On the Beach

by Nevil Shute

  Peter Holmes took a can with him to Melbourne one day and visited John Osborne. That evening he heard the engine of his Morris Minor for the first time in two years, clouds of black smoke emerging from the exhaust till he stopped the engine and took out the jets and hammered them a little smaller. Then he drove her out upon the road, with Mary, delighted, at his side and Jennifer upon her knee. “It’s just like having one’s first car all over again!” she exclaimed. “Peter, it’s wonderful! Can you get any more, do you think?”

  “We saved this petrol,” he told her. “We saved it up. We’ve got a few more tins buried in the garden, but we’re not telling anybody how much.”

  “Not even Moira?”

  “Lord, no. Her last of all.” He paused. “Tyres are the snag now. I don’t know what we’re going to do about those.”

  Next day he drove to Williamstown, in at the dockyard gates, and parked the Morris on the quayside by the practically deserted aircraft carrier. In the evening he drove home again.

  His duties at the dockyard were now merely nominal. Work upon the submarine was going very slowly, and his presence was required upon the job no more than two days in each week, which fitted in well with the requirements of his little car. Dwight Towers was there most days in the morning, but he, too, had become mobile. The First Naval Member had sent for him one morning and, with poker face, had declared that it was only fitting that the Supreme Commander of the U.S. Naval Forces should have transport at his disposal, and Dwight had found himself presented with a grey-painted Chevrolet with Leading Seaman Edgar as the driver. He used it principally for going to the club for lunch or driving out to Harkaway to walk beside the bullock as they spread the dung, while the Leading Seaman shovelled silage.

  The last part of July was a very pleasant time for most people. The weather was seasonably bad with high winds and plenty of rain and a temperature down in the low forties, but men and women cast off the restraints that long had galled them. The weekly wage packet became of little value or importance; if you went into the works on Friday you would probably get it whether you had worked or not, and when you had it there was little you could do with it. In the butcher’s shop the cash desk would accept money thrust at them, but didn’t grieve much if it wasn’t, and if the meat was there you took it. If it wasn’t, you just went and looked for somewhere where there was some. There was all day to do it in.

  On the high mountains the skiers skied weekdays and week-ends alike. In their little garden, Mary and Peter Holmes laid out the new beds and built a fence around the vegetable garden, planting a passion fruit vine to climb all over it. They had never had so much time for gardening before, or made such progress. “It’s going to be beautiful,” she said contentedly. “It’s going to be the prettiest garden of its size in Falmouth.”

  In the city mews John Osborne worked on the Ferrari with a small team of enthusiasts to help him. The Australian Grand Prix at that time was the premier motor race of the southern hemisphere, and it had been decided to advance the date of the race that year from November to August the 17th. On previous occasions the race had been held at Melbourne in the Albert Park, roughly corresponding to Central Park in New York or Hyde Park in London. The organising club would have liked to race for the last time in Albert Park but the difficulties proved to be insuperable. It was clear from the outset that there would be a shortage of marshals and a shortage of labour to provide the most elementary safety precautions for the crowd of a hundred and fifty thousand people who might well be expected to attend. Nobody worried very much about the prospect of a car spinning off the course and killing a few spectators, or the prospect of permission to use the park for racing in future years being withheld. It seemed unlikely, however, that there would be sufficient marshals ever to get the crowds off the road and away from the path of the oncoming cars, and, unusual though the times might be, few of the drivers were prepared to drive straight into a crowd of onlookers at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Racing motor cars are frail at those speeds, and a collision even with one person would put the car out of the race. It was decided regretfully that it was impracticable to run the Australian Grand Prix in Albert Park, and that the race would have to take place at the track at Tooradin.

  The race in this way became a race for racing drivers only; in the prevailing difficulties of transport not very many spectators could be expected to drive forty miles out of the city to see it. Rather unexpectedly, it attracted an enormous entry of drivers. Everybody in Victoria and southern New South Wales who owned a fast car, new or old, seemed to have entered for the last Australian Grand Prix, and the total of entries came to about two hundred and eighty cars. So many cars could not be raced together with any justice to the faster cars, and for two week-ends previous to the great day eliminating heats were held in the various classes. These heats were drawn by ballot, so that John Osborne found himself competing with a three-litre Maserati piloted by Jerry Collins, a couple of Jaguars, a Thunderbird, two Bugattis, three vintage Bentleys, and a terrifying concoction of a Lotus chassis powered by a blown Gipsy Queen aero engine of about three hundred horsepower and little forward view, built and raced by a young air mechanic called Sam Bailey and reputed to be very fast.

  In view of the distance from the city there was only a small crowd of people disposed around the three mile course. Dwight Towers drove down in the official Chevrolet, picking up Moira Davidson and Peter and Mary Holmes upon the way. On that day there were five classes of heats, commencing with the smallest cars, each race being of fifty miles. Before the first race was over the organisers had put in a hurried call to Melbourne for two more ambulances, the two already allocated to the meeting being busy.

