He suddenly felt quite emotional. He hadn't thought of his mum in such a long time. He had no idea if she was dead or alive.
'Name?'
The President still hadn't turned to face him.
'Jimmy. James. Jimmy Armstrong.'
He could hear a little quiver in his own voice.
'Jimmy Armstrong,' the President repeated. 'Where are you from, Jimmy?'
'Ahm . . . Ireland, I suppose.'
'You're a long way from home.'
'Yes, sir, Mr President.'
'How come?' The President continued to write.
'I . . . uhm . . . stowed away on a ship.'
'That was very . . . enterprising of you.'
'Not really, Mr . . . uhm, President. I, uh, did it by accident.'
A low chuckle came from the man in the chair, which now began to revolve towards him.
Jimmy gulped. Just me and the . . .
Jimmy had seen the President on TV. He was in his late forties, he was tall and thin. But this President was an old man. In fact, now that he looked at him properly, he was the old man, the old guy Jimmy had listened to on the makeshift stage in the bar back at Tucker's Hole. The old man who'd told a mesmerised audience about the President's train and how wonderful it was. Except, he didn't look so old any more — there was nothing decrepit or stooped about him. In fact, he positively glowed with health. But he was still definitely the old man from Tucker's Hole.
Jimmy just stared at him furiously. 'You are not the President.'
The old man clasped his hands in his lap. 'Yes, I am.'
'No you're not,' Jimmy snapped. 'I've seen him. He's twenty years younger than you. Thirty.'
'I'm not arguing with you, Jimmy.'
'Good. You'd lose.'
The old man laughed. 'You're not afraid of your own voice, are you Jimmy? Have you considered the fact that we are on a train full of soldiers, every one of them more than willing to put a bullet in your brain if I order them to?'
Jimmy bit his lip. He hadn't actually thought about the consequences of opening his mouth. He rarely did.
'I thought not.' The old man nodded to himself. 'Well,' he continued, 'perhaps a little bit of anger is no bad thing. Shows you have spirit. Let me put it another way for you. I am not the President of the United States that you may remember. My name is Daniel Blackthorne, and before this great plague I was a senator representing the great state of Nebraska. I was in Washington when the plague came, and then the President disappeared — dead, as far as anyone knows — so power passed to the next in line, and then he died, and so it went, passing on down the line until it got to me. I am the last elected official in these United States. So yes, James Armstrong, as far as you are concerned, I am the President of the United States, and it's my job to rebuild them. That's what I'm doing.'
Jimmy had no reason to doubt what this Daniel Blackthorne was saying. But it didn't explain why he was riding around in a train with a bunch of kids with guns, or why he had appeared on that stage in the village pretending that he was a feeble old man.
So he asked him.
Blackthorne rose from his chair and came towards him. Jimmy fought the urge to take a step or twelve backwards. The President, now that he was right up close, towered over him. He looked down at Jimmy and clasped his shoulders. His gaze was intense.
'Jimmy, I go from settlement to settlement and I pretend to be a passing traveller bringing news. But what I'm really trying to do is inspire people, get them thinking. America wasn't built by accountants and civil servants and people who run grooming parlours for dogs. It was built by heroes, it was built by adventurers who spat in the eyes of fear, who didn't know when to stop trying, who never considered giving up. And that's the problem, Jimmy, people have given up. They sit in these ramshackle villages moaning and whining and waiting to be rescued, and it's just not going to happen. I'm building something new, Jimmy, but I can't take everyone with me. I want people with imagination and ambition and vision, I want people prepared to take a chance. So I sow the seeds. I tell them about the President, I tell them about the train. And if they're brave enough and bright enough, they'll work out how to find me. People like you, son, kids like you who still have those kinds of guts.' He squeezed Jimmy's shoulders and smiled benevolently. 'So that's my pitch, son. I'm building these United States from the bottom up, and I need good men to help me. It'll be hard. It'll be dangerous. But by God, it'll be an adventure!'
It was an inspiring speech, delivered passionately.
It prompted a hundred jumbled thoughts.
But Jimmy didn't have time to think them all through.
All he was certain of was that he was being held prisoner on a train full of heavily-armed kids who were under the control of the nut who thought he was the President of the United States.
'So, what do you say, Jimmy, are you with me?'
'Yes, sir, Mr President!'
12
Maggots
After a long, sleepless night — she would have tossed and turned, but her bandaged arm and IV drip prevented her from doing either — at the first hint of dawn light Claire finally rang the bell beside her bed and demanded of the bleary-eyed nurse who eventually arrived that Dr Hill come and release her from her purgatory. By the time he arrived, an hour later, Claire was fuming. She had already phoned her dad upstairs to find out exactly why she was being kept a virtual prisoner.
'Doesn't he know who I am?' she had demanded.
'I think he has a fair idea,' her father responded, and hung up.
She wasn't just fuming about being kept in the hospital wing when she was obviously completely fine. She was fuming because the Titanic had dropped anchor off its next port of call; passengers were shortly going to be dropped ashore, others picked up, and the usual medical and scavenging teams would do their jobs as well. She wanted to go with them. She wanted to search for Jimmy. Claire was also fuming because the nurse, in a misguided attempt to keep her nice and calm, had given her a copy of the Titanic Times to read. Ordinarily this might have worked — but the copy was two days old. Claire had immediately demanded that morning's edition — the Times was printed late at night, and delivered in the early hours so that passengers and crew could read it over breakfast — only to be told that there wasn't one. Claire had told her that there must be and had ordered her to go and get one. The nurse had given her a stern look and spun on her heel. She returned ten minutes later and announced with no little pleasure that there was no Titanic Times that morning, that it hadn't been printed and that no one had any idea when the next edition might appear.
At this point Dr Hill arrived. He endured a five- minute rant while examining Claire's charts. Then he endured another five minutes of it while he carefully unwrapped her bandages and examined her wound.
'This is ridiculous!' Claire complained. 'You can't keep me here.'
'Actually,' said Dr Hill, 'we have restraints and a nice straitjacket, so we can. We just choose not to. But I'd very much prefer it if you would stay in here — nice and quiet and stationary, so your arm has a chance to recover.'
Claire was having none of it. 'I'm fine. I need out of here. I need to go ashore.'
'No.'
'What do you mean no?'
'What I say.'
'But I'm better. Wasn't I able to walk all the way up to see Captain Smith last night?'
'Yes you were. But then you had to be brought back here on a stretcher.'