On the Beach

by Nevil Shute

  CHAPTER TWO

  Infants take no account of Sundays or of midnight parties; by six o’clock next morning the Holmeses were up and doing and Peter was on the road pedalling his bicycle with the trailer attached to fetch the milk and cream. He stayed with the farmer for a while discussing the axle for the new trailer, and the towbar, and making a few sketches for the mechanic to work from. “I’ve got to report for duty tomorrow,” he said. “This is the last time that I’ll be coming over for the milk.”

  “That I’ll be right,” said Mr. Paul. “Leave it to me. Tuesdays and Saturdays. I’ll see Mrs. Holmes gets the milk and cream.”

  He got back to his house at about eight o’clock; he shaved and had a shower, dressed, and began to help Mary with the breakfast. Commander Towers put in an appearance at about a quarter to nine with a fresh, scrubbed look about him. “That was a nice party that you had last night,” he said. “I don’t know when I enjoyed one so much.”

  His host said, “There are some very pleasant people living just round here.” He glanced at his captain and grinned. “Sorry about Moira. She doesn’t usually pass out like that.”

  “It was the whisky. She isn’t up yet?”

  “I wouldn’t expect to see her just yet. I heard someone being sick at about two in the morning. I take it that it wasn’t you?”

  The American laughed. “No sir.”

  The breakfast came upon the table, and the three of them sat down. “Like another swim this morning?” Peter asked his guest. “It looks like being another hot day.”

  The American hesitated. “I rather like to go to church on Sunday morning. It’s what we do at home. Would there be a Church of England church around here any place?”

  Mary said, “It’s just down the hill. Only about three quarters of a mile away. The service is at eleven o’clock.”

  “I might take a walk down there. Would that fit in with what you’re doing, though?”

  Peter said, “Of course, sir. I don’t think I’ll come with you. I’ve got a good bit to sort out here before I join in Scorpion.”

  The captain nodded. “Sure. I’ll be back here in time for lunch, and then I’ll have to get back to the ship. I’d like to take a train around three o’clock.”

  He walked down to the church in the warm sunlight. He left plenty of time, so that he was a quarter of an hour early for the service, but he went in. The sidesman gave him a prayer book and a hymn book, and he chose a seat towards the back, because the order of the service was still strange to him and from there he could see when other people knelt, and when they stood. He said the conventional prayer that he had been taught in childhood and then he sat back, looking around. The little church was very like the church in his own town, in Mystic, Connecticut. It even smelt the same.

  That girl Moira Davidson certainly was all mixed up. She drank too much, but some people never could accept things as they were. She was a nice kid, though. He thought Sharon would like her.

  In the tranquillity of the church he set himself to think about his family, and to visualise them. He was, essentially, a very simple man. He would be going back to them in September, home from his travels. He would see them all again in less than nine months’ time. They must not feel, when he rejoined them, that he was out of touch, or that he had forgotten things that were important in their lives. Junior must have grown quite a bit; kids did at that age. He had probably outgrown the coonskin cap and outfit, mentally and physically. It was time he had a fishing rod, a little Fiberglas spinning rod, and learned to use it. It would be fun teaching Junior to fish. His birthday was July the 10th. Dwight couldn’t send the rod for his birthday, and probably he couldn’t take it with him, though that would be worth trying. Perhaps he could get one over there.

  Helen’s birthday was April the 17th; she would be six then. Again, he’d miss her birthday unless something happened to Scorpion. He must remember to tell her he was sorry, and he must think of something to take her between now and September. Sharon would explain to her on the day, would tell her that Daddy was away at sea, but he’d be coming home before the winter and he’d bring his present then. Sharon would make it all right with Helen.

  He sat there thinking of his family throughout the service, kneeling when other people knelt and standing when they stood. From time to time he roused himself to take part in the simple and uncomplicated words of a hymn, but for the rest of the time he was lost in a daydream of his family and of his home. He walked out of the church at the end of the service mentally refreshed. Outside the church he knew nobody and nobody knew him; the vicar smiled at him uncertainly in the porch and he smiled back, and then he was strolling back uphill in the warm sunlight, his head now full of Scorpion, the supplies, and the many chores he had to do, the many checks he had to make, before he took her to sea.

