The Long Loud Silence

by Wilson Tucker

  The army owed him a year's pay — maybe more. And sometime during the summer he had passed his thirty-first birthday; there was no knowing what particular day. But he remembered vividly the day of his thirtieth birthday, the day he had gotten blind drunk celebrating his ten years of service. He could have been among those lucky troops on the other side of the river, the safe side. If he hadn't tossed that big one. He could have been over there with them, continuously on the prowl, taking part in the river watch that never ended. And shooting at old women who tried to sneak across under cover of darkness, or who were damned sick and tired of quarantined starvation and wanted to commit suicide. He could have been dumping their bodies in the river, and waiting for the next ones. How long could he have kept at that?

  His tenure on the beach at Salerno was five brief days but he hadn't wanted to stay there. The swing across France, sometimes at a run and sometimes at a crawl, was much better than Salerno but he hadn't wanted that either. No more than he had wanted the past year or thirteen months on the wrong side of the river. But — here he was and here he'd have to stay until the powers beyond saw fit to remove him, the same as at Salerno, the same at the Rhine. The one small difference to the predicament was that he had drunk himself into this one.

  The awakening from that was vivid, too.

  He remembered the dusty, lonely awakening, the firetrap of a hotel, the stabbed woman lying on the bed, the loss of his money and clothes. The bombed and deserted streets of cities had become a common sight but he still remembered that first one, the morning he awoke from the celebration. He had taken his meals on the sidewalk, eating from cans picked up in the grocery store. There had been the crash of a window — and that girl. The one who looted shops; now what in the hell was her name? Not Sally. Sally had been the winter in Florida and the dissolved partnership. Not Bea. Bea was the tiger-tempered three weeks in New Orleans before he struck out for the north. The name of the looter, then? The kid who had laughed at him and proved herself nineteen? She —

  A sound alerted him.

  Gary rolled over on his stomach to bury his beard in the dirt. Slowly and with much care he brought up his rifle, muffling with his clothing the slipping of the safety so that it would make no answering sound in the night.

  He peered into the night around him, straining to pick out a blacker shape moving against the darkness, listening for an incautious footfall or perhaps the odor of stale tobacco. A few near-by crickets continued to chirp, moderate assurance that he was still alone. The sound came again, between him and the river, and he aimed the rifle that way.

  Presently he made out a moving mass not too far away, a mass that divided itself into three shapes as it approached. Three men, prowling the field. He followed them with the gun, drawing a bead on the nearest. They moved along in the night with a stealth born of practice but betraying themselves nonetheless because of their number. He waited. They did not stop, did not make the slightest attempt to inspect the field in which he lay hidden.

  Gary relaxed slightly.

  The three shadows moved closer to the bridge, slowing their steps too late to muffle the noise of movement, and as they reached the concrete abutment where he had lain earlier, they dropped to their hands and knees to become lost to his sight.

  Gary lowered the rifle and began to breathe again. With that last movement he knew their purpose. The trio were scavengers, attracted by the sound of the shot from across the river; they came to the bridge in hopes the body had fallen on this side, or failing that, had left something behind worth salvaging or eating. After their short, fruitless search they would continue on their way.

  He remained watchfully alert until they had gone.

  A man, or a woman or a child for that matter, lived by his wits and his nature. The reversion had come fast in the year following the calamity. Whether that nature lay shallow or deeply buried, it had quickly come to the surface of every man who stayed alive. Wits were of the utmost importance, often marking the dividing line between those who lived and those who did not. On his journey up from the South during the spring and early summer months, Gary had noticed solitary plunderers raiding farmhouses, quietly and at great peril to themselves; and again he had watched a noisy, armed band burn another house to the ground and take what they wanted — at a cost of four or five lives in the mob.

  Somewhere in Alabama a hulking, amiable Negro had shared a poor supper with him and warned him of some of the more dangerous colored men to the immediate north. The Negro then tried to stab him while he slept. And also in Alabama he had stopped to watch a dozen women and children scouring the fields for grasshoppers, sweeping them into gunnysacks they carried for the purpose. Those who couldn't obtain food by force or wile obtained it in another way.

