Alas, Babylon

by Pat Frank

  Florence acknowledged and inquired of Jacksonville: "ANY INCOMERS?"

  JX said curtly: "NO. FYI TAMPA IS OUT. JX EVACU­ATION ORDERED BUT WE STICKING UNTIL CIVIL DEFENSE FOLDS UP HERE."

  Florence turned to her customers behind the counter, started to speak, and was battered by demands: "I was expecting a money order from Chattanooga this morn­ing. Where is it? . . . I want you to get this off for New York right away. . . . Can I send a cable from here? My husband is in London and thinks I'm in Mi­ami and I'm not in Miami at all. What is the name of this place? . . . This is a very important message. I tried to phone my broker but all the lines are tied up. It's a sell order and I want you to get it right out. I'll make it worth your while. . . . I can't even telephone Mount Dora. Can I send a telegram to Mount Dora from here? . . . If I wire Chicago for money, how soon do you think before I'll get an answer? . . . "

  Florence raised her hands. "Please be quiet- That's better. I'm sorry, but I can't take anything except offi­cial defense emergency messages. Anyway, nothing is going through north of Jacksonville."

  She watched the transformation in their faces. They had been grim, determined, irritated. Suddenly, they were only frightened. The woman whose husband was in London murmured, "Nothing north of Jacksonville? Why, that's awful. Do you think . . ."

  "I've just told you all I know," Florence said. "I'm sorry. I can't take any messages. And nothing has come in, nothing for anybody." She pitied them. "Come back in a few hours. Maybe things will be better."

  At a quarter to nine Edgar Quisenberry, the presi­dent of the bank, stepped into the Western Union of­fice. His face was pink and shaven, he was dressed in a new blue suit, white handkerchief peeping from the breast pocket, and he wore a correct dark blue tie. His manner was brisk, confident, and businesslike, which was the way a banker should behave in time of crisis. In his hand he carried a telegram, already typed up at the bank. "Good morning, Miss Wechek," he said, and smiled.

  Florence was surprised. The bank was her best cus­tomer, and yet she rarely saw Edgar Quisenberry, in person, and she never before had seen him smile. "Good morning, Mr. Quisenberry," she said.

  "Really can't say there's anything good about it," Ed­gar said. "Reminds me of Pearl Harbor Day. That bunch in Washington have been caught napping again. I'd like you to send this message for me-" he slid it across the counter - "the telephone seems to be out of order, temporarily, or I would have called."

  She picked up the telegram. It was addressed to the Atlanta branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, and it read: "URGENTLY NEED DIRECTIVE ON HOW TO HANDLE CURRENT SITUATION.".

  Florence said, "I've just received orders not to accept anything but official defense emergency messages, Mr. Quisenberry."

  Edgar's smile disappeared. "There isn't anything more official than the Federal Reserve Bank, Miss We­chek."

  "Well, now I don't know about that, Mr. Quisen­berry."

  "You'd better know, Miss Wechek. Not only is this message official, but in a defense emergency there isn't anything more important than maintaining the financial integrity of the community. You will get this message off right away, Miss Wechek." He looked up at the clock. "It is now thirteen to nine. I'm going to ask for a report on exactly how quickly this is delivered."

  Florence was flustered. She knew Edgar Quisenberry could make a great deal of trouble for her. However, Atlanta was far north of Jacksonville. She said, "We don't have any communication with any points north of Jacksonville, Mr. Quisenberry."

  "That's ridiculous!"

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Quisenberry."

  "Very well." Edgar snatched the telegraph blank from the counter and revised the address. "There. Send it to the Jacksonville sub-branch."

  Hesitating, Florence took the message and said, "I'll see if they'll accept it, Mr. Quisenberry."

  "They'd better. I'll wait."

  She sat down at the teleprinter called in JX, and typed: "I HAVE MESSAGE FOR JX SUB-BRANCH OF FED­ERAL RESERVE. SENDER IS EDGAR QUISENBERRY, PRESI­DENT OF FIRST NATIONAL BANK. WILL YOU TAKE IT?"

  JX replied: "IS IT AN OFFICIAL DEF . . . "

  Florence blinked. For an instant it seemed that some­one had flashed mirrored sunlight into her eyes. At the same instant, the message from JX stopped. "That's funny," she said. "Did you see anything, Mr. Quisen­berry?"

