Alas, Babylon

Chapter 6

Always before, important events and dates had been marked in memory with definite labels, not only such days as Thanksgiving, New Year’s, and Lincoln’s Birthday, but Pearl Harbor Day, D-Day, VE-Day, VJ-Day, Income Tax Day. This December Saturday, ever after, was known simply as The Day. That was sufficient. Everybody remembered exactly what they did and saw and said on The Day. People unconsciously were inclined to split time into two new periods, before The Day, and after The Day. Thus a man might say, “Before The Day I was an automobile dealer. Now I operate a trotline for catfish.” Or a mother might boast, “Oh, yes, Oscar passed his college boards. Of course that was before The Day.” Or a younger mother say, “Hope was born after The Day, I wonder about her teeth.”

This semantic device was not entirely original. Several generations of Southerners had referred to before and after “The War” without being required to explain what war. It seemed incongruous to call The Day a war—Russo-American, East-West, or World War III—because the war really was all over in a single day. Furthermore, nobody in the Western Hemisphere ever saw the face of a human enemy. Very few actually saw an enemy aircraft or submarine, and missiles appeared only on the most sensitive radar screens. Most of those who died in North America saw nothing at all, since they died in bed, in a millisecond slipping from sleep into deeper darkness. So the struggle was not against a human enemy, or for victory. The struggle, for those who survived The Day, was to survive the next.

This truth was not quickly or easily assimilated by Randy Bragg, although he was better prepared for it than most. It was totally outside his experience and without precedent in history.

On The Day itself, whatever else he might be doing, he was never beyond sound of a radio, awaiting the news that ought to accompany war-news of victories or defeats, mobilization, proclamations, declarations, a message from the President, words of leadership, steadfastness and unity. Altogether, there were seven radios in the house. All of them were kept turned on except the clock-radio in Peyton’s room where the child, her eyes lubricated and bandaged, slept with the help of Dan Gunn’s sedatives.

Even when he ran up or down stairs, or discovered imperative duties outside, Randy carried his tiny transistor portable. Twice he left the grounds, once on a buying mission to town, again briefly to visit the McGoverns. The picture window on the river side of the McGovern home had been cracked by concussion, and this, rather than the more terrifying and deadly implications of The Day, had had a traumatic effect on Lavinia. She had been fed sleeping pills and put to bed. Lib and her father were functioning well, even bravely. Randy was relieved. He could not escape his primary duty, which was to his own family, his brother’s wife and children. He could not devote his mind and energy to the protection of two houses at once.

Until mid-afternoon, Randy heard only the quavery and uninformative thirty-second broadcasts from WSMF.

Now he was downstairs, in the dining room with Helen. She had been making an inventory of necessities in the house, discovering a surprising number of items she considered essential, war or no war, which Randy had entirely forgotten. He was eating steak and vegetables—Helen, disapproving of his cannibal sandwiches, had insisted on cooking for him—and washing it down with orange juice. Leaning back in the scarred, massive captain’s chair he relaxed for the first time since dawn. A weariness flowed upward from his throbbing legs. He had slept only two or three hours in the past thirty-six, and he knew that when he finished eating the fatigue would seep through his whole body, and it would be necessary to sleep again. Across the circular, waxed teak table, looking fresh and competent, Helen sipped a Scotch and checked what she called her “must” list. “One of us,” she was saying, “has got to make another trip to town. I have to have detergent for the dishwasher and washing machine, soap powder, paper napkins, toilet paper. We ought to have more candles and I wish I could get my hands on some more old-fashioned kerosene lamps. And, Randy, what about ammunition? I don’t like to sound scary, but—”

The radio, in an interval of silence between the local Conelrad broadcasts, suddenly squealed with an alien and powerful carrier wave. Then they heard a new voice. “This is your national Civil Defense Headquarters….”

The front legs of Randy’s chair hit the floor. He was wide awake again. The voice was familiar, the voice of a network newscaster, not one of the best known New York or Washington correspondents, but still recognizable, a strong and welcome voice connecting them with the world beyond the borders of Timucuan County. It continued:

“All local Conelrad stations will please leave the air now, and whenever they hear this signal. This is an emergency clear channel network. If the signal strength is erratic, do not change stations. It is because the signal is rotated between a number of transmitters in order to prevent bombing by enemy aircraft. The next voice you hear will be that of the Acting Chief Executive of the United States, Mrs. Josephine Vanbruuker-Brown—”

Randy couldn’t believe it. Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown was Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the President’s Cabinet, or had been until this day.