  At the house he found Mary and Moira Davidson sitting in deck chairs on the verandah, the baby in its pram beside them. Mary got up from her chair as he walked up to them. “You look hot,” she said. “Take off your coat and come and sit down in the shade. You found the church all right?”

  “Why, yes,” he said. He took his coat off and sat down on the edge of the verandah. “You’ve got a mighty fine congregation,” he observed. “There wasn’t a seat vacant.”

  “It wasn’t always like that,” she said drily. “Let me get you a drink.”

  “I’d like something soft,” he said. He eyed their glasses. “What’s that you’re drinking?”

  Miss Davidson replied, “Lime juice and water. All right, don’t say it.”

  He laughed. “I’d like one of those, too.” Mary went off to get it for him, and he turned to the girl. “Did you get any breakfast this morning?”

  “Haifa banana and a small brandy,” she said equably. “I wasn’t very well.”

  “It was the whisky,” he said. “That was the mistake you made.”

  “One of them,” she replied. “I don’t remember anything after talking to you on the lawn, after the party. Did you put me to bed?”

  He shook his head. “I thought that was Mrs. Holmes’ job.”

  She smiled faintly. “You missed an opportunity. I must remember to thank Mary.”

  “I should do that. She’s a mighty nice person, Mrs. Holmes.”

  “She says you’re going back to Williamstown this afternoon. Can’t you stay and have another bathe?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve got a lot to do on board before tomorrow. We go to sea this week. There’s probably a flock of messages on my desk.”

  “I suppose you’re the sort of person who works very hard, all the time, whether you’ve got to or not.”

  He laughed. “I suppose I must be.” He glanced at her. “Do you do any work?”

  “Of course. I’m a very busy woman.”

  “What do you work at?”

  She lifted her glass. “This. What I’ve been doing ever since I met you yesterday.”

  He grinned. “You find that the routine gets tedious, sometimes?”

  “Life gets tedious,” she quoted. “Not sometimes. All the time.”

  He nodded. “I’m lucky, having plenty to do.”

  She glanced at him. “Can I come and see your submarine next week?”

  He laughed, thinking of the mass of work there was to do on board. “No, you can’t. We go to sea next week.” And then, because that seemed ungracious, he said, “You interested in submarines?”

  “Not really,” she said a little listlessly. “I kind of thought I’d like to see it, but not if it’s a bother.”

  “I’d be glad to show it to you,” he told her. “But not next week. I’d like it if you’d come down and have lunch with me one day when things are quiet and we’re not clashing round like scalded cats. A quiet day, when I could show you everything. And then maybe we could go up to the city and have dinner some place.”

  “That sounds good,” she said. “When will that be, so that I can look forward to it?”

  He thought for
a moment. “I couldn’t say right now. I’ll be reporting a state of operational readiness around the end of this coming week, and I’d think they’d send us off on the first cruise within a day or so. After that we ought to have a spell in the dockyard before going off again.”

  “This first cruise—that’s the one up to Port Moresby?”

  “That’s right. I’ll try to fit it in before we go away on that, but I couldn’t guarantee it. If you’ll give me your telephone I’ll call you around Friday and let you know.”

  “Berwick 8641,” she said. He wrote it down. “Before ten o’clock is the best time to ring. I’m almost always out in the evening.”

  He nodded. “That’ll be fine. It’s possible we’ll still be at sea on Friday. It might be Saturday before I call. But I will call, Miss Davidson.”

  She smiled. “Moira’s the name, Dwight.”

  He laughed. “Okay.”

  She drove him to the station in the buggy after lunch, being herself on her way home to Berwick. As he got down in the station yard she said, “Good-bye, Dwight. Don’t work too hard.” And then she said, “Sorry I made such a fool of myself last night.”