  In the hills along the Kentucky-Tennessee line he had discovered a squad of armed soldiers like himself, a half-dozen men who shared the common disaster of awakening on the wrong side of the river. Their leader, a private who possessed in brawn what he lacked in rank, had invited Gary to join them.

  Gary refused. “You're too much of a target — I heard you coming a mile away. And it's tougher to feed seven than six. Thanks, anyway.”

  “Suit yourself, Jack,” the private told him. He stared at the tanned, well-fed body Gary had acquired on the beach. “Where'd you winter?”

  “Texas,” Gary answered promptly. “Lots of cattle.”

  “I'll keep it in mind. Hey — wait a minute, you can't get across to Texas!”

  “No? Well maybe it was Arkansas — I'm not much good on geography.”

  “Wise guy! Just don't ever cross us again, Jack, if you're packing grub. You don't get a second chance.”

  “That goes double,” Gary replied. “But I'll see you long before you spot me. If you've never been up in the line, soldier, put somebody in charge who has. You won't last long without scouts.”

  He watched them out of sight, working their slow way over the hills to the east. The last man in the troop turned around to wave briefly at him before vanishing over a ridge. Later, Gary wondered if they complained to the private about their back pay.

  Little good it would do any of them to complain, himself included — they'd probably never see it. The high brass would trot out some fancy excuse for not paying up — like A.W.O.L. And there would be a full year shot to hell. Thirteen or even fourteen months perhaps — it had been at least that long since the unforgettable day he had celebrated his thirtieth birthday. More than a full year for certain, for he had already spent most of this summer working his way northward.

  He had no particular destination, nothing but a vague desire to see how far up the Mississippi he could go and still encounter troops. Someone he had met, someone coming downstream from the north had told him the river watch extended all the way to the Canadian border, and that after the river ended — or began rather, in a Minnesota lake — the troops patrolled overland to the border. The Canadian Mounties took over at that point but the risks and chances of slipping between their patrols were useless, for the United States had armed the border and the friendly nationals to the north were no longer permitted entry.

  Gary squirmed on the hard ground and rested the rifle in the crook of his arm. The long, scraggly beard on his face was dirty and itched continually. He wondered again when the quarantine would be lifted. He had seen no exploratory patrols coming across the bridges as yet, testing and sampling as the schoolteacher had said they would. As far as he knew there had been nothing done to reunite the two halves of the country. The river spans remained closed and no one crossed to either side. There had been an occasional plane overhead but it did not attempt contact with anyone on the ground — reconnaissance, he guessed, photographing the towns and perhaps the people who stood in the open to watch it.

  A full year now had passed, and perhaps even more.

  A year. And in the dim beginning he and a thousand like him had supposed it might last a couple of days, perhaps a week or so. What blind and stupid fools th
ey had been. The schoolteacher had been more of a pessimist in his opinions — his early thoughts were that the quarantine would last a month, even two. And now the first full year had passed and he was in the beginning months of another. How much longer would the cursed thing continue? Wasn't a year long enough to wear away the dangers? Wasn't a year much, much too long to be cut off from your own kind?

  The damned brass was responsible.

  The first few drops of rain fell on his upturned face and he waited to see if it were a false alarm, or the beginning of a shower. The rifle was snuggled under his coat to keep it dry. After a few hesitant minutes the rain began in earnest and Gary struggled up out of his earthy bed. Down near the river there were ragged trees and a hedge that would offer brief shelter from the sky.

  He trudged across the field, soggy and dispirited.

  7

  GARY waited with beads of sweat standing out on his neck, knowing how near they were and not liking it. They were behind him and creeping in, moving slowly and without real nerve or daring because of what they were, but coming in nevertheless for he was alone and they were three. He hugged the bulky object between his knees and waited, tense.

