"Pack him in on our backs," Groff said.
Chesbro said soothingly, "I don't think that'd be practical, Mickey.
We're all exhausted, we've all had a touch of gas poisoning. We know
more or less where we are and we know which way the town is, but we
don't know what lies between us and the town. We may just circle around
until we drop from exhaustion. There's a better chance of us being
spotted if we stay in this place."
"We're three able-bodied men," Groff said, his temper rising. "We can
take turns. A helicopter's just as likely to spot us on a road as it is
to spot us here. Chesbro, _I'd_ like to sit here and wait to be rescued
too; _I_ don't have a yen to go sloshing through the water with
Starkman on my back either. But I don't think he can wait. We've got to
do everything we can."
"I've got my manuscript to carry," Sharon said apologetically.
"We'll _do_ everything we can," Chesbro said reasonably. "But what's
the sense of endangering all of us uselessly? The trip wouldn't be good
for him. And the women--my wife isn't strong, Mickey, she shouldn't be
subjected to--"
"Arthur," said his wife. "Shut up."
She smiled pleasantly at the gathering. "Who's going to be the first to
pack him?"
* * * * *
Naturally that's me, of course, Dick McCue thought sourly, sliding
in the mud. I'm an athlete, so they figure I'm Superman or somebody.
He missed his footing and nearly fell. They might just as well have
carried him pickaback as on this door, wrenched out of the upper
rooms.... From behind him Mickey Groff called: "Time for you to take
over, Chesbro."
McCue relinquished his end of the improvised stretcher to Artie
Chesbro. His arms felt wrenched out of their sockets, and they had
covered five hundred yards, at the most.
The rain hadn't really stopped, not quite. There was still water to be
wrung out of the scudding stratus, and it came down in little bursts of
droplets. Polly Chesbro stumbled along beside the sick man, trying to
keep the rain off him when it came, ready with a smile when his eyes
jolted open and, for a moment, he stared wonderingly about him.
It was going to be a long trip. They had had to skirt around a sort of
contour line instead of following the road. Polly wondered briefly if
there would come a point where the road dipped down into the streaming
water, and there wasn't any useful hill handy. She didn't know this
road at all; had seen Hebertown only once or twice before last night;
had only the vaguest impression of what the terrain might be like. For
that matter, none of them knew much about the country they were hiking
across. On this Day, her mind inscribed in a crabbed hand, our Party
suffered the Loss of Its two Aboriginals, reposing our Destiny to the
care of the Greatest Guide of All.
Mickey Groff was remembering the Ligurian coast of Italy. The American
bombers had smashed it flat from Anzio to Genoa, and Groff had thought
proudly, a little selfishly, that no such destruction could ever come
to his own country. But this was as bad, at least as bad. They had come
across few houses, but there were ominous objects sailing down stream
that once had been houses and barns and all the other structures man
builds and his enemies sweep away. He tried to reconstruct the terrain
as it must have been before the flood, but there was a rightness about
the broad sheets of water that made it impossible. They were there;
they must always have been there. Why did people build their homes down
near the water, anyhow? Was a burbling brook in the back yard worth
having if suddenly, unpredictably, it could destroy your home?
He wondered if the War Department was able to look itself in the face
that morning, remembering the careful charts the colonels had shown
him that called for dispersal, concealment, removal of such essential
industries as his own. Suppose, they had said gravely, New York should
take a bomb; you'd be out of commission; you must move out of the
city to where you can be safe, since the production of your shop is
of great importance to the country's defense. And they had showed him
the maps, marked "Secret," of the instrument plants in Connecticut,
the explosives factories in the Delaware valley, the electronics
laboratories along the Jersey streams.
Two-forty-eight, two-forty-nine, two-fifty. "All right, Dick," he told
the golf pro, "you can take over for a while." He surrendered the back
end of the stretcher and looked around.
"Wait a minute!" he ordered sharply. "What's that up there?"
There was a private dirt road slanting down toward them, and something
was moving. They all set up a waving and bellowing, and a group of
horsemen appeared on the rim of the highway and came toward them, three
or four of them, picking their way through the mud.
"The United States Cavalry," said Polly Chesbro clearly, "is charging
to the rescue."
* * * * *
Two of the riders were men in chaps and sombreros and the third was
a thirteen-year-old girl. They goggled unbelievingly at the litter
bearers. They were from a dude ranch up in the hills, and they were on
their way to Hebertown to complain because their lights and phone were
off.
"Jesus! We knew there was some rain last night, but we never had any
idea--" The cowboys stared at each other.
"How about giving us a hand?" Mickey Groff requested. "This man's in
bad shape. If we don't get him to a doctor I don't think he'll make it."
