Complete Works of Nevil Shute

by Nevil Shute

  They bathed in leisurely fashion in the evening sun; in bathing costumes they unrigged the boat, put away the sails, and got her up to her resting place upon the dry sand of the beach. The sun dropped down to the horizon and they changed into their clothes, took drinks from the hamper, and walked out to the jetty’s end to see the sunset while Peter and Mary got busy with the supper.

  Sitting with him perched upon a rail, watching the rosy lights reflected in the calm sea, savouring the benison of the warm evening and the comfort of her drink, she asked him, “Dwight, tell me about the cruise that Swordfish made. Did you say she went to the United States?”

  “That’s right.” He paused, and then he said, “She went everywhere she could along the eastern seaboard, but all it amounted to was just a few of the small ports and harbours, Delaware Bay, the Hudson River, and, of course, New London. They took a big chance going in to look at New York City.”

  She was puzzled. “Was that dangerous?”

  He nodded. “Minefields — our own mines. Every major port or river entrance on the eastern seaboard was protected by a series of minefields. At any rate, that’s what we think. The West Coast, too.” He paused for a moment in thought. “They should have been put down before the war. Whether they got them down before, or whether they were put down after, or whether they were never laid at all — we just don’t know. All we know is that there should be minefields there, and unless you have the plan of them to show the passage through — you can’t go in.”

  “You mean, if you hit one it’d sink you?”

  “It most certainly would. Unless you have the key chart you just daren’t go near.”

  “Did they have the key chart when they went into New York?”

  He shook his head. “They had one that was eight years old, with NOT TO BE USED stamped all over it. Those things are pretty secret; they don’t issue them unless a ship needs to go in there. They only had this old one. They must have wanted to go in very much. They got to figuring what alterations could have been made, retaining the main leading marks to show the safe channels in. They got it figured out that not much alteration to the plan they had would have been possible save on one leg. They chanced it, and went in, and got away with it. Maybe there were never any mines there at all.”

  “Did they find out much that was of value when they got into the harbour?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing but what they knew already. It’s how it seems to be, exploring places in this way. You can’t find out a lot.”

  “There was nobody alive there?”

  “Oh no, honey. The whole geography was altered. It was very radioactive, too.”

  They sat in silence for a time, watching the sunset glow, smoking over their drinks. “What was the other place you say she went to?” the girl asked at last. “New London?”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “Where is that?”

  “In Connecticut, in the eastern part of the state,” he told her. “At the mouth of the Thames River.”

  “Did they run much risk in going there?”

  He shook his head. “It was their home port. They had the key chart for the minefields there, right up to date.” He paused. “It’s the main U. S. Navy submarine base on the East Coast,” he said quietly. “Most of them lived there, I guess, or in the general area. Like I did.”

  “You lived there?”

  He nodded.

  “Was it just the same as all the other places?”

  “So it seems,” he said heavily. “They didn’t say much in the report, just the readings of the radioactivity. They were pretty bad. They got right up to the base, to their own dock that they left from. It must have been kind of funny going back like that, but there was nothing much about it in the report. Most of the officers and the enlisted men, they must have been very near their homes. There was nothing they could do, of course. They just stayed there awhile, and then went out and went on with the mission. The captain said in his report they had some kind of a religious service in the ship. It must have been painful.”

  In the warm, rosy glow of the sunset there was still beauty in the world. “I wonder they went in there,” she observed.

  “I wondered about that, just at first,” he said. “I’d have passed it by, myself, I think. Although . . . well, I don’t know. But thinking it over, I’d say they had to go in there. It was the only place they had the key chart for — that, and Delaware Bay. They were the only two places that they could get into safely. They just had to take advantage of the knowledge of the minefields that they had.”

  She nodded. “You lived there?”

  “Not in New London itself,” he said quietly. “The base is on the other side of the river, the east side. I’ve got a home about fifteen miles away, up the coast from the river entrance. Little place called West Mystic.”

  She said, “Don’t talk about it if you’d rather not.”

  He glanced at her. “I don’t mind talking, not to some people. But I wouldn’t want to bore you.” He smiled gently. “Nor to start crying, because I’d seen the baby.”

  She flushed a little. “When you let me use your cabin to change in,” she said, “I saw your photographs. Are those your family?”

  He nodded. “That’s my wife and our two kids,” he said a little proudly. “Sharon. Dwight goes to grade school, and Helen, she’ll be going next fall. She goes to a little kindergarten right now, just up the street.”

  She had known for some time that his wife and family were very real to him, more real by far than the half-life in a far corner of the world that had been forced upon him since the war. The devastation of the Northern Hemisphere was not real to him, as it was not real to her. He had seen nothing of the destruction of the war, as she had not; in thinking of his wife and of his home it was impossible for him to visualize them in any other circumstances than those in which he had left them. He had little imagination, and that formed a solid core for his contentment in Australia.

  She knew that she was treading upon very dangerous ground. She wanted to be kind to him, and she had to say something. She asked a little timidly, “What’s Dwight going to be when he grows up?”

