by Nevil Shute
The girl said, “Fancy going round in socks like that!”
The Commander glanced at them. “It’s only in the toe,” he said. “It doesn’t show.”
“It’s not only in the toe.” She leaned across and picked up his foot. “I thought I saw another one. The heel’s all holes across the bottom!”
“It still doesn’t show,” he said. “Not when I’ve got a shoe on.”
“Doesn’t anybody mend them for you?”
“They’ve paid off a lot of the ship’s company in Sydney recently,” he said. “I still get my bed made up, but he’s too busy now to bother about mending. It never did work very well aboard that ship, anyway. I do them myself, sometimes. Most times I just throw them away and get another pair.”
“You’ve got a button off your shirt, too.”
“That doesn’t show, either,” he said equably. “It’s way down at the bottom, goes underneath my belt.”
“I think you’re a perfect disgrace,” she remarked. “I know what the Admiral would say, if he saw you going round like that. He’d say Scorpion needs another captain.”
“He wouldn’t see it,” he replied. “Not unless he made me take off my pants.”
“This conversation’s taking an unprofitable line,” she said. “How many pairs of socks have you got in that condition?”
“I wouldn’t know. It’s quite a while since I went through the drawer.”
“If you give them to me I’ll take them home and mend them for you.”
He glanced at her. “That’s mighty nice of you, to offer to do that. But you don’t have to. It’s time I got more, anyway. These are just about done.”
“Can you get more socks?” she asked. “Daddy can’t. He says they’re going off the market, with a lot of other things. He can’t get any new handkerchiefs, either.”
Peter said, “That’s right. I couldn’t get socks to fit me, the last time I tried. The ones I got were about two inches too long.”
Moira pressed the point. “Have you tried to buy any more recently?”
“Well—no. The last lot I bought was some time back in the winter.”
Peter yawned. “Better let her mend them for you, sir. You’ll have a job getting any more.”
“If that’s the way it is,” Dwight said, “I’d be very grateful.” He turned to the girl. “But you don’t have to do it. I can do them for myself.” He grinned. “I can, you know. I can do them quite well.”
She sniffed audibly. “About as well as I can run your submarine. You’d better make up a parcel of everything you’ve got that needs mending, and let me have it. That shirt included. Have you got the button?”
“I think I lost that.”
“You should be more careful. When a button comes off, you don’t just chuck it away.”
“If you talk to me like that,” he said grimly, “I really will give you everything I’ve got that needs mending. I’ll bury you in the stuff.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” she remarked. “I thought you’d been concealing things. You’d better put it all into a cabin trunk, or two cabin trunks, and let me have them.”
“There’s quite a lot,” he said.
“I knew it. If there’s too much I’ll shove some of it off on to Mummy and she’ll probably distribute it all round the district. The First Naval Member lives quite near us; Mummy’ll probably give Lady Hartman your underpants to mend.”
He looked at her in mock alarm. “Say, Scorpion certainly would need another captain then.”
She said, “This conversation’s going round in circles. You let me have everything that you’ve got that needs mending, anyway, and I’ll see if I can’t get you dressed up like a naval officer.”
“Okay,” he said. “Where shall I bring the stuff to?”
She thought for a moment. “You’re on leave, aren’t you?”
“On and off,” he said. “We’re giving leave over ten days, but I don’t get that much. The captain has to stick around, or thinks he has.”
“Probably do the ship a world of good if he didn’t,” she said. “You’d better bring them down to me at Berwick, and stay a couple of nights. Can you drive a bullock?”
“I’ve never driven one,” he said. “I could try.”
She eyed him speculatively. “I suppose you’d be all right. If you can command a submarine you probably can’t do much harm to one of our bullocks. Daddy’s got a cart horse now called Prince, but I don’t suppose he’d let you touch that. He’d probably let you drive one of the bullocks.”
“That’s all right with me,” he said meekly. “What am I supposed to do with the bullock?”
“Spread the dung,” she said. “The cowpats. It has a harness that pulls a chain harrow over the grass. You walk beside it, leading it with a halter. You have a stick to tap it with as well. It’s a very restful occupation. Good for the nerves.”
“I’m sure it is,” he said. “What’s it for? I mean, why do you do it?”
“It makes a good pasture,” she said. “If you just leave the droppings where they are the grass comes up in rank tufts and the animals won’t eat it. Then the pasture isn’t half as good next year as if you’d harrowed it. Daddy’s very particular about harrowing each pasture after the beasts come out. We used to do it with a tractor. Now we do it with a bullock.”
“This is all so that he’d get a better pasture next year?”
“Yes, it is,” she said firmly. “All right, you needn’t say it. It’s good farming to harrow the paddocks, and Daddy’s a good farmer.”
“I wasn’t going to say it. How many acres does he farm?”
“About five hundred. We do Angus beef cattle and sheep.”
“You shear the sheep for the wool?”
“That’s right.”
“When do you do that?” he asked. “I’ve never seen a shearing.”
“Usually we shear in October,” she said. “Daddy’s a bit worried that if we leave it till October this year it won’t get done. He’s talking of putting it forward and shearing in August.”
