by Nevil Shute
“It won’t go far,” she thought ruefully. “Still, it’s better than nothing.” She began to revolve schemes in her mind for getting the two older children off milk altogether, in order that the baby might have what there was.
On her way back towards the dinghy she passed a village general shop at a cross roads, and went in and enquired for milk.
The slatternly woman who came to the counter said, “We haven’t got no milk. Got plenty of tinned salmon?”
Joan shook her head. “I don’t want that.” She looked around the shelves a little absently. Her eye was caught by an open packing case standing behind the counter in a corner, half full of familiar grey paper-covered tins. “Look,” she said. “That’s milk down there, isn’t it?”
The woman moved in front of the case. “We haven’t got no milk to sell,” she said obstinately.
“But that’s milk down there.”
The woman repeated, “We haven’t got no milk to sell. The shop ain’t open, really, only to oblige.”
Joan said, “Look here, I’ve got a little baby. My other two children can get on without milk, but I must have milk for the baby. Let me have a few tins.”
The woman tightened her lips. Then she called, “Joe!” and a man came from the inner room.
“Tell the lady we ain’t got no milk to sell, Joe,” she commanded.
The man said, “Sorry, lady, but the shop ain’t open. The girl must have left the door on the latch. We ain’t open today.” He pushed her towards the door.
In the doorway Joan turned on them. “All right,” she said, “I’ll go away. But I know this — you’ve got all the milk in the world there, in that case. And I hope it bally well chokes you.” She walked away, half in tears.
On the yacht, Corbett put in a domestic morning. He rigged a warp twice round the vessel to keep the children from falling overboard, stopping it to the rigging, forestay, and backstays. He cleaned and filled the lamps and Primus stoves. He made the beds, and kept the children playing with their toys between his feet upon the narrow, cluttered floor of the saloon.
In the middle of the morning a small motor launch came alongside, flying the flag of the Royal Air Force. It was Collins. He came on board; the launch backed away and went off upstream.
“It’s good seeing you again,” said Corbett. “Come on down and have a whiskey. I haven’t got any soda, I’m afraid.”
They went below, stepping over the children. “These your kids?” asked Collins.
“That’s right,” said Corbett. “There’s another in the forecastle, asleep.”
“Over the lavvy,” explained Phyllis.
For a few moments Corbett showed his guest the layout of the ship. Phyllis stood erect and looked at the newcomer. “This is Teddy,” she said helpfully.
John said, “This is Horsey, but his tail came off.”
“All right,” said Corbett. “Go on playing with them on the floor.” Pouring out the whiskey, he turned to his friend. “Joan’s on shore, looking for milk — she’ll be back before long. Is Felicity down here with you?”
The Flight Lieutenant shook his head. “I left her up at Abingdon — we’ve got a house there. We came down here in such a hurry, too.”
“You’ve been here long?”
“We came down here after the first raid, the day war was declared. Tuesday, was it? I forget.”
He raised his glass. “Here’s luck.”
Corbett nodded, and drank. “We could do with a bit of that.”
Collins said, “By God, you’re right.”
He glanced at Corbett. “You didn’t come to any harm in Southampton? I see you didn’t. I went in there yesterday. It’s in a terrible mess.”
Corbett nodded. “We stuck it out till yesterday. I had a trench, in the back garden. But then — well, we came here.”
He turned to the officer. “How long is this going on for?”
“God knows. Forever, far as I can see. Or until we can somehow get and bomb their air bases. The barrage is no bloody good when we don’t know the height. You know how they’re doing it?”
Corbett shook his head. “I’d like to know.”
“They’re getting a star fix, and bombing through the clouds.”
There was a momentary silence in the yacht.
Corbett said, “You mean, they’re taking sextant observations of the stars and fixing their position above the clouds?”
“That’s right. They’ve got a sextant — boy, what a sextant! But they’re wizard instrument makers, of course. This one that I saw came out of one of their bombers that crashed at Sevenoaks.” He laughed a little cynically. “Oh, we didn’t shoot it down, or anything like that. It collided with one of our own fighters in the middle of a cloud, and they both crashed.”
He said soberly, “That sextant’s going to win the war for them, if we don’t look out.”
“How do you mean?”
The Flight Lieutenant blew a long cloud of smoke. “This way. I don’t know if you know — with a marine sextant, bringing the sun down to a good horizon, you can fix your position within half a mile or so — less, perhaps. In the air you haven’t got a horizon level with you, so you use a bubble sextant. You bring the sun or star down onto a sort of spirit level bubble.”
Corbett nodded. “I know that.”
“Well, that’s not so accurate. We use them in the Service, of course, but if you get within four or five miles of the true position it’s all you can do. You’ve got to hold the bubble in your hands, you see, and you can’t hold it still enough. You can’t get greater accuracy than that. But that’s good enough for ordinary navigating by.”
“I understand that. What’s their sextant like?”