  For one thing, the track was wet with rain, although it was not actually raining at the time of the first race. Six Lotuses competed with eight Coopers and five M.G.s, one of which was piloted by a girl, Miss Fay Gordon. The track was about three miles in length. A long straight with the pits in the middle led with a slight sinuosity to a left-hand turn of wide radius but 180 degrees in extent enclosing a sheet of water; this was called Lake Bend. Next came Haystack Corner, a right-hand turn of about 120 degrees, fairly sharp, and this led to The Safety Pin, a sharp left-hand hairpin with rather a blind turn on top of a little mound, so that you went up and came down again. The back straight was sinuous and fast with a left-hand bend at the end of it leading down a steep hill to a very sharp right-hand corner, called The Slide. From there a long, fast left-hand bend led back to the finishing straight.

  From the start of the first heat it was evident that the racing was to be unusual. The race started with a scream that indicated that the drivers intended to show no mercy to their engines, their competitors, or themselves. Miraculously the cars all came round on the first lap, but after that the troubles started. An M.G. spun on Haystack Corner, left the road and found itself careering through the low scrub on the rough ground away from the circuit. The driver trod on it and swung his car round without stopping and regained the road. A Cooper coming up behind swerved to avoid collision with the M.G., spun on the wet road, and was hit fair and square amidships by another Cooper coming up behind. The first driver was killed instantaneously and both cars piled up into a heap by the roadside, the second driver being flung clear with a broken collar bone and internal injuries. The M.G. driver, passing on the next time round, wondered quickly as he took the corner what had happened to cause that crash.

  On the fifth lap a Lotus overtook Fay Gordon at the end of the finishing straight and spun on the wet road of Lake Bend, thirty yards in front of her. Another Lotus was passing on her right; the only escape for her was to go left. She left the track at ninety-five miles an hour, crossed the short strip of land before the lake in a desperate effort to turn right and so back to the track, broadsided in the scrub, and rolled over into the water. When the great cloud of spray subsided, her M.G. was upside-down ten yards from shore, the bottom of the rear wheels just above the surface. It was half an hou
r before the wading helpers managed to right the little car and get the body out.

  On the thirteenth lap three cars tangled at The Slide and burned. Two of the drivers were only slightly injured and managed to extract the third with both legs broken before the fire took hold. Of nineteen starters, seven finished the race, the first two qualifying to run in the Grand Prix.

  As the chequered flag fell for the winner, John Osborne lit a cigarette. “Fun and games,” he said. His race was the last of the day.

  Peter said thoughtfully, “They’re certainly racing to win …”

  “Well, of course,” said the scientist. “It’s racing as it ought to be. If you buy it, you’ve got nothing to lose.”

  “Except to smash up the Ferrari.”

  John Osborne nodded. “I’d be very sorry to do that.”

  A little rain began to fall on them, wetting the track again. Dwight Towers stood a little way apart with Moira. “Get into the car, honey,” he said. “You’ll get wet.”

  She did not move. “They can’t go on in this rain, can they?” she asked. “Not after all these accidents?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I’d say they might. After all, it’s the same for everybody. They don’t have to go so fast they spin. And if they wait for a dry day this time of year they might wait, well, longer than they’ve got.”

  “But it’s awful,” she objected. “Two people killed in the first race and about seven injured. They can’t go on. It’s like the Roman gladiators, or something.”

  He stood in silence for a moment in the rain. “Not quite like that,” he said at last. “There isn’t any audience. They don’t have to do it.” He looked around. “Apart from the drivers and their crews, I don’t suppose there’s five hundred people here. They haven’t taken any money at a gate. They’re doing it because they like to do it, honey.”

  “I don’t believe they do.”

  He smiled. “You go up to John Osborne and suggest he scratch his Ferrari and go home.” She was silent. “Come on in the car and I’ll pour you a brandy and soda.”

  “A very little one, Dwight,” she said. “If I’m going to watch this, I’ll watch it sober.”

  The next two heats produced nine crashes, four ambulance cases, but only one death, the driver of the bottom Austin-Healey in a pile up of four cars at The Safety Pin. The rain had eased to a fine, misty drizzle that did nothing to damp the spirits of the competitors.

  John Osborne had left his friends before the last race, and he was now in the paddock sitting in the Ferrari and warming it up, his pit crew around him. Presently he was satisfied and got out of the car, and stood talking and smoking with some of the other drivers. Don Harrison, the driver of a Jaguar, had a glass of whisky in his hand and a couple of bottles with more glasses on an upturned box beside him; he offered John a drink, but he refused it.

  “I’ve got nothing to give away on you muggers,” he said, grinning. Although he had what was probably the fastest car on the circuit, he had almost the least experience of any of the drivers. He still raced the Ferrari with the three broad bands of tape across the back that indicated a novice driver; he was still very conscious that he did not know by instinct when he was about to spin. A spin always caught him unawares and came as a surprise. If he had known it, all the drivers were alike on these wet roads; none of them had much experience of driving under such conditions and his consciousness of inexperience was perhaps a better protection than their confidence.

