So we went back to Newport News to see what had happened. And we found out what had happened. And there wasn’t anything much to do except pay off the crew and let them go. But us three stuck together. Why not? It wasn’t as if we had any families to go back to any more.
Vern just loved all this stuff - he’d been an Eagle Scout; maybe that had something to do with it - and he showed us how to boil drinking water and forage in the woods and all like that, because nobody in his right mind wanted to go near any kind of a town, until the cold weather set in, anyway. And it was always Vern, Vern, telling us what to do, ironing out our troubles.
It worked out, except that there was this one thing. Vern had bright ideas. But he didn’t always tell us what they were.
So I wasn’t so very surprised when I came to. I mean there I was, tied up, with this girl Amy standing over me, holding the gun like a club. Evidently she’d found out that there weren’t any cartridges. And in a couple of minutes there was a knock on the door, and she yelled, ‘Come in,’ and in came Vern. And the man who was with him had to be somebody important, because there were eight or ten other men crowding in close behind.
I didn’t need to look at the oak leaves on his shoulders to realize that here was the chief, the fellow who ran this town, the Major.
It was just the kind of thing Vern would do.
Vern said, with the look on his face that made strange officers wonder why this poor persecuted man had been forced to spend so much time in the brig: ‘Now, Major, I’m sure we can straighten all this out. Would you mind leaving me alone with my friend here for a moment?’
The Major teetered on his heels, thinking. He was a tall, youngish-bald type, with a long, worried, horselike face. He said, ‘Ah, do you think we should ?’
‘I guarantee there’ll be no trouble, Major,’ Vern promised.
The Major pulled at his little moustache. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘Amy, you come along.’
‘We’ll be right here, Major,’ Vern said reassuringly, escorting him to the door.
‘You bet you will,’ said the Major, and tittered. ‘Ah, bring that gun along with you, Amy. And be sure this man knows that we have bullets.’
They closed the door. Arthur had been cowering in his suitcase, but now his eyestalk peeped out and the rattling and clattering from that typewriter sounded like the Battle of the Bulge.
I demanded: ‘Come on, Vern. What’s this all about?’
Vern said: ‘How much did they offer you?’
Clatter-bang-BANG. I peeked, and Arthur was saying: WARNED YOU SAM THAT ENGDAHL WAS UP TO TRICKS PLEASE SAM PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HIT HIM ON THE HEAD KNOCK HIM OUT HE MUST HAVE A GUN SO GET IT AND SHOOT OUR WAY OUT OF HERE.
‘A hundred and fifty thousand dollars,’ I said.
Vern looked outraged. ‘I only got forty!’
Arthur clattered: VERN I APPEAL TO YOUR COMMON DECENCY WERE OLD SHIPMATES VERN REMEMBER ALL THE TIMES I
‘Still,’ Vern mused, ‘it’s all common funds anyway, right? Arthur belongs to both of us.’
I DONT DONT DONT REPEAT DONT BELONG TO ANYBODY BUT ME.
‘That’s true,’ I said grudgingly. ‘But I carried him, remember.’
SAM WHATS THE MATTER WITH YOU Q I DONT LIKE THE EXPRESSION ON YOUR FACE LISTEN SAM YOU ARENT
Vern said, ‘A hundred and fifty thousand, remember.’
THINKING OF SELLING
‘And of course we couldn’t get out of here,’ Vern pointed out. ‘They’ve got us surrounded.’
ME TO THESE RATS Q Q SAM VERN PLEASE DONT SCARE ME
I said, pointing to the fluttering paper in the rattling machine: ‘You’re worrying our friend.’ Vern shrugged impatiently.
I KNEW I SHOULDNT HAVE TRUSTED YOU, Arthur wept. THATS ALL I MEAN TO YOU EH
Vern said: ‘Well, Sam? Let’s take the cash and get this thing over with. After all, he will have the best of treatment.’
It was a little like selling your sister into white slavery, but what else was there to do? Besides, I kind of trusted Vern.
‘All right,’ I said.
What Arthur said nearly scorched the paper.
Vern helped pack Arthur up for moving. I mean it was just a matter of pulling the plugs out and making sure he had a fresh battery, but Vern wanted to surprise it himself. Because one of the little things Vern had up his sleeve was that he had found a spot for himself on the Mayor’s payroll. He was now the official Prosthetic (Human) Maintenance Department Chief.
The Major said to me: ‘Ah, Dunlap. What sort of experience have you had?’
‘Experience?’
‘In the Navy. Your friend Engdahl suggested you might want to join us here.’
‘Oh. I see what you mean.’ I shook my head. ‘Nothing that would do you any good, I’m afraid. I was a yeoman.’
‘Yeoman?’
‘Like a company clerk,’ I explained. ‘I mean I kept records and cut orders and made out reports and all like that.’
‘Company clerk!’ The eyes in the long horsy face gleamed. ‘Ah, you’re mistaken, Dunlap! Why, that’s just what we need. Our morning reports are in foul shape. Foul! Come over to HQ. Lieutenant Bankhead will give you a lift.’
‘Lieutenant Bankhead?’
I got an elbow in my ribs for that. It was that girl Amy, standing alongside me. ‘I,’ she said, ‘am Lieutenant Bankhead.’
Well, I went along with her, leaving Engdahl and Arthur behind. But I must admit I wasn’t sure of my reception.
Out in front of the hotel was a whole fleet of cars - three or four of them, at least. There was a big old Cadillac that looked like a gangster’s car - thick glass in the windows, tyres that looked like they belonged on a truck. I was willing to bet it was bulletproof and also that it belonged to the Major. I was right both times. There was a little MG with the top down, and a couple of light trucks. Every one of them was painted bright orange, and every one of them had the star-and-bar of the good old United States Army on its side.
It took me back to old times - all but the unmilitary colour. Amy led me to the MG and pointed.
‘Sit,’ she said.
I sat. She got in the other side and we were off.
It was a little uncomfortable on account of I wasn’t just sure whether I ought to apologize for making her take her clothes off. And then she tramped on the gas of that little car and I didn’t think much about being embarrassed or about her black lace lingerie. I was only thinking about one thing - how to stay alive long enough to get out of that car.
See, what we really wanted was an ocean liner.
The rest of us probably would have been happy enough to stay in Lehigh County, but Arthur was getting restless.
He was a terrible responsibility, in a way. I suppose there were a hundred thousand people or so left in the country, and not more than forty or fifty of them were like Arthur - I mean if you want to call a man in a prosthetic tank a ‘person.’ But we all did. We’d got pretty used to him. We’d shipped together in the war - and survived together, as a few of the actual fighters did, those who were lucky enough to be underwater or high in the air when the ICBMs landed - and as few civilians did.
I mean there wasn’t much chance for surviving, for anybody who happened to be breathing the open air when it happened. I mean you can do just so much about making a ‘clean’ H-bomb, and if you cut out the long-life fission products, the short-life ones get pretty deadly.
Anyway, there wasn’t much damage, except of course that everybody was dead. All the surface vessels lost their crews. All the population of the cities were gone. And so then, when Arthur slipped on the gangplank coming into Newport News and broke his fool neck, why, we had the whole staff of the Sea Sprite to work on him. I mean what else did the surgeons have to do?