Nevil Shute - On The Beach

"Don’t you know? Haven’t you ever been in here before?"

He shook his head. "Brandy?"

"Double," she said. "With ice, and just a little water. Don’t you come in here?"

"I’ve never been in here," he told her.

"Don’t you ever want to go out on a bender?" she inquired. "In the evenings, when you’ve got nothing to do?"

"I used to just at first," he admitted. "But then I went up to the city for it. Don’t mess on your own doorstep. I gave it up after a week or two. It wasn’t very satisfactory."

"What do you do in the evenings, when the ship’s not at sea?" she asked.

"Read a magazine, or else maybe a book. Sometimes we go out and take in a movie." The barman came, and he ordered her brandy, with a small whisky for himself.

"It all sounds very unhealthy," she observed. "I’m going to the Ladies’. Look after my bag."

He managed to detach her from the hotel after her second double brandy and took her into the dockyard and to Sydney, hoping that she would behave herself in front of his officers. But he need have had no fears; she was demure and courteous to all the Americans. Only to Osborne did she reveal her real self.

"Hub, John," she said. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"I’m part of the ship’s company," he told her. "Scientific observation. Making a nuisance of myself generally."

"That’s what Commander Towers told me," she observed. "You’re really going to live with them in the submarine? For days on end?"

"So it seems."

"Do they know your habits?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"All right, I won’t tell them. It’s nothing to do with me." She turned away to talk to Commander Lundgren.

When he offered her a drink she chose an orangeade; she made an attractive picture in the wardroom of Sydney that morning, drinking with the Americans, standing beneath the portrait of the Queen. While she was occupied, the captain drew his liaison officer to one side. "Say," he observed in a low tone, "she can’t go down in Scorpion in those clothes. Can you rustle up an overall for her?"

Peter nodded. "I’ll draw a boiler suit. About size one, I should think. Where’s she going to change?"

The captain rubbed his chin. "Do you know any place?"

"Nothing better than your sleeping cabin, sir. She wouldn’t be disturbed there."

"I’ll never hear the last of it—from her."

"I’m sure you won’t," said Peter.

She lunched with the Americans at the end of one of the long tables, and took coffee with them in the anteroom.

Then the junior officers dispersed to go about their business, and she was left with Dwight and Peter. Peter laid a clean, laundered boiler suit upon the table. "There’s the overall," he said.

Dwight cleared his throat. "It’s liable to be greasy in a submarine, Miss Davidson," he said.

"Moira," she interrupted.

"Okay, Moira. I was thinking maybe you should go down in an overall. I’m afraid you might get that dress pretty dirty down in Scorpion. "

She took the boiler suit and unfolded it. "It’s a comprehensive change," she observed. "Where can I put it on?"

"I was thinking you might use my sleeping cabin," he suggested. "You wouldn’t be disturbed there."

"I hope not, but I wouldn’t be too sure," she said. "Not after what happened in the boat." He laughed. "All right, Dwight, lead me to it. I’ll try everything once."

He took her to the cabin and went back to the anteroom himself to wait for her. In the little sleeping cabin she looked about her curiously. There were photographs there, four of them. All showed a dark-haired young woman with two children, a boy eight or nine years old and a girl a couple of years younger. One was a studio portrait of a mother with two children. The others were enlargements of snapshots, one at a bathing place with the family seated on a springboard, perhaps at a hike shore. Another was apparently taken on a lawn, perhaps the lawn before his home, for a long car showed in the background and a portion of a white wooden house. She stood examining them with interest; they looked nice people. It was hard, but so was everything these days. No good agonizing about it.

She changed, leaving her outer clothes and her bag on the bunk, scowled at her appearance in the little mirror, and went out and down the corridor to find her host. He came forward to meet her. "Well, here I am," she said. "Looking like hell. Your submarine will have to be good, Dwight, to make up for this."

He laughed, and took her arm to guide her. "Sure it’s good," he said. "Best in the U.S. Navy. This way." She repressed the comment that it was probably the only one m the U.S. Navy; no sense in hurting him.

He took her down the gangplank to the narrow deck and up on to the bridge, and began explaining his ship to her.

She knew little of ships and nothing about submarines, but she was attentive and once or twice surprised him with the quick intelligence of her questions. "When you go down, why doesn’t the water go down the voice pipe?" she asked.

"You turn off this cock."

"What happens if you forget?"

He grinned. "There’s another one down below."

He took her down through the narrow hatchways into the control room. She spent some time at the periscope looking around the harbour and got the hang of that, but the ballasting and trim controls were beyond her and she was not much interested. She stared uncomprehending at the engines, but the sleeping and messing quarters intrigued her, so did the galley. "What happens about smells?" she asked. "What happens when you’re cooking cabbage underwater?"

"You try not to have to do it," he told her. "Not fresh cabbage. The smell hangs around for quite a while. Finally the deodorizer deals with it, as the air gets changed and reoxygenated. There wouldn’t be much left after an hour or two."

He gave her a cup of tea in the tiny cubicle that was his cabin. Sipping it, she asked him, "Have you got your orders yet, Dwight?"

He nodded. "Cairns, Port Moresby, and Darwin. Then we come back here."

"There isn’t anybody left alive in any of those places, is there?"

"I wouldn’t know. That’s what we’ve got to find out."

"Will you go ashore?"

He shook his head. "I don’t think so. It all depends upon the radiation levels, but I wouldn’t think we’d land. Maybe we won’t even go outside the hull. We might stay at periscope depth if the conditions are really bad. But that’s why we’re taking John Osborne along with us, so we’ll have somebody who really understands what the risks are."

She wrinkled her brows. "But if you can’t go out on deck, how can you know if there’s anyone still living in those places?"

"We can call through the loud hailer," he said. "Get as close inshore as we can manage, and call through the loud hailer."

"Could you hear them if they answer?"

"Not so well as we can talk. We’ve got a microphone hooked up beside the hailer, but you’d have to be very close to hear a person calling in reply. Still, it’s something."

She glanced at him. "Has anybody been into the radioactive area before, Dwight?"

"Why, yes," he said. "It’s okay if you’re sensible, and don’t take risks. We were in it quite a while while the war was on, from Iwo Jima to the Philippines and then down south to Yap. You stay submerged, and carry on as usual. Of course, you don’t want to go out on deck."

"I mean—recently. Has anyone been up into the radioactive area since the war stopped?"

He nodded. "The Swordfish— that’s our sister ship—she made a cruise up in the North Atlantic. She got back to Rio de Janeiro about a month ago. I’ve been waiting for a copy of Johnny Dismore’s report—he’s her captain but I haven’t seen it yet. There hasn’t been a ship across to South America for quite a while. I asked for a copy to be sent by teleprinter, but it’s low priority on the radio."