  When his crew pushed the Ferrari out on to the grid he found himself placed on the second line, in front of him the Maserati, the two Jaguars, and the Gipsy-Lotus, beside him the Thunderbird. He settled himself into his seat, revving his engines to warm up, fastening his safely belt, making his crash helmet and his goggles comfortable upon his head. In his mind was the thought: ‘This is where I get killed.’ Better than vomiting to death in a sick misery in less than a month’s time. Better to drive like hell and go out doing what he wanted to. The big steering wheel was a delight to handle, the crack of the Ferrari’s exhaust music to his ears. He turned and grinned at his pit crew in unalloyed pleasure, and then fixed his eyes upon the starter.

  When the flag dropped he made a good start and got away well, weaving ahead of the Gipsy-Lotus as he changed up into third, and outdistancing the Thunderbird. He went into Lake Bend hard on the heels of the two Jaguars, but driving cautiously on the wet road with seventeen laps to go. Time enough to take chances in the last five laps. He stayed with the Jaguars past Haystack Corner, past The Safety Pin, and cautiously put his foot down on the sinuous back straight. Not hard enough, apparently, for with a roar and a crackle the Gipsy-Lotus passed him on the right, showering him with water, Sam Bailey driving like a madman.

  He slowed a little while he wiped his goggles and followed on behind. The Gipsy-Lotus was wandering all over the road, harnessed only by the immensely quick reaction time of its young driver. John Osborne, watching, sensed disaster round it like an aura; better follow on at a safe distance for a while and see what happened. He shot a quick glance at the mirror; the Thunderbird was fifty yards behind, with the Maserati overtaking it. There was time to take it easy down The Slide, but after that he must step on it.

  On entering the straight at the end of the first lap he saw that the Gipsy-Lotus had taken one of the Jaguars. He passed the pits at about a hundred and sixty miles an hour, making up upon the second Jaguar; with a car between him and the Gipsy-Lotus he felt safer. A glance in the mirror as he braked before Lake Bend showed that he had drawn well away from the two cars behind; if he could do that he could hold the fourth position for a lap or two and still go carefully upon the corners.

  He did so till the sixth lap. By that time the Gipsy-Lotus was in the lead and the first four cars had lapped one of the Bentleys. As he accelerated away from The Slide he glanced in his mirror and in a momentary glimpse saw what appeared to be a most colossal mix-up at the corner. The Maserati and the Bentley seemed to be tangled broadside-on across the road, and the Thunderbird was flying through the air. He could not look again. Ahead of him, in the lead, the Gipsy-Lotus was trying to lap one of the Bugattis by synchronising its desperate swerves at a hundred and forty miles an hour with the manoeuvre necessary for passing, and failing to do so. The two Jaguars were holding back at a discreet distance.

  When he came round again to The Slide he saw that the shambles at the corner had involved two cars only; the Thunderbird lay inverted fifty yards from the track and the Bentley stood with its rear end crushed and a great pool of petrol on the road. The Maserati was apparently still racing. He passed on, and as he entered his eighth lap it began to rain quite heavily. It was time to step on it.

  So thought the leaders, for on that lap the Gipsy-Lotus was passed by one of the Jaguars, taking advantage of Sam Bailey’s evident nervousness of his unstable car upon a corner. Both leaders now lapped a Bugatti, and a Bentley immediately after. The second Jaguar went to pass them on Haystack Corner with John Osborne close behind. What happened then was very, very swift. The Bugatti spun upon the corner and was hit by the Bentley, which was deflected into the path of the oncoming Jaguar, which rolled over twice and finished right-side up by the roadside without a driver. John Osborne had no time to stop and little to avoid; the Ferrari hit the Bugatti a glancing blow at about seventy miles an hour and came to a standstill by the roadside with a buckled near-side front wheel.

  John Osborne was shaken, but unhurt. Don Harrison, the driver of the Jaguar who had offered him a drink before the race, was dying of multiple injuries in the scrub; he had been thrown from his car as it rolled and had then been run over by the Bentley. The scientist hesitated for a moment but there were people about; he tried the Ferrari. The engine started and the car moved forward, but the buckled wheel scrooped against the frame. He was out of the race, and out of the Grand Prix, and with a sick heart he waited till the Gipsy-Lotus weaved by and then crossed the track to see if he could help the dying driver.


  While he was standing there, helpless, the Gipsy-Lotus passed again.

  He stood there in the steady rain for several seconds before it struck him that there had been no other cars between the two transits of the Gipsy-Lotus. When it did so, he made a dash for the Ferrari. If in fact there was only one car left in the race he still had a chance for the Grand Prix; if he could struggle round the track to the pits he might yet change the wheel and get the second place. He toured on slowly, wrestling with the steering, while the rain ran down his neck and the Gipsy-Lotus passed a third time. The tyre burst at The Slide, where about six cars seemed to be tangled in a heap, and he went on on the rim, and reached the pits as the Lotus passed again.

  The wheel change took his pit crew about thirty seconds, and a quick inspection showed little damage apart from panelling. He was off again several laps behind, and now one of the Bugattis detached itself from the chaos around The Slide and joined in. It was never a threat, however, and John Osborne toured around the course discreetly to win second place in the heat and a start in the Grand Prix. Of the eleven starters in the heat, eight had failed to complete the course and three drivers had been killed.