Then they heard her Radcliffe-Boston voice. It was Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown, all right. She said:

“Fellow countrymen. As all of you know by now, at dawn this morning this country, and our allies in the free world, were attacked without warning with thermonuclear and atomic weapons. Many of our great cities have been destroyed. Others have been contaminated, and their evacuation ordered. The toll of innocent lives taken on this new and darker day of infamy cannot as yet even be estimated.”

These first sentences had been clearly and bravely spoken. Now her voice faltered, as if she found it difficult to say what it was now necessary to say. “The very fact that I speak to you as the Chief Executive of the nation must tell you much.”

They heard her sob. “No President,” Helen whispered.

“No Washington,” Randy said. “I guess she was out of Washington, at home, or speaking somewhere, and wherever she lives—”

Randy hushed. Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown was talking again:

“Our reprisal was swift, and, from the reports that have reached this command post, effective. The enemy has received terrible punishment. Several hundred of his missile and air bases, from the Chukchi Peninsula to the Baltic, and from Vladivostok to the Black Sea, have certainly been destroyed. The Navy has sunk or damaged at least a hundred submarines in North American waters.

“The United States has been badly hurt, but is by no means defeated.

“The battle goes on. Our reprisals continue.

“However, further enemy attacks must be expected. There is reason to believe that enemy air forces have not as yet been fully committed. We must be prepared to withstand heavy blows.

“As Chief Executive of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, I hereby declare a state of unlimited national emergency until such time as new elections are held, and Congress reconvenes.

“In the devastated areas, and in those other areas where normal functions of government cannot be carried out, I hereby declare martial law, to be administered by the Army. I appointed Lieutenant General George Hunneker Army Chief of Staff, and Director of Martial Law in the Zone of the Interior, which means within the forty-nine states.

“There have been grave dislocations of communications, of industrial, economic, and financial functions. I declare, effective at this moment, a moratorium on the payment of all debts, rents, taxes, interest, mortgages, insurance claims, and premiums, and all and any other financial obligations for the duration of the emergency.

“From time to time, God willing, I will use these facilities to bring you further information, as it is received, and to issue further decrees as they become necessary. I call upon you to obey the orders of your local Civil Defense directors, state and municipal authorities, and of the military. Do not panic.

“Some of you may have guessed how it happens that I, the head of the most junior of government departments and a woman, have been forced to assume the duties and responsibilities of Chief Executive on this, the most terrible day in our history.

“One of the first targets of the enemy was Washington.

“So far as we have been able to discover at this hour, neither the President nor the Vice President, nor any other Cabinet member, nor the leaders of House or Senate survived. It appears certain that only a small percentage of the members of the Congress escaped. I survive only by chance, because this morning I was in another city, on an inspection tour. I am now in a military command post of relative safety. I have designated this command post Civil Defense Headquarters, as well as temporary seat of government.”

Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown coughed and choked, recovered herself and continued: “With a sick heart, but the resolution to lead the nation to victory and peace, I leave you for the time being.”

The radio hummed for a second, the carrier wave cut off, and then there was silence.

Randy said, “It’s about what I expected, but it’s awful to hear it.”

“Still,” Helen said, “there is a government.”

“I guess that’s some comfort. I wonder what’s left. I mean, what cities are left.”

Helen looked up at Randy. She looked at him, and through him, and far away. Her hands came together on the table, and her fingers intertwined; when she spoke it was in a soft, almost inaudible voice, as if her thoughts were so fragile that they would be shattered by more than a whisper. “Do you think—is it possible—that the military command post she spoke of could be Offutt Field? Do you think she might be down in what we call the Hole, at SAC Headquarters? If she is at SAC, you know what that means, don’t you?”

“It could mean that Mark is okay. But Helen—”

“Yes?

Randy didn’t think it likely that Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown was speaking from Omaha. The odds were against it. There were many headquarters, and the first one the enemy would try to destroy, after Washington itself, was SAC. Mark had feared this, and so did he. He said, “I don’t think we should count on it.”

“I’m not counting on it. I’m just praying. If Mark is alive how long do you think it’ll be before we hear from him?”

“I can’t even guess. But I do know who can make an educated guess. Admiral Hazzard. He lives on the other side of the Henrys’ place. He listens to short wave and keeps up with every thing that goes on. He served a tour in ONI, and later was on the Intelligence staff of the Joint Chiefs—I think that was his last duty before they retired him. So if anybody around here should know what’s happening then old Sam Hazzard should know.”