  "Nothing but a little flash of light. Where did it come from?"

  The teleprinter chattered again. "PK TO CIRCUIT. BIG EXPLOSION IN DIRECTION JX. WE CAN SEE MUSHROOM CLOUD." PK meant Palatka, a small town on the St. Johns south of Jacksonville.

  Florence rose and walked to the counter with Edgar's message. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Quisenberry," she said, "but I can't send this. Jacksonville doesn't seem to be there any more."

  Fort Repose's financial structure crumbled in a day. During the winter season the First National was open on Saturday mornings from nine until noon, and Edgar saw no reason why a war should interfere with banking hours. Like almost everyone else, he was awakened by the rumble of the first distant explosions, and he felt a thrill of fear when the siren on the firehouse let loose. He urged his wife, Henrietta, to make breakfast at once while he tried to put through a long distance call to At­lanta. When his phone made strange noises, and the op­erator would not respond, he listened to the scanty, thirty-second local news broadcasts. Hearing nothing that sounded immediately alarming for Fort Repose, he reminded Henrietta that nothing drastic had occurred after Pearl Harbor. On the Monday after Pearl Harbor there had been no runs, and no panic. Nevertheless, he could not force himself to finish his bacon and eggs. He left for the bank fifteen minutes earlier than usual.

  But at the bank nothing was right. The phones weren't working there, either, and at eight-thirty, when his staff should have reported for work, half his, people hadn't shown up. At about the same time he noticed a line of depositors forming at the front entrance, and it was this that made him decide to send a wire to Federal Reserve. He had never received any instructions on what to do in an emergency of this kind, and, as a mat­ter of fact, had never even considered it.

  Western Union's failure to send his telegram worried Edgar somewhat, but he told himself that it was impos­sible that the enemy could have bombed all these big cities at once. It was probably some sort of mechanical trouble that would be cleared up before long, just as repairmen would soon have the Fort Repose phone sys­tem back in working order.

  When the bank's doors opened at nine the people seemed orderly enough. It was true that everyone was withdrawing cash, and nobody making deposits. Edgar wasn't overly worried. There was almost a quarter mil­lion cash on hand, a far higher ratio of cash than regu­lations required, but consistent with his conservative principles.

  In ten minutes Edgar's optimism dwindled. Mrs. Estes, his senior teller, turned over her cage to the bookkeeper and entered his office. "Mr. Quisenberry," she said, "these aren't ordinary withdrawals. These peo­ple are taking out everything - savings accounts and all."

  "No reason for that," Edgar snapped. "They ought to know the bank is sound."

  "May I suggest that we limit withdrawals? Let them take out enough so that each family can buy what's nec­essary in the emergency. In that way we can stay open until noon, and there won't be any panic. It'll protect the merchants, too."

  Edgar was incensed by her effrontery, practically amounting to insubordination. "When you are president of this bank," he said, "then it will be up to you to make such decisions. But let me tell you something, Mrs. Estes. The only way to stop a run on a bank is to shovel out the cash. As soon as you do that, people re­gain confidence and the run stops."

  "It's entirely different today, Mr. Quisenberry. Don't you see that? You have to assume some sort of leader­ship or there's going to be a panic."

  "Mrs. Estes, will you please return to your cage. I'll run the bank."

  This was Edgar's first, and perhaps his vital error.

  Corrigan, the mailman, came in and dropped a packet of letters on
the secretarial desk. Edgar was heartened to see Corrigan. The good old U.S. govern­ment still functioned. "Neither rain nor snow nor dark of night," Edgar said, smiling.

  "This is my last delivery," Corrigan said. "Planes and trains aren't running, and the truck didn't come in from Orlando this morning. This batch is from last night. We can accept outgoing mail but we don't guarantee when it will go out, if ever."

  Corrigan left and wedged himself into a queue before one of the teller windows.