The cowboys scratched their heads for a while, and finally Mickey Groff
showed them how to sling the stretcher between two of the horses. "Hold
them tight and walk them slow," he ordered, putting a cowboy at the
head of each horse. "The ladies can take turns riding the other horse,
I guess."
But he got no customers for that; Mrs. Goudeket was scandalized, and
the young girl was too excited, and Polly Chesbro wouldn't get that
far from the sick man. Finally Artie Chesbro said off-handedly, "Hell,
no sense in _wasting_ the horse." He was in the saddle before anybody
could object.
It didn't make things good, but it made them better. Mickey Groff,
walking ahead, reasoned that he had disposed his forces well.
According to the cowboys, they had a good three miles to go on the
road--_if_ they could follow the road even approximately. An hour and
a half--double it because of the weather--maybe double it again, he
thought worriedly, if there were too many detours. He looked back at
the motionless figure between the horses. That was stretching it, but
there was a chance the old man might hang on that long.
Maybe the cowboys' first idea--slinging the old man across a saddle
bow and galloping away--was the right one after all. But no; they had
to stick together, at least until they found out if the road would
take them all the way. And besides, thought Mickey Groff, aware of his
limitations but also aware that he had succeeded to the command of the
party, you have to make up your mind and stick to it.
The girl came prancing up beside him. "You look like a good guy," she
commented. "Here."
He took the bottle from her; it was a pocket-sized half-pint of
whiskey. It was like a gift from God. He took two measured swallows and
put the cap back on; he could feel it biting in his throat, invading
the back of his nose, spreading warmly through his chest.
"God bless you," he told the girl sincerely.
"Sure. But don't tell on Charley, will you? I knew he had it, but if
Mrs. Koontz ever finds out she'll pulverize him." He started to hand
the bottle back to her. "No, you keep it. You might want some more, and
if Charley gets his hands on it again, good-by whiskey."
"Thanks." He slipped it into his pocket; then, remembering the rest of
the party, turned and glanced at them. McCue was plodding along head
down; Chesbro was glaring at him; Mrs. Goudeket was watching but she
caught his eye, smiled faintly and shook her head. Good enough, thought
Mickey Groff; we'll save what's left. He tried to remember what the
current position was on giving liquor to old men dying of pneumonia. If
it looks bad enough, he decided, we'll try giving him a shot; otherwise
better not.
The girl was chattering: "Won't the old lady plotz when she hears
about all this? That joker on the horse back there says he thinks the
whole town's washed away."
"I doubt it."
The girl was disappointed. "Well," she said, "I bet there's going to
be plenty of excitement in Hebertown, anyway. I always wanted to be a
nurse--you know, not in a hospital, a Red Cross nurse or something like
that, going away in the wars and all like that. My sister was a nurse's
aide, only they wouldn't let me in because I was too young."
"Eh? Nurse?" He glanced at her quickly. "Know anything about pneumonia
cases?"
"Sure. Penicillin, keep them warm, bed rest--"
"That's enough. Thanks." It had been a hope, but looking at her killed
hope.
They plodded on and came to a blacktop. "I know where we are," one of
the phony cowboys said. "Straight on in to Hebertown, two miles. It's a
ridge road; it ought to be clear sailing."
A car was buzzing in the distance; frantically they flagged it down
as it closed up on them. It was a late-model suburban with a New York
plate in the rear, man and wife in the front seat, three kids rioting
in the back. They all looked very strange to Mickey Groff, and he
realized at last what the strangeness consisted of. They were clean,
fed and rested.
"What do you want?" the man asked from behind the wheel, a little
nervously.
_What did they want._ Penicillin. Beds. Warmth. Coffee.
"Take us into town, will you?" Mickey Groff said wearily.
The man hit the lock button on his door and cranked the window up a
little. "It's only a little way on," he said evasively. "We aren't
going any place special, we just heard about it on the radio and
thought we'd come and see what was up--"
He hit the gas and the car zoomed on.
"Sightseers," Mrs. Goudeket said, wide-eyed. "God in Heaven,
sightseers."
Mrs. Chesbro was swearing.
Arthur Chesbro was swearing and trying to remember what the
license-plate numerals were.
After a while they trudged on, there being nothing else to do.
A helicopter came from the west as they marched, dipped low above
them and hovered for a moment while they yelled and waved. The pilot
pointed back into the body of the chopper with big exaggerated gestures
after they had pointed at the burgess on his litter. Then he buzzed on
eastward.
Mickey Groff said: "I guess he was telling us he was full up." He
rubbed his back for a moment. "Maybe he meant he'll be back for us."
But he didn't really think so, and the helicopter didn't come back
their way.