“It’s like a dumb-bell. You hold it vertically in both hands. The top knob is the sextant — fairly normal, just a very good averaging bubble sextant. The middle, the part that you hold, is a sort of composite rubber vibration damper. And the bottom knob has two little electrically driven gyroscopes tucked away in it, simply to help you hold the sextant still. Our people tried it out in the air. You can get your position within half a mile, every time.”
Corbett said, “I see what you mean. Southampton’s about four miles long and three miles wide — roughly. With the old type sextant they couldn’t fix their position accurately enough to bomb down through the clouds and be sure of hitting the town. Now they can.”
“That’s right.”
There was a silence, broken only by the subdued chatter of the children playing on the floor.
“I should have thought you could have got at them while they were bombing, with your single seaters,” Corbett said at last. “I suppose they’re up above the clouds taking their star sights, circling round in the clear air?”
The other shook his head. “They’re never there. They’re actually in the cloud while they’re bombing.”
He turned to Corbett. “I tell you,” he said, “we’re worried sick about this thing. We’re up against an air force that’s magnificently trained — well, that’s no news, of course. What we think they do is this. First, they don’t come in squadrons. They come one by one, at intervals of a minute or so. I’ll tell you why presently. They always choose a rotten, cloudy, rainy night for it — they don’t come on a fine night. They carry a crew of either three or four, two of them navigators, with two of these sextants I was telling you about. They come along just over the top layer of cloud, half in it and half out of it, fixing their position by star sights as they come. They get it so that they know where they are to within half a mile, at any point of the journey.”
He paused. “All the time, they’re only just out of the cloud. When they get within fifteen or twenty miles of the town they take their last sight and go down into the cloud a couple of hundred feet or so, flying blind. In the cloud they go by dead reckoning from their last known position. When they get over the target they just dump their bombs.
“They’ve got an integrator on the airspeed indicator,�
�� he said. “An air log, that gives them the distance run. That’s what they must use for their dead reckoning.”
“How do they get away?”
“They just turn around and go home in the cloud, flying blind, far as they like. That’s why they come singly and not in squadrons. There’s less risk of collision in the cloud.”
There was a long pause.
Collins said quietly, “It’s the very devil, Corbett. Searchlights are no good, of course, nor anti-aircraft guns. The barrage is about as much use as a sick headache. The only thing that has a chance of getting them at all is the single seaters — us.” He blew a long, nervous cloud of smoke. “We’ve had three raids since the Squadron moved down here, and I’ve been up four times — twice the night before last. I’ve seen them twice, once the first night and once last night. The first time I got in a very long range burst at him with my forward guns, but he was down into the cloud before I could do any good. Last night I only just got a quick glimpse as he was going in. I didn’t get a shot at all.”
“What’s going to be done about it?”
“God knows. As things are, we’re losing more machines than they are every night, just by the normal risks of flying in this filthy weather. We wrote off two machines last night, and three the night before, on this base alone. Still,” he said, “they were less accurate last night. A good many bombs fell right outside the city. That’s because we’re pushing them back.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they know we’re up there waiting for them, now. Soon as they see us they have to duck down into the cloud. We’re intercepting them further out each night. That means they have further to go in the cloud, you see, and then the errors of their dead reckoning come in and spoil the show for them. The one I saw going into the cloud last night must have been nearly over to the far side of the Channel, fifty miles away.”
He was silent for a minute. “But this bloody weather! It’s simply suicidal. When I think of the night exercises we used to do! Beautiful, fine, clear, starry nights. I never thought we’d have to do our stuff in muck like this.”
Corbett thought about it for a minute. “This method of attack is only good for towns, I suppose? I mean, you couldn’t hit an isolated building in this way?”
The Flight Lieutenant shook his head. “Lord, no. Nor ships either. You heard what happened at Chatham?”
“No. What was that?”
“Last Wednesday. They had a good crack at the ships in the dockyard there, and lost sixteen of their machines. And they didn’t do any good with their bombs either. They won’t try that again in a hurry.”
“I don’t understand. They didn’t come at night, then?”
“Just after dawn. It was full daylight. The Archies made a proper mess of them.”
He ground his cigarette out on the ashtray. “Accurate bombing on a properly defended target is a back number,” he said. “I believe we’ve got that pretty well taped. But this blind bombing upon towns — it’s merry hell.”
Corbett laughed shortly. “You’re telling me.”
He thought about it for a minute. “How many of them come each night?”
“To Southampton? About forty or fifty machines.”
“Is that all?”
“I think so. They drop about a thousand bombs each night, and they’re using hundred-pound bombs. That means forty or fifty machines. But I’m afraid I can’t say that I’ve counted them, old boy.”
“How many towns do they bomb each night?”
The other shrugged his shoulders. “Twenty?”
“Then they must be using about a thousand machines, all told?”
“I suppose that’s about it. They must have a lot in reserve. That’s nothing like the full strength of their air force.”
“It’s enough to be going on with,” said Corbett drily.
