Nevil Shute - On The Beach

"He’s all right," the scientist said. "Only a bat or two flying round the belfry."

She frowned a little; this wasn’t the Pogo stick. "What about?"

"He wants a couple of days’ trout fishing before we all go home," her cousin said. "But he won’t go before the season opens, and that’s not until September the first."

She stood in silence for a moment. "Well, what of it? He’s keeping the law, anyway. More than you are, with that disgusting car. Where do you get the petrol for it?"

"It doesn’t run on petrol," he replied. "It runs on something out of a test tube."

"Smells like it," she said. She watched him as he levered himself down into the seat and adjusted his crash helmet, as the engine crackled spitefully into life, as he shot off down the drive leaving great wheel ruts on a flower bed.

A fortnight later, in the Pastoral Club, Mr. Alan Sykes walked into the little smoking room for a drink at twenty minutes past twelve. Lunch was not served till one o’clock so he was the first in the room; he helped himself to a gin and stood alone, considering his problem. Mr. Sykes was the director of the State Fisheries and Game Department, a man who liked to run his business upon sound lines regardless of political expediency. The perplexities of the time had now invaded his routine, and he was a troubled man.

Sir Douglas Froude came into the room. Mr. Sykes, watching him, thought that he was walking very badly and that his red face was redder than ever. He said, "Good morning, Douglas. I’m in the book."

"Oh, thank you, thank you," said the old man. "I’ll take a Spanish sherry with you." He poured it with a trembling hand. "You know," he said, "I think the Wine Committee must be absolutely crazy. We’ve got over four hundred bottles of magnificent dry sherry, Ruy de Lopez, 1947, and they seem to be prepared to let it stay there in the cellars. They said the members wouldn’t drink it because of the price. I told them, I said—give it away, if you can’t sell it. But don’t just leave it there. So now it’s the same price as the Australian." He paused. "Let me pour you a glass, Alan. It’s in the most beautiful condition."

"I’ll have one later. Tell me, didn’t I hear you say once that Bill Davidson was a relation of yours?"

The old man nodded shakily. "Relation, or connection. Connection, I think. His mother married my... married my—No, I forget. I don’t seem to remember things like I used to."

"Do you know his daughter Moira?"

"A nice girl, but she drinks too much. Still, she does it on brandy they tell me, so that makes a difference."

"She’s been making some trouble for me."

"She’s been to the Minister, and he sent her to me with a note. She wants us to open the trout season early this year, or nobody will get any trout fishing. The Minister thinks it would be a good thing to do. I suppose he’s looking to the next election."

"Open the trout season early? You mean, before September the first?"

"That’s the suggestion."

"A very bad suggestion, if I may say so. The fish won’t have finished spawning, and if they have they’ll be in very poor condition. You could ruin the fishing for years, doing a thing like that. When does he want to open the season?"

"He suggests August the tenth." He paused. "It’s that girl, that relation of yours, who’s at the bottom of this thing. I don’t believe it would ever have entered his head but for her."

"I think it’s a terrible proposal. Quite irresponsible. I’m sure I don’t know what the world’s coming to..."

As member after member came into the room the debate continued and more joined in the discussion. Mr. Sykes found that the general opinion was in favour of the change in date. "After all," said one, "they’ll go and fish in August if they can get there and the weather’s fine, whether you like it or not. And you can’t fine them or send them to jail because there won’t be time to bring the case on. May as well give a reasonable date, and make a virtue of necessity. Of course," he added conscientiously, "It’d be for this year only."

A leading eye surgeon remarked, "I think it’s a very good idea. If the fish are poor we don’t have to take them; we can always put them back. Unless the season should be very early they won’t take a fly; we’ll have to use a spinner. But I’m in favour of it, all the same. When I go, I’d like it to be on a sunny day on the bank of the Delatite with a rod in my hand."

Somebody said, "Like the man they lost from the American submarine."

"Yes, just like that. I think that fellow had the right idea."

Mr. Sykes, having taken a cross section of the most influential opinion of the city, went back to his office with an easier mind, rang up his Minister, and that afternoon drafted an announcement to be broadcast on the radio that would constitute one of those swift changes of policy to meet the needs of the time, easy to make in a small, highly educated country and very characteristic of Australia. Dwight Towers heard it that evening in the echoing, empty wardroom of H.M.A.S. Sydney, and marvelled, not connecting it in the least with his own conversation with the scientist a few days before. Immediately he began making plans to try out Junior’s rod. Transport was going to be the difficulty, but difficulties were there to overcome be by the Supreme Commander of the U.S. Naval Forces.

In what was left of Australia that year a relief of tension came soon after midwinter. By the beginning of July, when Broken Hill and Perth went out, few people in Melbourne were doing any more work than they wanted to. The electricity supply continued uninterrupted, as did the supply of the essential foodstuffs, but fuel for fires and little luxuries now had to be schemed and sought for by a people who had little else to do. As the weeks went by the population became noticeably more sober; there were still riotous parties, still drunks sleeping in the gutter, but far fewer than there had been earlier. And, like harbingers of the coming spring, one by one motorcars started to appear on the deserted roads.

It was difficult at first to say where they came from or where they got the petrol, for each case on investigation proved to be exceptional. Peter Holmes’ landlord turned up in a Holden one day to remove firewood from the trees that had been felled, explaining awkwardly that he had retained a little of the precious fluid for cleaning clothes. A cousin in the Royal Australian Air Force came to visit them from Laverton Aerodrome driving an M.G., explaining that he had saved the petrol but there didn’t seem to be much sense in saving it any longer; this was clearly nonsense, because Bill never saved anything. An engineer who worked at the Shell refinery at Corio said that he had managed to buy a little petrol on the black market in Fitzroy but very properly refused to name the scoundrel who had sold it. Like a sponge squeezed by the pressure of circumstances, Australia began to drip a little petrol, and as the weeks went on towards August the drip became a trickle.

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. "Tires are the snag now. I don’t know what we’re going to do about those."