“That makes sense,” he observed gravely. He bent forward to put on his shoes. “It’s a long time since I was on a farm,” he said. “I’d like to come and spend a day or two, if you can put up with me. I expect I can make myself useful, one way or another.”
“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “Daddy’ll see you make yourself useful. It’s going to be a godsend to him, having another man on the place.”
He smiled. “And you’d really like me to bring all the mending with me?”
“I’ll never forgive you if you just turn up with a couple of pairs of socks and say that your pyjamas are all right. Besides, Lady Hartman’s looking forward to doing your pants. She doesn’t know it, but she is.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
She drove him down to the station that evening in the Abbott buggy. As he got down from the vehicle she said, “I’ll expect you on Tuesday, at Berwick station, in the afternoon. Give me a ring about the time of your train if you can. Otherwise I’ll be there at about four o’clock, and wait.”
He nodded. “I’ll call you. You really mean that about bringing all the mending?”
“I’ll never forgive you if you don’t.”
“Okay.” He hesitated. “It’ll be dark by the time you get home,” he said. “Look after yourself.”
She smiled at him. “I’ll be all right. See you on Tuesday. Good night, Dwight.”
“Good night,” he said a little thickly. She drove off. He stood watching her until the buggy turned a corner and was out of sight.
It was ten o’clock at night when she drove into the yard outside the homestead. Her father heard the horse and came out in the darkness to help her unharness and put the buggy in the shed. In the dim light as they eased the vehicle back under cover, she said, “I asked Dwight Towers down here for a couple of days. He’s coming on Tuesday.”
“Coming here?” he asked, surprised.
“Of course not. I hope it’s not going to be dull for him, though. What are you going to do with him all day?”
“I told him he could drive the bullock round the paddocks. He’s very practical.”
“I could do with somebody to help feed out the silage,” her father said.
“Well, I expect he could do that. After all, if he commands a nuclear powered submarine he ought to be able to learn to shovel silage.”
They went into the house. Later that night he told her mother about their visitor. She was properly impressed. “Do you think there’s anything in it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “She must like him all right.”
“She hasn’t had a man to stay since that Forrest boy, before the war.”
He nodded. “I remember. Never thought much of him. I’m glad that came to an end.”
“It was his Austin-Healey,” her mother remarked. “I don’t think she ever cared for him, not really.”
“This one’s got a submarine,” her father said helpfully. “It’s probably the same thing.”
“He can’t take her down the road in that at ninety miles an hour.” She paused, and then she said, “Of course, he must be a widower now.”
He nodded. “Everybody says that he’s a very decent sort of chap.”
Her mother said, “I do hope something comes of it. I would like to see her settled down, and happily married with some children.”
“She’ll have to be quick about it, if you’re going to see that,” remarked her father.
“Oh dear, I keep forgetting. But you know what I mean.”
He came to her on Tuesday afternoon; she met him with the horse and buggy. He got out of the train and looked around, sniffing the warm country air. “Say,” he said, “you’ve got some pretty nice country round here. Which way is your place?”
She pointed to the north. “Over there, about three miles.”
“Up on that range of hills?”
“Not right up,” she said. “Just a bit of the way up.”
He was carrying a suitcase, and swung it up into the buggy, pushing it under the seat. “Is that all you’ve got?” she demanded.
“That’s right. It’s full of mending.”
“It doesn’t look much. I’m sure you must have more than that.”
“I haven’t. I brought everything there was. Honest.”
“I hope you’re telling me the truth.” They got up into the driving seat and started off towards the village. Almost immediately he said, “That’s a beech tree! There’s another!”
She glanced at him curiously. “They grow round here. I suppose it’s cooler on the hills.”
He looked at the avenue, entranced. “That’s an oak tree, but it’s a mighty big one. I don’t know that I ever saw an oak tree grow so big. And there’s some maples!” He turned to her. “Say, this is just like an avenue in a small town in the States!”
“Is it?” she asked. “Is it like this in the States?”
“It certainly is,” he said. “You’ve got all the trees here from the northern hemisphere. Parts of Australia I’ve seen up till now, they’ve only had gum trees and wattles.”
“They don’t make you feel bad?” she asked.
“Why, no. I just love to see these northern trees again.”
“There are plenty of them round the farm,” she said. They drove through the village, across the deserted bitumen road, and out upon the road to Harkaway. Presently the road trended uphill; the horse slowed to a walk and began to slog against the collar. The girl said, “This is where we get out and walk.”
He got down with her from the buggy, and they walked together up the hill, leading the horse. After the stuffiness of the dockyard and the heat of the steel ships the woodland air seemed fresh and cool to him. He took off his jacket and laid it in the buggy, and loosened the collar of his shirt. They walked on up the hill, and now a panorama started to unfold behind them, a wide view over the flat plain to the sea at Port Phillip Bay ten miles away. They went on, riding on the flats and walking on the steeper parts, for half an hour. Gradually they entered a country of gracious farms on undulating hilly slopes, a place where well kept paddocks were interspersed with coppices and many trees. He said, “You’re mighty lucky to have a home in country like this.”
She glanced at him. “We like it all right. Of course, it’s frightfully dull living out here.”
