Nevil Shute - On The Beach

She stopped a man who was going down to the vessel. "If you see Captain Towers, would you ask him if he could come up and have a word with me?" she said.

"Sure, lady," he replied. "I’ll tell him right away," and presently Dwight came in view, and came up the gangway to her.

He was looking very ill, she thought, as they all were. He took her hands regardless of the onlookers. "It was nice of you to come to say good-bye," he said. "How are things at home, honey?"

"Very bad," she said. "Daddy and Mummy will be finishing quite soon, and I think I shall, too. This is the end of it for all of us, today." She hesitated, and then said, "Dwight, I want to ask something."

"What’s that, honey?"

"May I come with you, in the submarine?" She paused, and then she said, "I don’t believe that I’ll have anything at home to go back to. Daddy said I could just park the Customline in the street and leave it. He won’t be using it again. May I come with you?"

He stood silent for so long that she knew the answer would be no. "I’ve been asked the same thing by four men this morning," he said. "I’ve refused them all, because Uncle Sam wouldn’t like it. I’ve run this vessel in the navy way right through, and I’m running her that way up till the end. I can’t take you, honey. We’ll each have to take this on our own."

"That’s all right," she said dully. She looked up at him. "You’ve got your presents with you?"

"Sure," he said. "I’ve got those, thanks to you."

"Tell Sharon about me," she said. "We’ve nothing to conceal."

He touched her arm. "You’re wearing the same outfit that you wore first time we met."

She smiled faintly. "Keep him occupied—don’t give him time to think about things, or perhaps he’ll start crying. Have I done my job right, Dwight?"

"Very right indeed," he said. He took her in his arms and kissed her, and she clung to him for a minute.

Then she freed herself. "Don’t let’s prolong the agony," she said. "We’ve said everything there is to say. What time are you leaving?"

"Very soon," he said. "We’ll be casting off in about five minutes."

"What time will you be sinking her?" she asked.

He thought for a moment. "Thirty miles down the bay, and then twelve miles out. Forty-two sea miles. I shan’t waste any time. Say two hours and ten minutes after we cast off from here."

She nodded slowly. "I’ll be thinking of you." And then she said, "Go now, Dwight. Maybe I’ll see you in Connecticut one day."

He drew her near to kiss her again, but she refused him. "No—go on now." In her mind she phrased the words, "Or I’ll be the one that starts crying." He nodded slowly, and said, "Thanks for everything," and then he turned and went away down the gangway to the submarine.

There were two or three women now standing at the head of the gangway with her. There were apparently no men aboard the carrier to run the gangway in. She watched as Dwight appeared on the bridge from the interior of the submarine and took the con, watched as the lower end of the gangway was released, as the lines were singled up. She saw the stern line and the spring cast off, watched as Dwight spoke into the voice pipe, watched the water swirl beneath her stern as the propellers ran slow ahead and the stern swung out. It began to rain a little from the grey sky. The bow line and spring were cast off and men coiled them down and slammed the steel hatch of the superstructure shut as the submarine went slow astern in a great arc away from the carrier.

Then they all vanished down below, and only Dwight with one other was left on the bridge. He lifted his hand in salutation to her, and she lifted hers to him, her eyes blurred with tears, and the low hull of the vessel swung away around Point Gellibrand and vanished in the murk.

With the other women, she turned away from the steel port. "There’s nothing now to go on living for," she said.

One of the women replied, "Well, you won’t have to, ducks."

She smiled faintly, and glanced at her watch. It showed three minutes past eight. At about ten minutes past ten Dwight would be going home, home to the Connecticut village that he loved so well. There was nothing now for her in her own home; if she went back to Harkaway she would find nothing there now but the cattle and sad memories. She could not go with Dwight because of naval discipline, and that she understood. Yet she could be very near him when he started home, only about twelve miles away. Then she turned up by his side with a grin on her face, perhaps he would take her with him, and she could see Helen hopping round upon the Pogo stick.

She hurried out through the dim, echoing caverns of the dead aircraft carrier, and found the gangway, and went down on to the quay to her big car. There was plenty of petrol in the tank; she had filled it up from the cans hidden behind the hay the previous day. She got into it and opened her bag; the red carton was still there. She uncorked the bottle of brandy and took a long swallow of the neat liquor; it was good, that stuff, because she hadn’t had to go since she left home. Then she started the car and swung it round upon the quay, and drove out of the dockyard, and on through minor roads and suburbs till she found the highway to Geelong.

Once on the highway she trod on it, and went flying down the unobstructed road at seventy miles an hour in the direction of Geelong, a bareheaded, white-faced girl in a bright crimson costume, slightly intoxicated, driving a big car at speed. She passed Laverton with its big aerodrome, Werribee with its experimental farm, and went flying southwards down the deserted road. Somewhere before Corio a spasm shook her suddenly, so that she had to stop and retire into the bushes; she came out a quarter of an hour later, white as a sheet, and took a long drink of her brandy.

Then she went on, as fast as ever. She passed the grammar school away on the left and came to shabby, industrial Corio, and so to Geelong, dominated by its cathedral. In the great tower the bells were ringing for some service. She slowed a little to pass through the city but there was nothing on the road except deserted cars at the roadside. She only saw three people, all of them men.

Out of Geelong upon the fourteen miles of road to Barwon Heads and to the sea. As she passed the flooded common she felt her strength was leaving her, but there was now not far to go. A quarter of an hour later she swung right into the great avenue of macrocarpa that was the main street of the little town. At the end she turned left away from the golf links and the little house where so many happy hours of childhood had been spent, knowing now that she would never see it again. She turned right at the bridge at about twenty minutes to ten and passed through the empty caravan park up on to the headland. The sea lay before her, grey and rough with great rollers coming in from the south on to the rocky beach below.

The ocean was empty and grey beneath the overcast, but away to the east there was a break in the clouds and a shaft of light striking down on to the waters. She parked across the road in full view of the sea, got out of her car, took another drink from her bottle, and scanned the horizon for the submarine. Then as she turned towards the lighthouse on Point Lonsdale and the entrance to Port Philip Bay she saw the low grey shape appear, barely five miles away and heading southwards from the Heads.

She could not see detail but she knew that Dwight was there upon the bridge, taking his ship out on her last cruise. She knew he could not see her and he could not know that she was watching, but she waved to him. Then she got back into the car because the wind was—raw and chilly from south polar regions, and she was feeling very ill, and she could watch him just as well when sitting down in shelter.