  Paralysis of the United States mail was more of a shock to Edgar Quisenberry than anything that had oc­curred thus far. At last, he confessed to himself the im­possible reality of the day. Realization did not come all at once. It could not, for his mind refused to assimilate it. He attempted to accept the probability that the Treasury in Washington, Wall Street, and Federal Re­serve banks everywhere, all were now radioactive ash. No longer any clearinghouses or correspondent banks. He was sickened by the realization that a great part of his own assets - that is, the assets of his bank - were no longer assets at all. Of what use were Treasury bonds and notes when there was no Treasury? What good were the municipal bonds of Tampa, Jacksonville, and Miami when there were no municipalities? Who would straighten all this out, and how, and when? Who would tell him? Who would know? With all communications out, he could not even confer with fellow bankers in San Marco. He began to sweat. He took out his foun­tain pen and began jotting down figures on a scratch pad. If he could just get everything down in figures, they ought to balance. They always had.

  Edgar's cashier came into the office and said, "We're not cashing any out-of-town checks, are we, Mr. Quis­enberry?"

  "Certainly not! How can we cash out-of-town checks when we don't know whether a town's still there?" Ed­gar flinched, remembering that only yesterday he had cashed a big check for Randolph Bragg on an Omaha bank. Certainly Omaha, right in the center of the coun­try, ought to be safe. Edgar had never given much thought to all the talk about rockets and missiles and such. He always prided himself on keeping his feet firmly on the ground, and examining the facts in a hardheaded, practical manner. And the facts, as he had publicly stated, were that Russia intended to defeat the United States by scaring us into an inflationary, socialistic depression, and not by tossing missiles at us. The country was basically sound and the Russians would never attack a basically sound country. And yet they had attacked, and if they could hit Florida they could hit Omaha - or anywhere.

  His cashier, Mr. Pennyngton, a thin man with a veined nose and nervous stomach, a man given to fret­ting over detail, clasped his hands tightly together as if to prevent his fingers from flying off into space. He asked another question, haltingly: "Mr. Quisenberry, what about travelers checks? Do we cash those?"

  "No sir! Travelers checks are usually redeemed in New York, and between me and you, I don't think there'll be much left of New York."

  "And what about government savings bonds, sir? There are some people in line who want to cash in their bonds."

  Edgar hesitated. To refuse to cash government sav­ings bonds was fiduciary sacrilege so awful that the pos­sibility never before had entered his head. Yet here he was, faced with it. "No," he decided, "we don't cash any bonds. Tell those individuals that we won't cash any bonds until we find out where the government stands, or if."

  The news that First National was refusing to honor travelers checks and government bonds spread through Fort Repose's tiny business section in a few minutes. The merchants, grocers, druggists, the proprietors of specialty shops and filling stations, deduced that if trav­elers checks and government bonds were worthless, then all checks would soon be worthless. Since opening their doors that morning, all sales records had been smashed. Everybody was buying everything, which to the shopkeepers was exhilarating as well as frightening. Most of them, from the first, had been cautious, refus­ing to accept out-of-town checks, except, of course, payroll and annuity and government pension checks, which everyone assumed were always as good as cash. When the bank acted, their first reaction was to regard all paper except currency as probably worthless.

  Their next reaction was to race to the bank and at­tempt to convert their suddenly suspect paper assets into currency.

  Looking out through the office door, Edgar watched the queues in the lobby, hoping they would shorten. In­stead, they lengthened. He called Mr. Pennyngton and together they checked the cash position. Incredibly, in a single hour it had been reduced to $145,000. If contin­ued at this rate, the bank would be stripped of currency by eleven-thirty, and Edgar guessed that the rate of withdrawals would only increase.

  Edgar Quisenberry made his decision. He went into the four tellers' cages and, one by one, removed the cash drawers and carried them into the vault. He then closed and locked the vault. He walked back to the lobby, stepped up on a chair, and raised his hands. "Quiet please," he said.

  At that moment, there were perhaps sixty people in the queues. They had been murmuring. They were si­lent.

  "For the benefit of all depositors, I have been forced to order that the bank be temporarily closed," Edgar said.

  They were all looking up at him. He was relieved to see Cappy Foracre, the Chief of Police, and another of­ficer, turning people away from the door. Apparently, they had sensed there might be trouble. Yet Edgar saw no menace in the faces below. They looked confused and uncomprehending, dumb and ineffectual as cattle barred from the barn at nightfall. He said, "This tempo­rary closing has been ordered by the government as an emergency measure." It was only a white lie. He was quite sure that had he been able to get in touch with Federal Reserve, this is the course that would have been advised.