“Can we see him?”

“Of course we can see him. Any time we want. It’s only a quarter mile. But we can’t leave Peyton alone and I don’t have any idea what time Dan Gunn will get here.” His arms felt wooden, and detached, and his head too heavy for his neck. His chin dropped on his chest. “And I’m so blasted tired, Helen. I feel that if I don’t get a couple of hours of real sleep I’ll go off my rocker. If I don’t get some rest I won’t be much good from here in, and God knows what’ll happen tonight.”

Helen said, “I’m sorry, Randy. Of course you’re groggy. Go on up stairs and get some sleep. I’m going to drive to town. There’s so much stuff we’ve just got to have.”

“Suppose Peyton calls? I’ll never wake up.”

“Ben Franklin will be here. I’ll tell him to wake you up if anything serious happens.”

“Okay. Be careful. Don’t stop for anybody on the way to town.” Randy went upstairs, each step an effort. It was true, he thought, that women had more stamina than men.

Randy decided not actually to take off his clothes and get into bed because once he got under the covers he would never get up. Instead, he took off his shoes and dropped down on the couch in the living room. He stared at the gunrack on the opposite wall. Until very recent years guns had been an important part of living on the Timucuan. Randy guessed they might become important again. He had quite an arsenal. There was the long, old-fashioned 30-40 Krag fitted with sporting sights; the carbine he had carried in Korea, dismantled, and smuggled home; two .22 rifles, one equipped with a scope; a twelve-gauge automatic, and a light, beautifully balanced. twenty-gauge double-barreled shotgun. In the drawer of his bedside table was a .45 automatic and a .22 target pistol hung in a holster in his closet.

Ammo. He had more than he would ever need for the big rifle, the carbine, and the shotguns. But he had only a couple of boxes of .22’s, and he guessed that the .22’s might be the most useful weapons he owned, if economic chaos lasted for a long time, a meat shortage developed, and it became necessary to hunt small game. He rose and went into the hallway and shouted down at the stairwell, “Helen!”

“Yes?” She was at the front door.

“If you get a chance drop in at Beck’s Hardware and buy some twenty-two caliber long-rifle hollow points.”

“Just a second. I’ll write it down on my list. Twenty-two long-rifle hollow points. How many?”

“Ten boxes, if they have them.”

Helen said, “I’ll try. Now, Randy, get some sleep.”

Back on the couch, he closed his eyes, thinking of guns, and hunting. In his father’s youth, this section of Florida had been a hunter’s paradise, with quail, dove, duck, and deer in plenty, and even black bear and a rare panther. Now the quail were scattered and often scarce. Three coveys roamed the grove, and the hammock behind the Henrys’ place. Randy had not shot quail for twelve years. When visitors noticed his gunrack and asked about quail shooting, he always laughed and said, “Those guns are to shoot people who try to shoot my quail.” The quail were more than pets. They were friends, and wonderful to watch, parading across lawn and road in the early morning.

Only the ducks were now truly plentiful in this area, and they were protected by Federal law. Once in a while he shot a rattlesnake in the grove, or a moccasin near the dock. And that was all he shot. Still, there were rabbits and squirrels, and so the .22 ammo might come in handy. A long time ago—he could not have been more than fourteen or fifteen—he remembered hunting deer with his father, and shooting his first deer with buckshot from the double-twenty. His first, and his last, for the deer had not died instantly, and had seemed small and piteous, twitching in the palmetto scrub, until his father had dispatched it with his pistol. He could still see it, and the round, bright red spots on the green fronds. He shivered, and he slept.

Randy awoke in darkness. Graf was barking, and he heard voices downstairs. He turned on a light. It was nine-thirty. He had slept almost four hours. He felt refreshed, and good for whatever might come through the night. He was putting on his shoes when the door opened and Helen came into his apartment, followed by Ben Franklin and Dan Gunn.

“I was just going to wake you up,” Helen said. “Dan is going in to look at Peyton.”

Dan’s eyes were hollowed, and his face carved with fissures of exhaustion. Randy said, “Have you eaten anything today, Dan?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Helen said, “You’ll eat, Doctor, right after you’ve seen Peyton. Do you want me to go in with you?”

“You and Randy can both come in with me. But don’t say anything. Let me do the talking.”