The Flight Lieutenant nodded. “Plenty.” He was silent for a minute. “We’ve known for years that if ever a war came, they might try this sort of thing,” he said quietly. “It’s trying to break the morale of the people. They won’t do it, of course. The raids don’t do any military good. We go on functioning just as if they weren’t happening — so do the Army and the Navy. In a month or two I believe the country will adjust itself to them.”
“That may be,” said Corbett. “It’s going to take a bit of doing, though.”
“It always happens.”
The officer considered for a minute. “This new way of bombing — it’s like every new thing that’s been tried out in war — aircraft, gas, tanks — everything. They’re none of them decisive factors, and this won’t be, either. Their only real asset is surprise. All they do is to make war more unpleasant for everybody.”
“They do that all right.”
“Yes. But wars are won by men walking on their own flat feet, with a rifle and a bayonet. Not this way.”
“Maybe.”
There was a little silence. “Felicity’s staying up at Abingdon, then?”
“For the present. Our house there is out in the country, and I don’t feel much like bringing her down here. All this disease about, you know — it makes one think.”
Corbett nodded. “Have you heard how things are in Southampton today?”
“You mean the cholera? It’s pretty bad. I was in there yesterday, but last night it was put out of bounds for the troops. Still, that’s a fat lot of good. Half Southampton’s camping out alongside the airport.”
“You haven’t heard of any cases here?”
“Not yet. It’s the bloody water that does it, and that’s been all right here so far, touching wood.”
“It was off one day. What would you do for the troops if it went off altogether?”
“Start carting water for them in lorries, I suppose.”
“And what about the people camping out beside the airport? Would you start carting water for them, too?”
There was a silence.
The Flight Lieutenant shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. We’ll cross that ditch when we come to it.”
5
THAT EVENING JOAN and Peter discussed the tides. They had spent the afternoon alternately on shore; Joan had taken the children on shore for a walk. By the time the children were in bed, however, the tide had fallen and a wide expanse of mud separated them from the shore, to their annoyance.
“What we want,” said Joan, “is a nice quay that we could tie up against, so that we could walk on shore.”
Corbett rubbed his chin. “You won’t find that here,” he said. “We might move the boat out onto a mooring in the middle of the river tomorrow, if you like.”
She considered this seriously. “I believe that would be better. We’d be able to get on shore at any time, then.”
They eyed the entrance to the inn across the wide expanse of mud a little wistfully. “It would be nice to be able to get on shore at any time,” said Joan.
“Gin and Italian,” said Peter. “I know.”
The evening was clear and fine. All night the aircraft roared over their heads beneath the stars, protecting them; there was no raid. Joan and Peter slept soundly, and awoke refreshed.
It took Corbett, singlehanded, the greater part of the next day to move his vessel out onto a mooring in the middle of the river. First the engine, unused since the previous summer, had to be induced to function. Then anchors had to be laid out to warp her out of the mud berth, with a great deal of going backwards and forwards in the dinghy, and laying out and taking in of lines. It was not till four o’clock in the afternoon that she was lying on the mooring, clean and washed down, and with everything stowed away.
Corbett rested on the cabin top and smoked a cigarette. The glass was falling again, and the weather was clouding up for rain.
Joan had been on shore early in the morning, and had got a couple of pints of milk from a farm. In spite of these occasional replenishments, and in spite of having cut the older children off milk altogether, they had made heavy inroads int
o their stock; only two tins now remained of what they had brought with them from Southampton.
“We’ll have to do something about this milk business,” said Joan. “It’s getting worse and worse.”
Corbett nodded. “There are a lot more people here than when we came. Those two boats over there — they’ve got people in them now. They hadn’t when we came.”
Joan said, “I know. The farms just round about here can’t possibly supply all these people. Do you think it would be worth trying for milk in Southampton?”
“We might get some tins. I’ve been thinking about going into Southampton one day. I ought to see what’s going on at the office. And there’s the house, too....”
Joan nodded. “I want some things from the house. I left my powder compact on the dressing table, like a fool. And there’s a little thing of lipstick there, that you might bring along if you’re going.”
That night there was another raid. Again they woke up in the middle of the night to the concussion of the bombs, draped themselves in blankets, and huddled together in the hatchway looking out into the windy darkness. They stayed there for a long time, listening to the explosions and to the fighters taking off and landing.
It seemed to them that the bombs were falling very much more dispersed. Two salvoes were definitely closer to them than to the city. One set of concussions seemed to come more from the direction of Bursledon than from Southampton, and there seemed to be bombs bursting on the far side of Southampton Water, in the New Forest. “They’re getting wilder, I believe,” said Corbett. “That’s a good sign. It fits in with what Collins said.”
Joan shivered. “It won’t be worth their while bombing Southampton much longer,” she said. “There won’t be anything left there to bomb.”
Corbett rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “There’s this about it. We don’t want to see them getting too dispersed. I’d rather see them getting a bit nearer the bull than they are tonight. We don’t want to cop an outer, here.”
They stood there staring out over the dark water to the shore, the aircraft passing and re-passing over their heads. Once there was a thudding noise from the direction of the airport and a red glow appeared above the trees, and quickly grew.