought that it, like the only other sailing vessel they had seen on their trip south, was starting to flee from them. Then he realized differently.
“What is it?” asked Jeanne.
“It’s a drifting sailboat,” he replied, handing back the glasses. “Probably abandoned, a derelict.” As she began studying the mysterious ship, Neil walked out into the port cockpit where Frank and Tony were looking through the smaller glasses.
“Alter course,” Neil said to Tony at the helm, “We’re going to take a look.”
“What the hell for?” Tony asked.
“There may be survivors,” Neil replied. “If not, there may be supplies we can salvage.”
“Anybody still alive on that boat we can do without,” Tony commented. “This close to land the ship’s probably been sacked already.”
“We’re going over,” Neil said.
Within a half-hour Vagabond had come to within a hundred yards of the derelict. The ship’s white paint was blistered and peeling, fragments of the mainsail lay loosely along the boom, and a halyard was slack and swinging idly back and forth with the rocking of the boat. There was no sign of life.
“Ahoy, Windsong!” Neil shouted as Tony brought Vagabond so close to the wind that all three sails luffed and she was almost dead in the water ten yards away from the forty-foot ketch.
“Hit the horn,” Neil said to Tony, who gave one loud blast from the air horn on the control panel shelf.
“Are you going to board?” Frank asked Neil.
Just then a figure emerged from the cabin into the ship’s cockpit. Crouched and blinking in the bright light, a small, unshaven man in his forties wearing only a bathing suit stared at them.
Neil and the others stared back, stunned.
“Can we assist you?” Neil asked loudly after the shocked silence.
“Water,” the man said hoarsely. He was hollow-eyed. “Water,” he repeated more loudly.
As Jim ducked below to get some of their precious water and the man peered down into his own cabin, Frank came up to Neil.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“Take him off,” Neil answered, staring glumly at the stricken Windsong. “Back her off a bit,” he added to Tony, “then bring her up to the port side. Get the fenders.”
“There must be others aboard,” Jim said, returning with the water. “He can’t be alone.”
“The guy’s practically dead,” Tony said, easing Vagabond alongside Windsong. Neil and Frank moored the two boats side by side, with the fenders cushioning their impact.
“Do you want to abandon ship?” Neil asked. “We can take you aboard.”
The man, the bones of his ribcage protruding grotesquely beneath the skin of his emaciated body, lowered his head and stared at the water.
“We’re all dying,” he answered. “I don’t know.”
“Radiation sickness isn’t necessarily fatal,” Neil said. “You may recover.”
The man looked back up at Neil. “I know,” he said. “That’s what’s hell. But my wife and daughter… are almost dead. They’ll never make it.”
Jim handed a plastic jug of water across to the man who, with sudden agility, grabbed it and hugged it to his chest.
“Let me go below and… decide what we’ll do,” he said and made his way less nimbly down into the cabin of his boat. Neil, Frank, and Tony were left in the side cockpit waiting.
“What is this shit?” Macklin said, suddenly appearing beside them, looking sleepy, the hair on his chest glistening with sweat. “You bringing more people on board to raid our food and water?”
Neil didn’t reply.
“If they’re all dying,” Tony said, “it’ll just be a waste. You said yourself that prospects of finding food in the Bahamas don’t look good.”
“I know,” Neil said.
“What happened to your fucking principle of triage?” Macklin interjected.
Neil didn’t answer. The four of them stood silently in the gently rocking Vagabond, awaiting the reappearance of the dying man. What had happened to triage, thought Neil, was that at sea you didn’t abandon a fellow sailor.
The man emerged from the cabin.
“I’d appreciate it if you could take us off,” he said. When they stared at him, he finally added, “I’ll need help.”
“Mac,” said Neil, “get aboard and give the man a hand.”
“Go yourself,” Macklin said and stalked away.
“I’ll go,” said Frank. He boarded Windsong ahead of Jim but suddenly noticed along the combing and in the corners of the cockpit a fine gray ash. He first took it to be sand, but with a stab of fear realized it was radioactive debris. He clambered quickly on board Vagabond, pushing Jim back ahead of him.
“Jesus Christ,” he told Neil. “There’s fallout on deck.”
Neil looked and frowned.
“This is ridiculous,” said Tony. “Let’s get out of here.”
Neil hesitated again, then turned to Frank.
“I’ll get on board and help them off,” he said.