They went into the child’s room. Randy flicked on the overhead light. “Not that one,” Dan said. “I want a dim light at first.” He turned on a lamp on the dressing table.

Peyton’s hands crept out from under the sheet and touched the bandages over her eyes. “Hello,” she said, her voice small and frightened.

“Hello, dear,” Helen said. “Doctor Gunn is here to see you. You remember Doctor Gunn from last year, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes. Hello, Doctor.”

Dan said, “Peyton, I’m going to take the bandage off your eyes. Don’t be surprised if you don’t see anything. There isn’t much light in the room.”

Randy found he was holding his breath. Dan removed the bandage, saying, “Now, don’t rub your eyes.”

Peyton tried to open her eyes. She said, “They’re stuck. They feel all gooey.”

“Sure,” Dan said. He moistened cotton in a borax mixture and wiped Peyton’s eyes gently. “That better?”

Peyton blinked. “Hey, I can see! Well, sort of. Everything looks milky.” Helen moved and Peyton said, “Isn’t that you, Mother?”

“Yes. That’s me.”

“Your face looks like a balloon but I could tell it was you.” Dan smiled at Randy and nodded. She was going to be all right.

He rummaged in his bag and brought out a small kit, a bottle, and applicator, a tube. He said, “Peyton, you can stop worrying now. You’re not going to be blind. In perhaps a week, you’ll be able to see fine. But until then you’ve got to rest your eyes and we’ve got to treat them. This is going to sting a little.”

He held her eyelids open and, his huge hands sure and gentle, applied drops, and an ointment. “Butyn sulphate,” he said. “This is really outside my line, but I remembered that butyn sulphate was what Air-Sea Rescue used for rescued fliers. After floating around in a raft for two or three days, the glare would blind them just as Peyton was blinded. It fixed them up, and it ought to fix her up.”

Dan turned to Helen. “Did you see how I did it?”

“I was watching.”

“I’ll try to get out here at least once a day, but if I don’t make it, you’ll have to do it yourself.”

“I won’t have any trouble. Peyton’s quite brave.”

Peyton said, “Mommy, I’m not. I’m not brave at all. I’m scared all the time. Have you heard from Dad, yet? Do you think Dad’s all right?”

“I’m sure he’s all right, dear,” Helen said: “But we can’t expect to hear right away. All the phones are out, and I suppose the telegraph too.”

“I’m hungry, Mother.”

Helen said, “I’ll bring something right up.”

They turned off the light. Helen went downstairs. Dan Gunn came into Randy’s rooms. He took off his wrinkled jacket and dropped it on a chair and said, “Now I can use a drink.”

Randy mixed a double bourbon. Dan drank half of it in a gulp and said, surprised, “Aren’t you drinking, Randy?”

“No. Don’t feel like I want one.”

“That’s the first good news I’ve heard all day. I’ve already treated two fellows who’ve drunk themselves insensible since morning. You could’ve been the third.”

“Could I?”

“Well, not quite. You react to crisis in the right way. You remember what Toynbee says? His theory of challenge and response applies not only to nations, but to individuals. Some nations and some people melt in the heat of crisis and come apart like fat in the pan. Others meet the challenge and harden. I think you’re going to harden.”

“I’m really not a very hard guy,” Randy said, looking across the room at his guns and thinking, oddly, of the young buck he’d shot when a boy, and how he’d never been able to shoot a deer since that day. To change the subject he said, “You must’ve had a pretty harrowing day.”

Dan drank the second half of his bourbon and water. “I have had such a day as I didn’t think it was possible to have. Seven cardiacs are dead and a couple more will go before morning. Three miscarriages and one of the women died. I don’t know what killed her. I’d put down ‘fright’ on the death certificate if I had time to make out death certificates. Three suicides—one of them was Edgar Quisenberry.”

Randy said, “Edgar—why?”

Dan frowned. “Hard to say. He still had as much as anybody else, or more. He wasn’t organically ill. I’ll refer to Toynbee again. Inability to cope with a sudden change in the environment. He swam in a sea of money, and when money was transmuted back into paper he was left gasping and confused, and he died. You’ve read the history of the ’twenty-nine crash, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Dozens of people killed themselves for the same reason. They created and lived in an environment of paper profits, and when paper returned to paper they had to kill themselves, not realizing that their environment was unnatural and artificial. But it wasn’t the adults that got me down, Randy, it was the babies. Give me another drink, a small one.”

Randy poured another.