  He grinned. “Mixing drinks, that’s what does it. Let that be a lesson to you.”

  She laughed harshly. “Nothing’s a lesson to me, ever. I’ll probably do that again tomorrow night, and the night after.”

  “It’s your body,” he said equably.

  “That’s the trouble,” she replied. “Mine, and nobody else’s. If anybody else became involved it might be different, but there’s no time for that. Too bad.”

  He nodded. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  “You really will?”

  “Why, sure,” he said. “I’ll call you like I said.”

  He travelled back to Williamstown in the electric train, while she drove twenty miles to her country home. She got there at about six o’clock, unharnessed the mare and put her in the stable. Her father came to help her, and together they pushed the buggy into the garage shed beside the unused Customline, gave the mare a bucket of water and a feed of oats, and went into the house. Her mother was sitting in the screened verandah, sewing.

  “Hullo, dear,” she said. “Did you have a nice time?”

  “All right,” the girl replied. “Peter and Mary threw a party last night. Quite good fun. Knocked me back a bit, though.”

  Her mother sighed a little, but she had learned that it was no use to protest. “You must go to bed early tonight,” she said. “You’ve had so many late nights recently.”

  “I think I will.”

  “What was the American like?”

  “He’s nice. Very quiet and navy.”

  “Was he married?”

  “I didn’t ask him. I should think he must have been.”

  “What did you do?”

  The girl repressed her irritation at the catechism; Ma was like that, and there was now too little time to spend it in quarrelling. “We went sailing in the afternoon.” She settled down to tell her mother most of what had happened during the week-end, repressing the bit about her bra and much of what had happened at the party.

  At Williamstown Commander Towers walked into the dockyard and made his way to Sydney. He occupied two adjoining cabins with a communicating door in the bulkhead, one of which was used for office purposes. He sent a messenger for the officer of the deck in Scorpion and Lieutenant Hirsch appeared with a sheaf of signals in his hand. He took these from the young man and read them through. Mostly they dealt with routine matters of the fuelling and victualling, but one from the Third Naval Member’s office was unexpected. It told him that a civilian scientific officer of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation had been ordered to report in Scorpion for scientific duties. This officer would be under the command of the Australian liaison officer in Scorpion. His name was Mr. J. S. Osborne.

  Commander Towers held this signal in his hand, and glanced at the Lieutenant. “Say, do you know anything about this guy?”

  “He’s here right now, sir. He arrived this morning. I put him in the wardroom and got the duty officer to allocate a cabin for him for tonight.”

  The captain raised his eyebrows. “Well, what do you know! What does he look like?”

  “Very tall and thin. Mousey sort of hair. Wears spectacles.”

  “How old?”

  “A little older than me, I’d say. Under thirty, though.”

  The captain thought for a minute. “Going to make things kind of crowded in the wardroom. I think we’ll berth him with Commander Holmes. You got three men aboard?”

  “That’s right. Isaacs, Holman, and de Vries. Chief of the Boat Mortimer is on board, too.”

  “Tell the Chief I want another cot rigged on the forward side of Bulkhead F, transverse to the ship, head to starboard. He can take one out of the forward torpedo flat.”

  “Okay, sir.”

  Commander Towers ran through the routine matters in the other signals with his officer, and then sent the Lieutenant to ask Mr. Osborne to come to the office. When the civilian appeared he motioned him to a chair, gave him a cigarette, and dismissed his officer. “Well, Mr. Osborne,” he said, “this is quite a surprise. I just read the order posting you to join us. I’m glad to know you.”

  “I’m afraid it was rather a quick decision,” the scientist said. “I only heard about it the day before yesterday.”

  “That’s very often the way it is in service matters,” said the captain. “Well, first things first. What’s your full name?”

  “John Seymour Osborne.”

  “Married?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Aboard Scorpion, or aboard any naval vessel, you address me as Captain Towers, and every now and then you call me ‘sir’. On shore, off duty, my name is Dwight to you—not to the junior officers.”

