We Who Survived. Sterling Noel
that you loved them!
I took Marge in my arms and I told her. I kissed her a couple of times and I told her some more. Finally she sighed deeply and she said yes, we could go in now and stand before the DW-three.
Marge and I walked into the library arm in arm and Libby and Elaine went to rouse the rest of the house and get them all there as witnesses. There was a lot of noise and confusion about it and finally all were assembled, even Steve and Cora, who actually looked sick by this time, and the two Arabs.
Marge and I went through the proscribed formula, and in less than two minutes we were man and wife. The men kissed Marge and the women kissed me and then we adjourned to the living room where champagne and cakes were brought out. Marge practically glowed with happiness, and I couldn’t get rid of the silly grin on my face. I didn’t know why I felt the way I did. I guess I really loved her. I guess I began to realize it for the first time. Then I suddenly knew, as I thought about this, that I had no more doubts—that Marge was the girl for me once and for always. . . . I was awfully late to become aware of these feelings and this knowledge, I concede.
The party lasted until five minutes after two. Cora had gone back up to bed, but Steve remained with us. All the rest were gathered in the big living room and it was a gala affair, with music coming from the amplifiers and the wine flowing freely. Our spirits were all up and there were laughter and happy voices all about us. Marge and I stood close together in a corner, drinking our champagne out of the same glass and telling each other many small intimate confidences.
Then at 2:05 A.M. Bob Jordan announced the time. Suddenly there was a pall over the room.
14
THE GROUP WENT OUT on the porch. The temperature had nose-dived twenty degrees since midnight and was down to 18 above zero. Gabe Harrow stood with a chronometer in his hand and called off the minutes.
“Two-eight,” he announced. “Temperature eighteen, wind about five knots from the West.”
Marge was shivering and I put my arm around her. “I’d better get my jacket,” she said.
“I’ll get it for you.”
“It’s in the hall closet—it’s black and has a beaver hood.”
I went inside and found the jacket, then hurried out.
Gabe intoned, “Two-eleven, temperature steady at eighteen. Wind freshening. About eight or nine knots, I would judge.”
“Thanks, darling,” said Marge as I helped her into the jacket. I kissed her and she clung to me closely.
“Two-twelve,” said Gabe. “Temperature seventeen. Wind at thirty knots at least. . . . My God it’s coming up fast!”
“The next announcement is it,” said Elaine.
We all waited without sound or movement. Marge dug her nails into my arm and I could feel her body quivering.
“Two-thirteen,” called Gabe. “No sign of snow. Temperature at sixteen. Wind now blowing half a gale.”
“No snow!” exclaimed Jack Osborne.
There was genera! movement in the crowd. Alice Wernecke said in a high voice, “Stop it, Tony!”
Suddenly several voices called in unison, “There it is! Snow!”
“Two thirteen and a half,” said Gabe loudly. “Well, Jack, we were thirty seconds off. . . . Must have been the wind.”
15
THE WIND and the snow increased steadily for the next two hours, and by 4:15 A.M. it was blowing a full gale and the snow was so thick visibility was down to a few feet. The temperature had sunk to four above zero but Marge and I, snug in our first-floor master bedroom which had been turned over to us for our wedding night by the Harrows, lay in each other’s arms and talked the night through without a care on our minds.
It was the most delightful night I had ever spent, and the joy of it and the nights immediately to follow was so pervading that it took both of us several days before we could be aware of the bleak, forbidding world of storm and violence around us. I would say that it was not until the following Tuesday morning that Marge and I became conscious of the depressed spirits of the Harrow group and took the first good look about us since Saturday night at the external world, which was slowly being wrapped in death.
On Tuesday morning the snow measured 11 feet officially and had drifted well over the second story windows on three sides of the farmhouse. Two Cory heat converters had been kept working at the front of the house, so the snow was clear there in a wide path that extended to the two barns and the jetshield. Both Marge and I joined the workers at the West Barn. We helped them to move the lomax alloy beams to the East Barn and the house, where the interior reinforcements already had begun under the direction of Bill Wernecke.
We were welcomed to this group by Jack Osborne, Rance Goodrich and Steve Engles. Rance and Jack were untangling the beams from the pile that reached to the barn roof and Steve was one of the carriers. (Lomax alloy, as all of you must remember, was about a third the weight of magnesium, with a tensile strength far above that of old-fashioned steel.) Rance and Jack made the usual remarks about bride and bridegroom, but there was very little humor in them. Steve, who had been looking on silently, apologized for both.
“I think this storm has gotten on our nerves considerably and it is almost impossible to be light,” he said. “I know that I wanted to say something, too, but I was afraid it wouldn’t come off.”
Marge said, “Let’s just forget it. Sure, we’ve been doing what most of the world does all the time. We’ve been making love. Give me one of those beams and I’ll see if I can fight my way back to the house.”
Steve handed her an eight-foot beam and she tucked it under her arm and started out. I said, “I’m glad you decided to stay with us, Steve. We can use your knowledge of reactors.”
He picked up several fifteen-foot beams and started for the door. “Thanks,” he said. “But I haven’t changed any of my views. I think Kansas is a lousy idea.”
Jack Osborne climbed down from the pile and lit a cigarette. “We’re going to have trouble with that monkey,” he said. “He’ll never take orders from Gabe when the going gets rough.”
“I’ll handle him when it’s necessary,” I said. “Meanwhile we can use his brain, Jack. Don’t forget he’s the only reactor expert we’ve got. If we start stumbling over personalities this early, we’ll all murder each other before we can get out of here.”
He puffed on his cigarette in silence for a moment. Then he smiled at me and whacked me on the back. “You’ve got some sense, Colonel,” he said. “I’ll remember that when I start getting moody again.”
We worked continuously Tuesday at our various critical jobs and there was very little time for meals or conversation and none for recreation. The howling wind and the almost solid sheets of snow were frightening phenomena and so we battled with every ounce of our energy to build for ourselves a haven that would be safe.
The reinforcement work for house and barn shaped up very quickly and by Friday, September 27th, the work on the barn was completed and half of the house had been shored up. Bill Wernecke showed us with his drawings and stress figures that our abode would support thousands of tons of weight when the work was completed, and I know that we all felt new confidence.
By September 27th the official reports from the broadcasts placed the depth of snow at fifteen feet four inches and the wind velocity at 80 miles per hour. The temperature varied between 17 and 18 degrees below zero at 2:00 A.M. and four or five below at 2:00 P.M.
Florence Donner was appointed official broadcast monitor by Gabe and a complete set of receivers was installed in a small den off the library which became the communications room. On the previous Tuesday she had begun typing up brief summations of the daily reports, and these