“Eight babies today, three of them preemies. I’ve got the preemies in San Marco hospital. I don’t know whether they’ll make it or not. The hospital’s a mess. Cots end to end on every corridor. A good many of them are accident cases, a few gunshot wounds. And all this, mind you, with only three casualties caused directly by the war—three cases of radiation poisoning.”

“Radiation?” Randy said. “Around here?” Suddenly the word had a new and immediate connotation. It was now a sinister word of lingering death, like cancer.

“No. Refugees from Tallahassee. They drove through pretty heavy fallout, I guess. We estimate at the hospital that they received fifty to a hundred roentgens. Anyway, a pretty hefty dose, but not fatal.”

“Are we getting any radiation, do you think?”

Dan considered. “Some, undoubtedly. But I don’t think a dangerous dose. There isn’t a Geiger in town, but there is a dosimeter in the San Marco hospital and I guess we’re getting what San Marco gets. Most of the radioactive particles decay pretty fast, you know. Not cesium or strontium 90 or cobalt or carbon 14. Those will always be with us.”

“Lucky east wind,” Randy said, and then was surprised at his words. The danger of radiation was still there, and might increase. Long before this day scientists had been worried about tests of nuclear weapons, even when conducted in uninhabited areas under rigid controls. Now the danger obviously was infinitely greater, but since there were other and more immediate dangers—dangers that you could see, feel, and hear-radiation had become secondary. He wasn’t thinking of its effect upon future generations. He was concerned with the present. He wasn’t exercised over the fallout blanketing Tallahassee from the attack on Jacksonville. He was worried about Fort Repose. He suspected that this was a necessary mental adjustment to aid self reservation. The exhausted swimmer, struggling to reach shore, isn’t worried about starving to death afterwards.

When Helen called, they sat down to a dinner table that, under the circumstances, seemed incongruous. The meal was only soup, salad, and sandwiches, but Helen had laid the table as meticulously as if Dan Gunn had agreed to stay for a late supper on an ordinary evening. When Ben Franklin sat down Helen said, “Did you wash your hands?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Well, do so.”

And Ben disappeared and returned with his hands washed and hair combed. They listened to the radio as they ate, hearing only the local broadcasts from San Marco at two-minute intervals. Their ears had become dulled to the repetitive, unimportant announcements and warnings, as those who live on the seashore fail to hear the sea. But any fresh news, or break in the routine, instantly alerted and silenced them.

Several times they heard a brief bulletin: “County Civil Defense authorities warn everyone not to drink fresh milk which may have been exposed to fallout. Canned milk, or milk delivered this morning prior to the attack, can be presumed safe.”

Dan Gunn explained that this precaution was probably a little premature. It was designed primarily for the protection of children. Strontium 90, probably the most dangerous of all fallout materials, collected in calcium. It caused bone cancer and leukemia. “In a week or so it can be a real hazard,” he said. “It can’t be a hazard yet, because the cows haven’t had time to ingest strontium 90 in their fodder. Still, the quicker these dangers are broadcast, the more people will be aware of them.”

Helen asked, “What happens to babies?”

“Evaporated or condensed canned milk is the answer—while it lasts. After that, it’s mother’s milk.”

“That will be old-fashioned, won’t it?”

Dan nodded and smiled. “But the mothers will have to be careful of what they eat.” He looked down at the lettuce. “For instance, no greens, or lettuce, if your garden has received fallout. Trouble is, you won’t know, really, whether your ground, or your food, is safe or not. Not without a Geiger counter. We’ll all have to live as best we can, from day to day.”

Ben Franklin looked up at the ceiling, listening. He said, “Listen!”

The others heard it, very faintly.

“A jet,” Ben said. “A fighter, I think.”

The sound faded away. Randy discovered he had been holding his breath. He said, “I guess it’s still going on.”

Helen laid her salad fork on the plate. She had eaten very little. She said, “I have to know what’s happening—I just have to. Can’t we go over to see your retired admiral tonight, Randy?”

“Sure, we can see him. But what about Peyton? We can’t leave her alone.”

Helen looked at Ben Franklin and Ben said, “Is this what I’m going to be—a professional baby-sitter?”

Dan Gunn rose. “I’ve got to get back to town. I’ve got to check in at the clinic and then I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“Why don’t you stay here for the night, Dan?” Randy said.

“I can’t. They’re expecting me at the clinic. And Randy, I brought the emergency kit for you.” He turned to Helen. “It was a wonderful supper. Thanks. I was so hungry I was weak. I didn’t realize it.”

