Nevil Shute - On The Beach

"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 pea?" 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.

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, unexcited 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."