  “I’d like him to go to the Academy,” he said. “The Naval Academy. Go into the navy, like I did. It’s a good life for a boy — I don’t know any better. Whether he can make the grade or not, well, that’s another thing. His mathematics aren’t so hot, but it’s too early yet to say. He won’t be ten years old till next July. But I’d like to see him get into the Academy. I think he wants it, too.”

  “Is he keen on the sea?” she asked.

  He nodded. “We live right near the shore. He’s on the water, swimming and running the outboard motor, most of the summer.” He paused thoughtfully. “They get so brown,” he said. “All kids seem to be the same. I sometimes think that kids get browner than we do, with the same amount of exposure.”

  “They get very brown here,” she remarked. “You haven’t started him sailing yet?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “I’m going to get a sailboat when I’m home on my next leave.”

  He raised himself from the rail that they had been sitting on, and stood for a moment looking at the sunset glow.

  “I guess that’ll be next September,” he said quietly. “Kind of late in the season to start sailing, up at Mystic.”

  She was silent, not knowing what to say.

  He turned to her. “I suppose you think I’m nuts,” he said heavily. “But that’s the way I see it, and I can’t seem to think about it any other way. At any rate, I don’t cry over babies.”

  She rose and turned to walk with him down the jetty.

  “I don’t think you’re nuts,” she said.

  They walked together in silence to the beach.

  4

  NEXT MORNING, SUNDAY, everyone in the Holmes household got up in pretty good shape, unlike the previous Sunday that Commander Towers had spent with them. They had gone to bed after a reasonable evening, un
excited by a party. At breakfast Mary asked her guest if he wanted to go to church, thinking that the more she got him out of the house the less likely he was to give Jennifer measles.

  “I’d like to go,” he said, “if that’s convenient.”

  “Of course it is,” she said. “Just do whatever you like. I thought we might take tea down to the club this afternoon, unless you’ve got anything else you’d like to do.”

  He shook his head. “I could use another swim. But I’ll have to get back to the ship tonight sometime, after supper, maybe.”

  “Can’t you stay over till tomorrow morning?”

  He shook his head, knowing her concern about the measles. “I’ll have to get back tonight.”

  He went out into the garden directly the meal was over to smoke a cigarette, thinking to ease Mary’s mind. Moira found him there when she came out from helping with the dishes, sitting in a deck chair looking out over the bay. She sat down beside him. “Are you really going to church?” she asked.

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “Can I come too?”

  He turned his head, and looked at her in surprise. “Why, certainly. Do you go regularly?”

  She smiled. “Not once in a blue moon,” she admitted. “It might be better if I did. Maybe I wouldn’t drink so much.”

  He pondered that one for a moment. “Could be,” he said uncertainly. “I don’t know that that’s got a lot to do with it.”

  “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather go alone?”

  “Why, no,” he said. “I’d like your company.”

  As they left to walk down to the church Peter Holmes was getting out the garden hose to do some watering before the sun grew hot. His wife came out of the house presently. “Where’s Moira?” she asked.

  “Gone to church with the captain.”

  “Moira? Gone to church?”

  He grinned. “Believe it or not, that’s where she’s gone.”

  She stood in silence for a minute. “I hope it’s going to be all right,” she said at last.

  “Why shouldn’t it?” he asked. “He’s dinkum, and she’s not a bad sort when you get to know her. They might even get married.”

  She shook her head. “There’s something funny about it. I hope it’s going to be all right,” she repeated.

  “It’s no concern of ours, anyway,” he said. “Lots of things are going a bit weird these days.”

  She nodded, and started pottering about the garden while he watered. Presently she said, “I’ve been thinking, Peter. Could we take out those two trees, do you think?”

  He came and looked at them with her. “I’d have to ask the landlord,” he said. “What do you want to take them out for?”

  “We’ve got so little space for growing vegetables,” she said. “They are so expensive in the shops. If we could take those trees out and cut back the wattle, we could make a kitchen garden here, from here to here.” She indicated with her hands. “I’m sure we could save nearly a pound a week by growing our own stuff. And it’d be fun, too.”

  He went to survey the trees. “I could get them down all right,” he said, “and there’s a nice bit of firewood in them. It’d be green, of course, too green to burn this winter. We’d have to stack it for a year. The only thing is, getting out the stumps. It’s quite a big job, that.”

  “There are only two of them,” she said. “I could help — keep on nibbling at them while you’re away. If we could get them out this winter and dig the ground over, I could plant it in the spring and we’d have vegetables all next summer.” She paused. “Peas and beans,” she said. “And a vegetable marrow. I’d make marrow jam.”

  “Good idea,” he said. He looked the trees up and down. “They’re not very big,” he said. “It’d be better for the pine if they came out.”

  “Another thing I want to do,” she said, “is to put in a flowering gum tree, here. I think that’d look lovely in the summer.”

  “Takes about five years to come into bloom,” he said.