Randy walked him to his car. Dan said, “That poor girl.”

“Peyton?”

“No. Helen. Uncertainty is the worst. She’d be better off if she knew Mark was dead. See you tomorrow, Randy.”

“Yes. Tomorrow.” He walked back to the house and paused on the porch to look at the thermometer and barometer. The barometer was steady, very high. Temperature was down to fifty five. It would get colder tonight. It might go to forty before morning. From across the river, far off, he heard a string of shots.

In this stillness, at night, and across water, the sound of shots carried for miles. He could not tell from whence the sound came, or guess why, but the shots reminded him of a nervous sentry on post cutting loose with his carbine. It sounded like a carbine, or an automatic pistol.

He walked into the house, head down, and went up to his bedroom and pulled on a sweater. He called Ben Franklin to the living room and Ben came in, his mother following. “Ben,” Randy said, “ever shoot a pistol?”

“Only once, on the range at Offutt.”

“What about a rifle?”

“I’ve shot a twenty-two. I’m pretty good with a twenty two.”

“Okay,” Randy said, “I’m going to give you what you’re good at.”

He walked to the gunrack. The Mossberg was fitted with a sixpower scope, and a scope was not good for snap shooting, and hard to use at night. He took down the Remington pump, a weapon with open sights, a present from his father on his thirteenth birthday. He handed it to Ben.

The boy took it, pleased, worked the action and peered into the chamber.

“It’s not loaded now,” Randy said, “but from now on every gun in this house is going to be loaded. I hope we never have to use them but if we do there probably won’t be any time to load up.”

Helen said, “I forgot to tell you, Randy. I couldn’t get ten boxes of the ammunition you wanted but I did get three. They’re somewhere in the kitchen. I’ll find them later.”

“Thanks,” Randy said. He took a package of cartridges out of his ammunition case and handed it to Ben. “You load up your gun, Ben,” he said. “It’s yours now. Never point it at a man unless you intend to shoot him, and never shoot unless you mean to kill. You understand that?”

Ben’s eyes were round and his face sober. “Yes, sir.”

“Okay, Ben. You can baby-sit now. We should be back in an hour.”

When Rear Admiral Hazzard retired he embarked upon what he liked to call “my second life.” He and his wife had prepared carefully for retirement. They had wanted an orange grove to supplement his pension and a body of water upon which he could look and in which he could fish. While still a four-striper he had located this spot on the Timucuan, and bought it for a surprisingly reasonable sum. The real estate agent had carefully explained that the low price included “niggers for neighbors,” meaning the Henrys. At the same time the agent had grumbled at the Braggs, who had allowed the Henrys to buy water-front property in the first place, thereby lowering values along the entire river, or so he said.

The Hazzards first had planted a grove. A few years later they built a comfortable six-room rambler and started landscaping the grounds. Thereafter they lived in the house one month each year, when Sam took his annual leave, trying it and wearing it until it fitted perfectly.

On his sixty-second birthday Sam Hazzard retired, to the relief of a number of his fellow admirals. There were rivalries within, as well as between, the armed services. In the Navy, the rivalry had once been between the battleship and carrier admirals. When it became a rivalry between atomic subs and super-carriers, Hazzard had outspokenly favored the submarines. Since he once had commanded a carrier task force, and never had been a submariner, the carrier admirals regarded his stand as just short of treason. Worse, for years he had claimed that Russia’s most dangerous threat was the terrible combination of submarines equipped with missiles armed with nuclear warheads. Such a theory, if unchallenged, would force the Navy to spend a greater part of its energy and money on anti-submarine warfare. Since this, per se, was defense, and since the Navy’s whole tradition was to take the offensive, Hazzard spent his final years of duty conning a desk.

Two days after his retirement his wife died, so she never really lived in the house on the Timucuan, and she never physically shared his second life. Yet often she seemed close, when he trimmed a shrub she had planted, or when in the evenings he sat alone on the patio, and reached to touch the arm of the chair at his side.

The Admiral discovered there were not enough hours in the day to do all the things that were necessary, and that he wanted to do. There was the citrus, the grounds, experiments with exotic varieties of bananas and papaya, discreet essays to be written for the United States Naval Institute Proceedings and not-so-discreet articles for magazines of general circulation. Sam Hazzard found that the Henrys were extraordinarily convenient neighbors. Malachai tended the grounds and helped design and build the dock. Two-Tone, when in the mood—broke and sober—worked in the grove. The Henry women cleaned, and did his laundry. Preacher Henry was the Admiral’s private fishing guide, which meant that the Admiral consistently caught more and bigger bass than anyone on the Timucuan, and possibly in all of Central Florida.