  The scientist smiled. “Very good, sir.”

  “Ever been to sea in a submarine before?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll find things just a little cramped till you get used to it. I’m fixing you a berth in Officer’s Country, and you’ll mess with the officers in the wardroom.” He glanced at the neat grey suit upon the scientist. “You’ll probably need clothing. See Lieutenant-Commander Holmes about that when he comes aboard tomorrow morning, and get him to draw clothing for you from the store. You’ll get that suit messed up if you go down in Scorpion in that.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The captain leaned back in his chair and glanced at the scientist, noting the lean, intelligent face, the loose, ungainly figure. “Tell me, what are you supposed to be doing in this outfit?”

  “I’m to make observations and keep records of the radioactive levels, atmospheric and marine, with special reference to the sub-surface levels and radioactive intensity within the hull. I understand you’re making a cruise northwards.”

  “That’s what everybody understands but me. It must be right, and I’ll be told one day.” He frowned slightly. “Are you anticipating a rise in the radioactive level inside the hull?”

  “I don’t think so. I very much hope not. I doubt if it could happen when you are submerged, except under very extreme conditions. But it’s just as well to keep an eye on it. I take it that you’d want to know at once of any significant rise.”

  “Sure I would.”

  They proceeded to discuss the various techniques involved. Most of the gear that Osborne had brought with him was portable and involved no installation in the ship. In the evening light he put on an overall suit lent him by the captain and went down with Dwight into Scorpion to inspect the radiation detector mounted on the aft periscope, and formulate a programme for its calibration against a standard instrument as they went down the Bay. A similar check was to be made upon the detector installed in the engine-room, and a small amount of engineering was required at one of the two remaining torpedo tubes for the sampling of sea water. It was practically dark when they climbed back into Sydney, to take supper
in the great, echoing, empty wardroom.

  Next day was a turmoil of activity. When Peter came aboard in the forenoon his first job was to telephone a friend in the Operations Division and point out that it would be courteous, to say the least, to tell the captain what was common knowledge to the Australian officers under his command, and to make a signal requesting his comments on a draft operation order. By evening this signal had come in and had been dealt with, John Osborne was suitably clothed for life in a submarine, the work on the aft door of the torpedo tube was finished, and the two Australians were packing their gear into the little space that had been allocated to them for personal effects. They slept that night in Sydney, and moved into Scorpion on Tuesday morning. A few more chores were finished in a couple of hours, and Dwight reported readiness to proceed upon sea trials. They were cleared for sea, had lunch at noon beside the Sydney, and cast off. Dwight turned his ship and set a course at slow speed down the Bay towards the Heads.

  All afternoon they carried out their radioactive trials, cruising around a barge with a mildly radioactive element on board anchored in the middle of the Bay, while John Osborne ran around noting the readings on his various instruments, barking his long shins upon steel manholes as he clambered up and down the conning tower to the bridge, cracking his tall head painfully on bulkheads and control wheels as he moved quickly in the control room. By five o’clock the trials were over; they left the barge to be disposed of by the shore party of scientists who had put it there, and set course for the open sea.

  They stayed on the surface all night, settling into the sea routine as they proceeded westward. At dawn they were off Cape Banks in South Australia, in a fresh southwesterly breeze and a moderate sea. Here they submerged and went down to about fifty feet, returning to periscope depth for a look round once an hour. In the late afternoon they were off Cape Borda on Kangaroo Island, and set course up the strait at periscope depth towards Port Adelaide. By about ten o’clock on Wednesday night they were looking at the town through the periscope; after ten minutes the captain turned around without surfacing and made for the open sea again. At sunset on Thursday they were off the north of King Island and setting course for home. They surfaced as they neared the Heads and passed into Port Phillip Bay at the first light of dawn, and berthed alongside the aircraft carrier at Williamstown in time for breakfast on Friday, with nothing but minor defects to be rectified.