Alas, Babylon

Chapter 11

Elizabeth McGovern and Randolph Bragg were married at noon that Easter Sunday. The bride wore the same white silk dress she had worn to the sunrise service in Marines Park. She was unsteady on high heels, for she had not worn heels since The Day.

The groom wore his Class A uniform with the bold patch of the First Cavalry Division on his arm and the ribbons of the Korean War and Bronze Star on his chest, along with the blue badge of the combat infantryman. He wore the uniform not because of the wedding but because it was required in the radioed orders to reservists assuming active duty, such as ambushing and killing highwaymen, which he presently intended to do.

The bride was given away by her father, W. Foxworth McGovern, the retired Cleveland manufacturer. Bill McGovern, who had been helping Malachai cut gun ports in the thin steel sides and rear doors of the grocery truck, wore greasy dungarees. A chisel had slipped and one of his hands was bleeding.

The best man was Doctor Daniel Gu

Among the guests was Rear Admiral Samuel P. Hazzard (USN, retired) who wore khaki shorts, a khaki hunting vest bulging with buckshot shells, and during the ceremony held his gold braided cap across his stomach.

The matron-of-honor was Mrs. Helen Bragg, the presumed widow of Colonel Mark Bragg. She furnished the wedding ring, stripping it from her own finger.

The ceremony was held in the high-ceilinged parlor of the Bragg house. The marriage was performed by the Reverend Clarence Henry, pastor emeritus of the Afro-Repose Baptist Church.

Randy was certain it was perfectly legal. It was performed under his Order No. 4, written that morning in Sam Hazzard’s house.

Malachai and Bill McGovern had been working on the truck, and Randy was breakfasting with Dan Gu

Randy, raging for immediate retaliation, had raced to the Admiral’s house with the news. The Admiral’s experience in meeting the unpredictable and brutish pranks of war had saved them from premature or imprudent action. “Wasn’t this sort of thing exactly what we expected?” Sam Hazzard asked.

“I suppose so, but dammit.”

“I don’t think we should change our plans by so much as a minute. If we put out with the truck now we’ll just burn fuel for nothing. These people operate like beasts, Randy. Having gorged themselves in the night they sleep through the mornings, perhaps through the whole day.”

Randy, recognizing the sense of this, had calmed himself. They had talked of the wedding, and the legal problems attending martial law, and the Admiral had helped him in framing Order No. 4. It read:

Until county offices resume operations and normal communications are reestablished between this town and the Timucuan County seat, the following regulations will govern marriages and births in Fort Repose.

1. Marriages can be performed by any ordained minister. Marriage licenses and health certificates are waived.

2. Marriage certificates will be issued by the presiding minister, and will be valid when signed by the contracting parties, the minister, and two witnesses.

3. So that a permanent record may be preserved, a copy of the certificate will be left at the Fort Repose Library. I designate Librarian Alice Cooksey custodian of these records. I designate Miss Florence Wechek her deputy.

4. Birth records, signed by the attending physician or midwife, or by the mother and any witnesses if medical attention is unavailable, will be deposited in the same ma

One copy of this order is to be kept with the records in the library. This order is retroactive to The Day, so that any births or marriages that have occurred since The Day may be properly recorded.

Randy signed Order No. 4 and said, “Well, when the rules are off you make your own.”

“This is a good one,” Sam Hazzard said. “I wonder what they’re doing elsewhere?”

“Elsewhere?”

“There must be hundreds of towns in the same fix we’re in local authority collapsed or inoperative, communications out. I fancy that elsewhere they’re not doing so good.”

“How could they be worse?” Randy was thinking of what had happened to Dan Gu

“They could be,” the Admiral said, positively.

Randy had gone to see Preacher next. “Preacher,” he said, “you’re an ordained minister, aren’t you?”

“I sure am,” Preacher said. “I am not only ordained but in my church I can ordain people.”

“Would you mind marrying Miss McGovern and me? We don’t have a regular courthouse license, naturally, but I have fixed it up to make it legal under martial law.”

“Miss McGovern told me you was going to wed, Mister Randy. I will be happy to marry you. I don’t need papers. I’ve joined maybe a thousand pairs in my life. Some had papers, some didn’t. Some stuck, some didn’t. The papers didn’t make the difference. It’s the people, not the papers.”

So they were married, in a room filled with flowers of the season and furniture of less bitter centuries and people of all ages. Randy produced the certificate and when Preacher signed it he signed “Rev. Clarence Henry,” and Randy realized that this was the first time he had ever known Preacher’s full name although Preacher had always been there.

Randy had found a large-scale county map in his desk and they had pla

The map, with two crosses to mark where the highwaymen had stopped Dan Gu

On his hands and knees, his seagoing cap pushed back on his pink head, the Admiral murmured, “ `Give me a fast ship for I intend to go in harm’s way’-Paul Jones. Remember, Randy, this should be a very slow ship. The slower we go the less gas we use and the more chance they have of spotting us.”

Randy was going to drive. Malachai, Sam Hazzard, and Bill McGovern were to be concealed in the body of the truck. Randy said, “I don’t like to drive slow but I can. I think about twenty miles an hour is right. Anything slower would look suspicious.”

He checked the weapons. They were taking everything that might be handy-the automatic sixteen for the Admiral and the double twenty for Bill McGovern. Malachai would have the carbine. The big Krag, long as a Kentucky squirrel rifle and as unwieldy, would be in reserve. From Dan’s description of how the highwaymen had acted, Randy guessed that the fire fight, when it came, would be close in, and the shotguns of greater value than the rifles. He himself, alone behind the wheel, would have only the .45 automatic on the seat beside him. That, and the hunting knife which was almost, but not quite, razor sharp, in a sheath at his belt.