  “Don't move!”

  Gary jerked himself up in simulated surprise and then held deathly still, waiting for the man behind the voice to reveal himself. The voice was not too unexpected — shrill, nervous, but still carrying a note of bravado because its owner held a gun at the seated man's back. The man would have two companions. There had to be three of them, although he hadn't been able to distinguish their number by the muted sounds of their slow approach. It had been a clumsy approach and he had followed it with ease, his back turned, his nerves tingling.

  “Throw out that gun!”

  Very carefully he tossed the rifle away from him. There must be three of them. He had spotted the three Scavengers moving along the river during the day, parallel to his route, and he knew that with the coming of darkness they would remain in the vicinity of the bridge. He and they must have unknowingly followed or leap-frogged each other all the way upriver, from where he had first sighted them a week ago.

  The nervous voice spoke again. “Now stand up — easy.”

  He did as he was ordered, climbing slowly to his feet and putting his hands in the air without being told. Instantly a pair of quick, fluttery hands was on his body searching for concealed weapons, for tobacco or food hidden in his pockets. This would be the second of the trio.

  “I haven't got anything,” he said quietly.

  “Shut up!” The bravado was stronger now that Gary was disarmed and at a physical disadvantage.

  The hands went away from his body and the second voice became known. “He's clean, Harry.”

  There were shuffling footsteps to one side and a man slid into view carrying a shotgun. Gary looked at him briefly and recognized the scavenger, Harry. His glance dropped to the shotgun and he stiffened with interest.

  “Now don't get no funny notions,” Harry warned him.

  “That gun,” Gary said, “I never saw one like that before. What is it?”

  “None of your damned business.” The owner of the weapon motioned with its muzzle to the object on the ground. “What's that?”

  “None of your da—” He cut it short as the gun came up on a line with his stomach. “Diving gear,” he explained sulkily.

  “What'cha got it for, anyhow?”

  Gary hesitated only long enough to sow the suspicion. “I found it.”

  “You're a liar!”

  “Well — I picked it up back there a piece. In a store.”

  “Step away from it — over there.”

  Gary took a dozen careful steps to one side and turned to face the three of them. The other two stood there uselessly, equally nervous and apprehensive, watching him and their leader. All of them were in ragged clothing and all smelled offensive from long weeks or months without a bath. They appeared unarmed. The leader held the shotgun on Gary and made a motion with his thumb.

  “Take a look at it, Sully.”

  Sully trotted over to the gear and pawed it, not knowing what it was and therefore not knowing how to examine it with intelligence.

  “It's clean, Harry,” was all he could think to say.

  “Spread it out!” Harry barked. “Let's have a look.”

  The scavenger spread it out, eagerly and clumsily, displaying the few pieces on the ground. Harry advanced and stood over it, looking down.

  “Look's like a gas mask to me.”

  “It's diving gear,” Gary said again.

  “What'cha going to use it for?”

  “I dunno — I just found it.” They did not believe him.

  “Where?” Harry demanded. He kicked at it viciously with a ragged shoe. “What kind of a store would have things like this? And stop lying!”

  “I'm not lying. And don't kick it — you'll break the glass in the eyes.”

  “I'll do any damn thing I want with it, see kid?” He flourished the shotgun and delivered another kick. “I'm boss around here. What kind of a store?”

  “A place back there in town,” Gary said with ill humor and jerked a vague thumb across his shoulder. “A riverman's store — they sell boat supplies and things. They had that in the window and I took it.”

  “Oh, you did? You was expecting poison gas, I suppose? If it's diving gear, what's it for?”

  “I don't know,” Gary explained cautiously. “They use it to go down to boats that are sunk, I guess.”

  “It still looks like a gas mask to me.” Harry peered at him, bristling with suspicion and disbelief. “Was you gonna investigate some sunken boats?”

  “Of course not. I just brought it along.”

  “You're a liar,” Harry repeated.

