The officers nodded. 'Absolutely, Mr President,' said one.
The President clasped his hands behind his back.
'That is indeed fortunate. If we get the timing right we may have the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Private Armstrong — that will be all. Gentlemen, we have a battle plan to consider.'
Jimmy tramped unhappily away from the White House. He had tried to mislead them, but it hadn't worked. From what he had overheard, from the maps and the pins stuck into them, it was clear that the President intended to lead his army into New York. But why were they discussing a battle plan? The plague had devastated all of the major population centres — who was there left to fight? And if a battle was brewing in New York, was the Titanic sailing right into it? And if the minister was really a soldier, what on earth was he up to?
Thought processes are rarely linear — they're a jumble of ideas and questions and half-formed answers, and Jimmy was trying to puzzle his way out of this maze when a voice to his right made him jump.
'Say, friend, you got a light?'
A boy of about twelve years was sitting on a bench outside one of the administration buildings, a cigarette in one hand and a lighter, which he was repeatedly flicking, in the other.
'Sorry, no,' said Jimmy.
'Damn,' said the boy.
Jimmy would have walked on, but in pausing to answer he'd caught a glimpse through the open door beside the boy and spotted an array of radio equipment set against the far wall.
'Are you not a bit young to be smoking?' Jimmy asked, but in a friendly way.
The boy shrugged. 'Am I not a bit young to be carrying a gun and learning how to kill people with my bare hands?' he asked. 'Times have changed, my friend.'
Jimmy smiled. 'Suppose they have.' He nodded through the open door. 'You the radio man?'
'One of them. I've pulled the night shift.'
'Cool.'
'You into radio?'
'A bit, yeah. I was on the new Titanic for a while, hung around with the radio operators.'
He hadn't, actually. But he had interviewed them for a feature article in the Times. Now he was desperately trying to remember what he'd learned.
'Titanic? Excellent. We had an amateur radio club in school — not very fashionable, but it got me out of gym. You want to take a look?' Jimmy nodded enthusiastically. The boy led him inside. 'They call me Ham, by the way.'
'Jimmy. Or Frankie. Whatever you like.'
The radio equipment on the Titanic had been state of the art. This stuff looked like it had been rescued from a museum.
'So is there much traffic out there?' Jimmy asked, bending to examine the equipment.
Ham pulled out a chair and sat down; he pulled on a pair of earphones, but secured them just above his ears so he could chat. 'Very little — mostly it's just communication with the other forts.'
Jimmy looked at him in surprise. 'Other forts? I thought there was only Fort Hope.'
'Oh no — there's five others. Fort Perry is the closest — it's about thirty miles away. They're all in a kind of semi-circle around New York. We're hoping to establish telephone communication soon, but in the meantime radio's the best we have. But we also use this little nightmare a lot.' He tapped a small machine beside the main radio transmitter.
'Morse code.'
'You know about Morse? Not many kids know about it.'
'I'm no expert, but I know a bit.'
He knew a reasonable amount, again from writing about it for the Times. It was a nearly two-hundred- year-old method of transmitting messages, using a series of dots and dashes to represent letters and numerals and punctuation. These short electrical pulses were originally sent along a wire between two points by being tapped into a hand-operated device called a telegraph key, but after the invention of radio these were transmitted over the airwaves as a high-pitched audio tone — it was, he recalled, the only form of digital communication that could be used without a computer, which made it ideal for emergency signalling. Jimmy had never physically written or sent a message by Morse code, but he had watched it being done. And now Ham was busy sending one himself.
'This is what I have to do all night,' he moaned. 'Tap tap tap — it drives me mad, but they insist on it. And now I can't even light a cigarette to see me through.'
'What's the big important message? And who's it going to?'
'It's going to anyone who can pick it up, my friend — we broadcast on all the old amateur radio bands — LF, MF, HF, UHF and VHF — and what we're basically saying is don't give up, the President is alive and rebuilding civilisation. The catch is that we don't give our location. That's the way he wants it done — he thinks that only the best people will find their way here. But he also gets idiots like me.' Ham sucked on his unlit cigarette. 'I'm not convinced that one single person has ever heard it. I mean, who the hell listens to Morse code these days?'
Ham began to tap in the coded message. There was a chart showing the Morse letters and numerals pinned above the transmitter, but Ham didn't refer to it once.
'Do you not have another lighter, or matches?' Jimmy asked.
'Yeah, but if I leave my post, they'll shoot me.'
'Seriously?'
'Well, I don't really want to find out.'
'What if I stand guard and you nip out?'
His eyes brightened considerably. 'I shouldn't.'
'If anyone looks in the window, I'll be sitting in your seat, earphones on, pretending to transmit.'
'I . . . really shouldn't . . .' He took the cigarette out of his mouth and rolled it back and forth between his fingers. 'I smoke seventy-five of these a day. My dad got me started. I was the only one in my class at school who smoked. They all died of the plague, and it never touched me. Far as I'm concerned, smoking saved my life.' He took a deep breath — then coughed raggedly. 'Sorry . . . OK, deal — my barracks is just around the corner. I'll be like, two minutes, tops.'
'No problem,' said Jimmy.
Ham hesitated. 'So why exactly are you helping me out?'
'Because soldiers help each other. We're all in this together now, aren't we?'
Ham nodded enthusiastically. 'We sure are, friend.'
Ham hurried to the door while Jimmy took his seat at the transmitter and slipped on the earphones. He gave Ham the thumbs-up and the young radio operator winked and hurried out, closing the door firmly behind him.
Jimmy immediately stood and ripped the Morse chart off the wall. He propped it up in front of him and with his left hand gripped the top of the telegraph key and began to tap out his message as his eyes repeatedly flicked up and then down again . . .
— . . . .— . . . .—.. .. ...— . . . —.—.— —
He was tapping as fast as he could, but he was still frustratingly slow. He couldn't be completely sure that he got the dots and dashes completely right. As soon as he finished his short message he began to send it again.
—... .— . . . . .—.. .. ...— . . . —.—.— —
He was just starting through it a third time...
—... .—
. . . when rapid footsteps announced Ham's return. Jimmy jumped up, stuck the Morse chart back on the wall and rapidly sat again just as the door opened. Ham entered, slightly out of breath, and closed the door behind him. He slipped his cigarette between his lips, removed a shiny red lighter from his pocket, tossed it up into the air, caught it, flicked it and lit up. He inhaled deeply, held it for ten seconds, then exhaled.