He stopped, and stood in the road, looking around him at the smiling countryside, the wide, unfettered views. “I don’t know that I ever saw a place that was more beautiful,” he said.
“It is beautiful?” she asked. “I mean, is it as beautiful as places in America or England?”
“Why, sure,” he said. “I don’t know England so well. I’m told that parts of that are just a fairyland. There’s plenty of lovely scenery in the United States, but I don’t know of any place that’s just like this. No, this is beautiful all right, by any standard in the world.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” she replied. “I mean, I like it here, but then I’ve never seen anything else. One sort of thinks that everything in England or America must be much better. That this is all right for Australia, but that’s not saying much.”
He shook his head. “It’s not like that at all, honey. This is good by any standard that you’d like to name.”
They came to a flat and, driving in the buggy, the girl turned into an entrance gate. A short drive led between an avenue of pine trees to a single-storey wooden house, a fairly large house painted white that merged with farm buildings towards the back. A wide verandah ran along the front and down one side, partially glazed in. The girl drove past the house and into the farm yard. “Sorry about taking you in by the back door,” she said. “But the mare won’t stand, not when she’s so near the stable.”
A farm hand called Lou, the only employee on the place, came to help her with the horse, and her father came out to meet them. She introduced Dwight all round, and they left the horse and buggy to Lou and went into the house to meet her mother. Later they gathered on the verandah to sit in the warm evening sun over short drinks before the evening meal. From the verandah there was a pastoral view over undulating pastures and coppices, with a distant view of the plain down below the trees. Again Dwight commented upon the beauty of the countryside.
“Yes, it’s nice up here,” said Mrs. Davidson. “But it can’t compare with England. England’s beautiful.”
The American asked, “Were you born in England?”
“Me? No. I was born Australian. My grandfather came out to Sydney in the very early days, but he wasn’t a convict. Then he took up land in the Riverina. Some of the family are there still.” She paused. “I’ve only been home once,” she said. “We made a trip to England and the Continent in 1948, after the Second War. We thought England was quite beautiful. But I suppose it’s changed a lot now.”
She left the verandah presently with Moira to see about the tea, and Dwight was left on the verandah with her father. He said, “Let me give you another whisky.”
“Why, thanks. I’d like one.”
They sat in warm comfort in the mellow evening sun over their drinks. After a time the grazier said, “Moira was telling us about the cruise that you just made up to the north.”
The captain nodded. “We didn’t find out much.”
“So she said.”
“There’s not much that you can see, from the water’s edge and through the periscope,” he told his host. “It’s not as if there was any bomb damage, or anything like that. It all looks just the same as it always did. It’s just that people don’t live there any more.”
“It was very radioactive, was it?”
Dwight nodded. “It gets worse the further north you go, of course. At Cairns, when we were there, a person might have lived for a few days. At Port Darwin nobody could live so long as tha
t.”
“When were you at Cairns?”
“About a fortnight ago.”
“I suppose the intensity at Cairns would be worse by now.”
“Probably so. I’d say it gets worse steadily as time goes on. Finally, of course, it’ll get to the same level all around the world.”
“They’re still saying that it’s going to get here in September.”
“I would say that’s right. It’s coming very evenly, all round the world. All places in the same latitude seem to be getting it just about the same time.”
“They were saying on the wireless they’ve got it in Rockhampton.”
The captain nodded. “I heard that, too. And at Alice Springs. It’s coming very evenly along the latitudes.”
His host smiled, a little grimly. “No good agonising about it. Have another whisky.”
“I don’t believe I will, not now. Thank you.”
Mr. Davidson poured himself another small one. “Anyway,” he said, “it comes to us last of all.”
“That seems to be so,” said Dwight. “If it goes on the way it’s going now, Cape Town will go out a little before Sydney, about the same time as Montevideo. There’ll be nothing left then in Africa and South America. Melbourne is the most southerly major city in the world, so we’ll be near to the last.” He paused for a moment in thought. “New Zealand, most of it, may last a little longer, and, of course, Tasmania. A fortnight or three weeks, perhaps. I don’t know if there’s anybody in Antarctica. If so, they might go on for quite a while.”
“But Melbourne is the last big city?”
“That’s what it looks like, at the moment.”
They sat in silence for a little while. “What will you do,” the grazier asked at last. “Will you move your ship?”
“I haven’t decided that,” the captain said slowly. “Maybe I won’t have to decide it. I’ve got a senior officer, Captain Shaw, in Brisbane. I don’t suppose he’ll move because his ship can’t move. Maybe he’ll send me orders. I don’t know.”
“Would you move, if it was at your own discretion?”
“I haven’t decided that,” the captain said again. “I can’t see that there’s a great deal to be gained. Nearly forty per cent of my ship’s company have got themselves tied up with girls in Melbourne—married, some of them. Say I was to move to Hobart. I can’t take them along, and they can’t get there any other way, and if they could there’s nowhere there for them to live. It seems kind of rough on the men to separate them from their women in the last few days, unless there was some compelling reason in the interest of the naval service.” He glanced up, grinning. “Anyway, I don’t suppose they’d come. Most of them would probably jump ship.”