  Gary didn't answer and the man with the gun lapsed into a disgruntled silence, unable to offer anything further. He kept the weapon trained in the general direction of the soldier's stomach and dropped to one knee, to examine the equipment. Harry tapped the glass eye-pieces with a dirty finger and turned the gear over to finger the straps. Finally he picked up the heavy metal box fastened by a hose to the mouthpiece and shook it. It seemed solid.

  One of the others crept nearer. “Harry…”

  “What?”

  “I know, Harry, I know what he was gonna do.”

  “Well, what?”

  “He was gonna put it on and swim across!”

  The leader shot a startled glance at Gary and then at his companion. He hefted the metal box in his hand. “Not a chance,” he declared after a moment. “They'd see him.”

  “Underwater, Harry, underwater!” Sully danced around in his eagerness to please and tapped the box quickly. “That's air in the box — you know, that condensed air stuff, what do they call it? The kid was gonna swim underwater, Harry.”

  Harry lost his balance and sat down on the ground. The corporal stood quietly, watching him, seeing the idea take hold in the man's dulled imagination. Surprise mixed with a growing greed appeared on his face as he realized what the mask could mean.

  “I'll be damned,” he said slowly. “Now why didn't I think of that!”

  “That's mine,” Gary spoke up quickly to drive the point home. “You can't take—”

  “I'll take any damn thing I want, see kid? Ask these guys who's boss around here.” He got to his feet and advanced on Gary to ram the shotgun in his middle. “Lied to me, didn't you? Figured on swimming across and didn't want me to know it, didn't you? I gotta notion to pull the trigger.”

  Gary said hastily, “I'll swap you for it, Harry. That's a good shotgun you've got there. We can make a deal.”

  “We ain't making no deal, kid. I keep the gun and the mask.” He stepped back a pace. “Sully, come here.”

  The little man was at his side. “Yeah, Harry?”

  “Put that thing on.”

  “Me?” Sully was aghast. “Harry, I can't swim!”

  “Who said you was gonna swim?” Harry shouted at him. �
�Put it on — we gotta test it, don't we?”

  Sully fumbled unhappily with the gear. “I don't know how, Harry, I don't know how. I don't like this thing.”

  “The kid'll show you.” He moved the shotgun. “Go on, put it on him. And you'd better make it right.”

  With open reluctance, Gary took the mask from the skinny man's fingers and slipped it over his head, adjusting the straps on his back and fastening the metal box at his waist. He pulled the fittings tight until the gear was snugly in place. Sully stood there, arms akimbo, looking goggle-eyed through the eye-pieces.

  “Make him breathe.”

  “I fixed it. He is breathing.”

  Harry watched for a moment. “All right — now down to the river.”

  The four of them moved across the field and approached the river, Gary and Sully in the lead with the shotgun held to their backs. The third member of the trio trailed along without a word. The ground became soft and soggy near the stream and they floundered through it, Gary holding onto the skinny one's arm to keep him from falling. He hoped there were no prowlers about to overhear the noise they were making, for his weapons were hidden in the field behind him and the present safety of the four of them depended on the marksmanship of the man with the shotgun. He wanted to get back and get his own weapons before danger could find them. At the water's edge the party halted.

  The river wasn't so wide at this point. Gary flung a glance toward the Minnesota shore but saw no patrolling sentries. They could hide themselves easily in the near-darkness.

  “Lay down in the water,” Harry ordered.

  Sully stared at him through the round glass eyes.

  “Lay down!” He thumped the man's back and Sully fell on his stomach in the water, the muddy surface almost covering him. Harry planted a heavy foot in the middle of his back and pushed him under, holding him there for long minutes.

  Gary waited impatiently to one side, alternately watching the man struggling in the water and the riverbank behind them. They were in an exposed and precarious position, easy prey to anyone who might sneak up on them, and the leader lacked the wits to post a guard. The third and remaining member of the gang stood uselessly a few yards away, watching Sully flailing his arms and legs in the stream.