But Sam Hazzard’s principal hobby was listening to shortwave radio. He was not a ham operator. He had no transmitter. He listened. He did not chatter. He monitored the military frequencies and the foreign broadcasts and, with his enormous background of military and political knowledge, he kept pace with the world outside Fort Repose. Sometimes, perhaps, he was a bit ahead of everyone.

It was ten to eleven when Randy knocked on Admiral Hazzard’s door. It opened immediately. The Admiral was a taut, neatly made man who had weighed 133 when he boxed for the Academy and who weighted 133 now. He was dressed in a white turtleneck sweater, flannels, and boat shoes. A halo of cottony hair encircled his sunburned bald spot. Otherwise, he was not saintly. His nose has been flattened in some long-forgotten brawl in Port Said or Marseilles. His gray eyes, canopied by heavy white brows, were red-rimmed, and angry. For the Admiral, this had been a day of frustration, helplessness, and hatred—hatred for the unimaginative, purblind, selfish fools who had not believed him, and frustration because on this day of supreme danger and need, his lifetime of training and experience was not and could not be put to use. The Admiral said, “I saw your headlights coming down the road. Come in.” He squinted at Helen.

“My sister-in-law, Helen Bragg,” Randy said.

“An evil day to receive a beautiful woman,” The Admiral said, his voice surprisingly mild and mannered to issue from such a pugnacious face. “Come on in to my Combat Plot, and listen to the war, if such a massacre can be called a war.”

He led them to his den. A heavily planked workbench ran along the wall under the windows overlooking the river. On this bench was a large, black, professional-looking shortwave receiver, a steaming coffee-maker, notebooks and pencils. The radio screeched with power, static, interference, and occasional words in the almost unintelligible language of conflict.

On two other walls, cork-covered, were pinned maps—the polar projection and the Eurasian land mass on one wall, a military map of the United States on the other.

A hoarse voice broke through the static: “This is Adelaide Six-Five-One. I am sitting on a skunk at Alpha Romeo Poppa Four. Skunk at Alpha Romeo Poppa Four.”

A different voice replied immediately: “Adelaide Six-Five-One, this is Adelaide. Hold one.”

There was silence for a moment, and then the second voice continued: “Adelaide Six-Five-One-Adelaide. Have relayed your message to Hector. He is busy but will be free in ten to fifteen minutes. Squat on that skunk and wait for Hector.”

“Adelaide from Adelaide Six-Five-One. Charley.”

Helen sat down. For the first time that day, she was showing fatigue. The Admiral said, “Coffee?”

“I’d love a cup,” she said.

Randy said, “Sam, what was that on the radio? Part of the war?”

The Admiral poured coffee before he replied. “A big part of it, for us. Right now I’m tuned to a Navy and Air Force ASW frequency in the five megacycle band.”

“ASW?”

“Anti-submarine warfare. I’ll interpret. A Navy super Connie with a saucer radome has located a skunk—an enemy submarine—at coordinates Alpha Romeo Poppa Four. I happen to know that’s about three hundred miles off Norfolk. The radar picket has called home base—Adelaide—and Adelaide is sending Hector to knock off the skunk. Hector is one of our killer subs. But Hector is presently engaged. When he is free, he will communicate directly with Adelaide Six-Five-One. The plane will give Hector a course and when he is in range Hector will cut loose with a homing torpedo and that will be the end of the skunk. We hope.”

“Who’s winning?” Randy asked, aware that it was a ridiculous question.

“Who’s winning? Nobody’s winning. Cities are dying and ships are sinking and aircraft is going in, but nobody’s winning.”

Helen asked the question she had come to ask. “Did you hear Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown on the radio a while ago?”

“Yes.”

“Where do you think she was speaking from?”

The Admiral walked across the room and looked at the map of the United States. It was covered with acetate overlay and ten or twelve cities were ringed with red-crayon goose eggs, in the way that a unit position is marked on an infantry map. The Admiral scratched the white stubble on his chin and said, “I think Denver. Hunneker, the three-star she named Chief of Staff, was Army representative on NORAD, in Colorado Springs. Chances are that he was in Denver this morning, or she was in Colorado Springs, when the word came through that Washington had been atomized.”