  “Never mind. A gum tree there would be just lovely, up against the blue of the sea. We could see it from our bedroom window.”

  He paused, considering the brilliance of the scarlet flowers all over the big tree against the deep blue sea, in the brilliant sunlight. “It’d certainly be quite a sensation when it was in bloom,” he said. “Where would you put it? Here?”

  “A bit more over this way, here,” she said. “When it got big we could take down this holly thing and have a seat in the shade, here.” She paused. “I went to Wilson’s nurseries while you were away,” she said. “He’s got some lovely little flowering gum trees there, only ten and sixpence each. Do you think we could put in one of those this autumn?”

  “They’re a bit delicate,” he said. “I think the thing to do would be to put in two fairly close to each other, so that you’d have one if the other died. Then take out one of them in a couple of years’ time.”

  “The trouble is, one never does it,” she observed.

  They went on happily planning their garden for the next ten years, and the morning passed very quickly. When Moira and Dwight came back from church they were still at it. They were called into consultation on the layout of the kitchen garden. Presently Peter and Mary went into the house, the former to get drinks and the latter to get the lunch.

  The girl glanced at the American. “Someone’s crazy,” she said quietly. “Is it me or them?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “They won’t be here in six months’ time. I won’t be here. You won’t be here. They won’t want any vegetables next year.”

  Dwight stood in silence for a moment, looking out at the blue sea, the long curve of the shore. “So what?” he said at last. “Maybe they don’t believe it. Maybe they think that they can take it all with them and have it where they’re going to, someplace. I wouldn’t know.” He paused. “The thing is, they just kind of like to plan a garden. Don’t you go and spoil it for them, telling them they’re crazy.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.” She stood in silence for a minute. “None of us really believe it’s ever going to happen — not to us,” she said at last. “Everybody’s crazy on that point, one way or another.”

  “You’re very right,” he said emphatically.

  Drinks came, and put a closure on the conversation, and then lunch. After lunch Mary turned the men out into the garden, thinking them to be infectious, while she washed the dishes with Moira. Seated in deck chairs with a cup of coffee, Peter asked his captain, “Have you heard anything about our next job, sir?”

  The American cocked his eye at him. “Not a thing. Have you?”

  “Not really. Something was said at that conference with P.S.O. that made me wonder if anything was in the wind.”

  “What was it that was said?”

  “Something about fitting us with new directional wireless of some kind. Have you heard anything?”

  Dwight shook his head. “We’ve got plenty of radio.”

  “This is for taking a bearing — accurately. Perhaps when we’re submerged to periscope depth. We can’t do that, can we?”

  “Not with our existing equipment. What do they want us to do that for?”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t on the agenda. It was just one of the back-room boys speaking out of turn.”

  “They want us to track down radio signals?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know, sir. How it came up was that they asked if the radiation detector could be moved to the forward periscope so that this thing could be put on the aft periscope. John Osborne said he was pretty sure it could, but he’d take it up with you.”

  “That’s right. It can go on the forward periscope. I thought they wanted to fit two.”

  “I don’t think so, sir. I think they want to fit this other gadget in its place on the aft one.”

  The American stared at the smoke rising from his cigarette. Then he said, “Seattle.”

  “What’s that, sir?”

&
nbsp; “Seattle. There were radio signals coming from someplace near Seattle. Do you know if they’re still coming through?”

  Peter shook his head, amazed. “I didn’t know anything about that. Do you mean that somebody’s still operating a transmitter?”

  The captain shrugged his shoulders. “Could be. If so, it’s somebody that doesn’t know how to send. Sometimes they make a group, sometimes a word in clear. Most times it’s just a jumble, like a child might make, playing at radio stations.”

  “Does this go on all the time?”

  Dwight shook his head. “I don’t think so. It comes on the air irregularly, now and then. I know they’re monitoring that frequency most of the time. At least, they were till Christmas. I haven’t heard since.”

  The liaison officer said, “But that must mean there’s somebody alive up there.”

  “It’s just a possibility. You can’t have radio without power, and that means starting up some kind of a motor. A big motor, to run a big station with global range. But — I don’t know. You’d think a guy who could start up an outfit of that size and run it — you’d think he’d know Morse code. Even if he had to spell it out two words a minute with the book in front of him.”

  “Do you think we’re going there?”

  “Could be. It was one of the points they wanted information on, way back last October. They wanted all the information on the U.S. radio stations that we had.”

  “Did you have anything that helped?”

  Dwight shook his head. “Only the U. S. Navy stations. Very little on the Air Force or the Army stations. Practically nothing on the civil stations. There’s more radio on the West Coast than you could shake a stick at.”

  That afternoon they strolled down to the beach and bathed, leaving Mary with the baby at the house. Lying on the warm sand with the two men, Moira asked, “Dwight, where is Swordfish now? Is she coming here?”

  “I haven’t heard it,” he replied. “The last I heard she was in Montevideo.”

  “She could turn up here, any time,” said Peter Holmes. “She’s got the range.”