Dave Wax and Mr. Semmel watched Brayer and his boatman chug away. "Hebertown Chief of Police," said Wax. "Isn't he a little out of his jurisdiction?"
"He said they were looking for somebody. Wanted to know if we'd picked up any refugees. God forbid." Mr. Semmel shook his head firmly. "A mess. Now, in New Hampshire there would never—"
It was cracking daylight when Brayer got back to Hebertown. He sat down in the police station, now an emergency shelter with men, women and children sprawled all over everywhere, and dazedly pushed away the coffee somebody offered him. He hoped he would never see another cup of coffee again.
He said heavily, "Henry'll turn up. I have a lot of confidence in Artie Chesbro's instinct for self-preservation; he'll find a place to hole up in."
"Sure, Red." The head of Hebertown's Civil Defense Squad, an organization with an honorable history extending back nearly four hours, dug his fingers into the bags under his eyes and tried to stay awake. He owned a ready-to-wear establishment on North Front, and he had once allowed the Red Cross to use his second-floor storeroom as a fund-drive headquarters, a record of achievement which had done very little to fit him for staying up all night. "I went down at eleven o'clock to look at the water," he said meditatively. "I didn't want my cellar flooded again, like in thirty-nine, so I shoveled dirt up against the windows, and then I went home to bed." He laughed. He had gone by his store again two hours later—in a boat—and had had to bend down to look through the windows of the loft the Red Cross once had used. "I heard on the radio a list of all the cities that were hit—the worst ones. They didn't even mention Hebertown.... Say, what are you going to tell Bess Starkman?"
CHAPTER NINE
Gray light filtered through the dirty panes of the second-floor window. Arthur Chesbro woke slowly, aching in every bone. When he opened his eyes stickily and peered across the grimy little room he could not at first believe what he saw.
"Polly!" he choked, amazement and outrage blended. His wife, apparently unclothed, was snuggled close to old Harry Starkman, under a single blanket.