Helen set down her coffee cup. Her fingers trembled. “You’re sure that she couldn’t have been in Omaha?”

“Omaha!” said the Admiral. “That’s the last place she’d be speaking from! You notice that whenever I’ve heard a broadcast, of any kind, that allowed me to identify a city, I ringed it on the map. I’ve heard no amateurs talking from Omaha, and I haven’t heard SAC since the attack. Ordinarily, I can pick up SAC right away. They’re always talking on their single side band transmitters to bases out of the country. Their call sign was ‘Big Fence.’ I haven’t heard ‘Big Fence’ all day on any frequency. And the enemy hates and fears SAC, more, even, than they fear the Navy, I’ll admit. Scratch Omaha.”

Sam Hazzard noticed the effect of his words on Helen’s expression; he recalled that Randy’s brother, her husband, was an Air Force colonel, and he sensed that he had been tactless. “Your husband isn’t in Omaha, is he, Mrs. Bragg?”

“It’s our home.”

“I’m terribly sorry that I said anything.”

A tear was quivering on her cheek. Her first, Randy thought. He felt embarrassed for Sam.

Helen said, “There’s nothing to be sorry about, Admiral. Mark expected Omaha would be hit, and so did I. That’s why I’m here, with the children. But even if Omaha is gone, Mark may still be there, and all right. He had the duty this morning. He was in the Hole.”

“Oh, yes,” the Admiral said. “The Hole. I’ve never been in it, but I’ve heard about it. A tremendous shelter, very deep. He may be perfectly safe. I sincerely hope so.”

“I’m afraid not,” Helen said, “since you haven’t heard any SAC signals.”

“They may have shifted communications or changed code names.” The Admiral looked at his maps. “Besides, I’m only guessing. I’m just playing games with myself, trying to G-two a war with no action reports or intelligence. I do this because I haven’t anything else to do. I just scramble around and move pins and make marks on the maps and try to keep myself from thinking about Sam, Junior. He’s a lieutenant JG with Sixth Fleet in the Med, if Sixth Fleet is still in the Med. I don’t think it is. For the Russkies, it must have been like shooting frogs in a puddle.” He turned to Helen again, “We inhabit the same purgatory, Mrs. Bragg, the dark level of not knowing.”

Randy asked a question. “What are the Russians saying? Can you still get Radio Moscow?”

“I get a station that calls itself Radio Moscow in the twentyfive meter band. But it isn’t Moscow. All the voices on the English-language broadcasts are different so we can be pretty certain Moscow isn’t there any more. However, the Russian leaders all seem to be alive and well, and they issue the kind of statements you’d expect. The very fact that they are alive indicates that they took shelter before it started. They probably aren’t anywhere close to a target area.”

“Couldn’t the President have escaped?”

“He probably had fifteen minutes’ warning. He could have been in a helicopter and away. But in that fifteen minutes he had to make the big decisions, and so my guess is that he deliberately chose to stay in Washington, either at his desk in the White House, or in the Pentagon Command Post. It was the same for the Joint Chiefs, and probably for the Secretarys of Defense and State. As to the other Cabinet members, they probably received it in their sleep, or were just getting up. Do you want to hear something strange?” The Admiral changed the wave length on his receiver. He said, “Now listen.”

All Randy heard was static.

“You didn’t hear anything, did you?” the Admiral said. “Right now, on this band, you ought to be hearing the BBC, Paris, and Bonn. I haven’t heard any of them all day. They must’ve truly clobbered England.”

“Then you do think we’re finished?” Randy said.

“Not at all. SAC may have been able to launch up to fifty percent of its aircraft, counting the planes they always have airborne. And remember that the Navy does have a few missile submarines and the carriers must’ve got in some licks. Also, I’m pretty sure they weren’t able to take out all our SAC bases, including the auxiliaries. For all I know, the enemy may be finished.”

“Doesn’t exactly hearten me.”

The lights went out in the room, the radio died, and at the same time the world outside was illuminated, as at midday. At that instant Randy faced the window and he would always retain, like a color photograph printed on his brain, what he saw—a red fox frozen against the Admiral’s green lawn. It was the first fox he had seen in years.

The white flashed back into a red ball in the southeast. They all knew what it was. It was Orlando, or McCoy Base, or both. It was the power supply for Timucuan County.

Thus the lights went out, and in that moment civilization in Fort Repose retreated a hundred years.

So ended The Day.