“And what’s wrong with Captain Olly?”
“He never gives any orders except the ones you give him,” Oscar replied. “Tony, Arnie, and I run the watches the way we want anyway.”
Neil laughed. “I’d say he sounds like a perfect captain.”
“I want Tony,” Oscar repeated sullenly.
“And what does your reasserting ownership of Vagabond mean, Frank?” Neil asked. He saw that Frank’s gaze could not entirely conceal the uncertainty, anxiety even, that Frank must have been feeling.
“It means that the captain serves at my pleasure,” he replied slowly. “It means that I set the course, the captain only determines how to get there.”
“And the same on my boat,” said Oscar.
Neil was surprised that he felt no anger or resentment, but rather a strange kind of serenity that was only slightly tinged with sadness. Very slowly he shook his head.
“No, good friend,” he said to Frank. “I didn’t take the ownership of Vagabond away from you. The War did.”
“The War’s over, Neil,” Frank replied. “You don’t seem to accept it, but it’s over.”
“No, it’s not, Frank,” Neil said calmly. “At least not the war that deprived you of your ownership rights. And yours too, Oscar. No, I’m afraid none of us owns anything anymore.”
“That’s convenient for you to say,” said Tony, “since you don’t own a boat.”
“Frank doesn’t own Vagabond,” Neil went on. “And I don’t own my captaincy or my other skills. You don’t think I’m free to do what I want, do you? Your lives sometimes depend on my skills, so I’m not free to withdraw them, irrespective of likes or dislikes. Our lives depend on Vagabond and Scorpio. You two don’t own them any more than the man who happens to ‘own’ all the water on a crowded desert island owns the water. By the nature of the situation everyone who needs it, owns it.”
“Bullshit!” Tony exploded. “It’s Frank’s boat. All that intellectual crap doesn’t change it!”
“You’re right, Tony,” Neil responded mildly. “My intellectual crap doesn’t change it. The world changed it.”
Frank was watching him, his uncertainty more evident now. Oscar looked sullen, Tony angry and defiant. Neil rose from his seat, stretched his arms, and yawned.
“If you think you own your boats, go ahead and think so,” he said and then turned to look directly down at Frank. “But if you try to act as owner, then the world, your friends, your family, will collapse. You can’t reinstate the old ways by decree.” He watched Frank for a moment—Frank was hunched over, looking at the floor—and then turned to Oscar and Tony.
“Olly is an excellent captain because he gives orders only to maintain order,” he went on. “Tony here is an excellent sailor, stronger and quicker than Olly, and Tony would make an absolutely shitty captain. Tony would give orders not to maintain order but to demonstrate that he was captain, and that’s the perfect formula for chaos.”
“You conceited bastard!” said Tony.
“The War’s over, Neil,” Frank said in a husky voice. “You’re still running, I believe you’ll always be, but it’s over.”
“It’s not over,” Neil replied, “and I intend to keep running.”
“Dragging us with you,” Frank said.
“No. If enough people want to take a different course, then we’ll split up,” said Neil. “The cowards can come with me, and the brave ones return to the West Indies.”
“And who determines which group takes which boat?” asked Frank.
“Not me, Frank. Not you. Vagabond should go to those who have to sail to windward. Scorpio to those who can use her best.”
“And who decides that?” asked Frank.
“The goddamn owners decide, is who,” snapped Tony.
“There are no easy solutions,” Neil said softly to Frank. “Think about it, Frank. Would throwing me overboard really solve any of your problems?”
“We’re not going to throw you overboard,” Tony interjected. “Good as the idea may be.”
“Think about it, Frank,” said Neil, still without raising his voice. “Get away from these clowns and see the world as it is.”
Tony’s fist caught Neil just below his left ear and sent him stumbling across to the opposite seat, where he fell awkwardly, half on his knees.
“What the hell are you doing!?” Frank shouted, getting to his feet and holding out an arm to keep Tony from Neil.
Neil glanced up at Tony looming over him a few feet away and waited for his head to clear and the ringing to stop.
“This bastard can’t keep calling me names and expect me to take it,” Tony barked out in reply to Frank. “If he thinks he’s captain, let him show it with his fists.”
Neil’s head was slowly clearing, and he stood up. He noticed that at the helm Sheila had half-turned toward them, watching.
“I’m sorry I called you names, Tony,” he said quietly. “I don’t blame you for being angry.”
“You chickening out?”
“I made a mistake in insulting you,” Neil went on. “I apologize.”
“Jesus. What is this?”
“And if you ever pull something like that again I’ll smash your nose out the back of your head,” Neil concluded. He brushed past Tony and went down into the main cabin.
At the wheel Sheila held Vagabond steadily on course.
Over the next several days neither Oscar nor Frank renewed their request and both crews seemed to return to a contented routine. They were lucky with the wind: it blew steadily much more from the northeast than usual and let them sail more southeast than they had hoped. Scorpio began leaking less rapidly. Other events encouraged Neil.
Macklin had probed Philip’s wound and removed the second bullet, and the infection seemed to be subsiding. Jeanne’s wound was healing perfectly. No one had shown any symptoms of the plague. A squall had left them with a plentiful supply of fresh water.
The only continuing source of anxiety was their food situation. Neil and Frank had rationed the two boats for a three-week voyage, rations that assumed they would be catching at least one fish a day. They weren’t. Both boats were trolling all the time and hooking nothing. The seas appeared to be empty. Macklin had machine-gunned a porpoise at dawn one day when he was alone on watch, but the creature had sunk before he could maneuver over to it. The bloodstained water had been somehow depressing to Neil and Frank, who had rushed up on deck at the sound of the gunshots.
Because they were sailing more southeast than expected, they were well away from the danger of pirates. Although Vagabond was about two knots faster than Scorpio in the trade winds, Neil carried reduced sail and spent a day aboard Scorpio helping Olly get every last ounce of speed out of her. At night Vagabond would sometimes get a few miles ahead of Scorpio and then heave to in the early morning.
It was good to see Jim and Lisa looking so happy and well. They were sleeping together now in the forepeak; Jim said jokingly that he was determined to share everything with Lisa, even the plague. Macklin now roomed with Frank. Tony had taken up with the slender young woman named Mirabai, apparently stealing her from Gregg, the young man with the broken arm. Janice, Oscar’s girl friend, was the only other woman aboard Scorpio, a third female crew member apparently having chosen to join the commune at Salt Point just before they left.
They met no other ships on their first six days out of Anguilla. They passed more than sixty miles east of Barbados and after a week were seventy miles northeast of Devil’s Island off the coast of Guiana. The fear of the plague was receding. Jeanne was not only regaining her strength but her spirits, standing watch with Frank most of the time, playing more happily than usual with Skippy, even enjoying her food more.