  His depositors continued to stare at him, as if expect­ing something more. He said, "I can assure you that your savings are safe. Remember, all deposits up to ten thousand dollars are insured by the government. The bank is sound and will be reopened as soon as the emer­gency is over. Thank you."

  He stepped down and returned to his office, careful to maintain a businesslike and dignified attitude. The people trickled out. He kept his staff busy until past noon balancing books and accounts. When all was in order, he advanced each employee a week's salary, in cash, and informed them that he would get in touch with them when they were needed. When all had left, and he was entirely alone, he felt relieved. He had saved the bank. His position was still liquid. Dollars were good, and the bank still had dollars. Since he was the bank, and the bank was his, this meant that he pos­sessed the ready cash to survive personally any forseea­ble period of economic chaos.

  Edgar's calculations were not correct. He had forgot­ten the implacable law of scarcity.

  Like most small towns, Fort Repose's food and drug supply was dependent upon daily or thrice weekly deliv­eries from warehouses in the larger cities. Each day tank trucks replenished its filling stations. For all other merchandise, it was dependent upon shipments by mail, express, and highway freight, from jobbers and manu­facturers elsewhere. With the Red Alert, all these ser­vices halted entirely and at once. Like thousands of other towns and villages not directly seared by war. Fort Re­pose became an island. From that moment, its inhabi­tants would have to subsist on whatever was already within its boundaries, plus what they might scrounge from the countryside.

  Provisions and supplies melted from the shelves. Ga­soline drained steadily from the pumps. Closing of the First National failed to inhibit the buying rush. Before closing, the bank had injected an extra $100,000 in cash into the economy, unevenly distributed. And strangers appeared, eager to trade what was in their wallets for necessities of the moment and the future.

  The people of Fort Repose had no way of knowing it, but establishments on the arterial highways leading down both coasts, and crisscrossing between the large cities, had swiftly been stripped of everything. From the time of the Red Alert, the highways had been jammed with carloads of refugees, seeking asylum they knew not where. The mushroom cloud over Miami emptied Hol­lywood and Fort Lauderdale. The
tourists instinctively headed north on Route 1 and AlA, as frightened birds seek the nest. By nightfall, they would be stopped out side the radioactive shambles of Jacksonville. Sonne fled westward toward Tampa, to discover that Tampa had exploded in their face. The evacuation of Jacksonville, partially accomplished before missiles sought out the Navy Air complex, sent some of its people toward Sa­vannah and Atlanta. Neither city existed. Others sped south, toward Orlando, to meet the evacuees from Or­lando rushing toward the holocaust in Jacksonville. When the authorities in Tallahassee suspected that the fallout from Jacksonville, carried by the east wind, would blanket the state capital, they ordered evacuation. Some from Tallahassee drove south on Route 27, toward Tampa, unaware that Tampa was no longer there.

  This chaos did not result from a breakdown in Civil Defense. It was simply that Civil Defense, as a realistic buffer against thermonuclear war, did not exist. Evacua­tion zones for entire cities had never been publicly an­nounced, out of fear of "spreading alarm." Only the families of military personnel knew what to do, and where to go and assemble. Military secrecy forbade ra­dio identification of those cities already destroyed, since this might be information for the enemy.

  In Florida alone several hundred thousand families were on the move, few with provisions for more than one day and some with nothing at all except a car and money. So of necessity they were voracious and all-consuming as army ants. The roadside shops, restaur­ants, filling stations, bars, and juice stands along the four-lane highways were denuded of stocks, or put out a sign claiming so. Only the souvenir shacks, with their useless pink flamingos and tinted shells, were not picked clean. This is why strangers, swinging off these barren highways, invaded Fort Repose and other little towns off the main traffic streams.

  Those people in Fort Repose who remembered ra­tioning from the second World War also remembered what goods had been in short supply, back in 'forty-two and 'forty-three, and bought accordingly. There were runs on tires, coffee, sugar, cigarettes, butter, the choicer cuts of beef, and nylon stockings. Some proprietors, realizing that these items were vanishing, instituted their own rationing systems.