On The Beach

5

Of the three presents which Peter Holmes took back to his wife that night, the playpen was the most appreciated.

It was a brand-new playpen, painted in a pastel green, with brightly coloured beads upon the abacus. He set it up upon the lawn before he went into the house, and then called Mary out to see it. She came and examined it critically, testing it for stability to make sure the baby couldn’t pull it over on top of her. "I do hope the paint won’t come off," she said. "She sucks everything, you know. Green paint’s awfully dangerous. It’s got verdigris in it."

"I asked about that in the shop," he said. "It’s not oil paint—it’s Duco. She’d have to have acetone in her saliva to get that off."

"She can get the paint off most..." She stood back and looked at it. "It’s an awfully pretty colour," she said. "It’ll go beautifully with the curtains in the nursery."

"I thought it might," he said. "They had a blue one, but I thought you’d like this better."

"Oh, I do!" She put her arms round him and kissed him. "It’s a lovely present. You must have had a fearful job with it on the tram. Thank you so much."

"That’s all right," he said. He kissed her back. "I’m so glad you like it."

She went and fetched the baby from the house and put her in the pen. Then they got short drinks for themselves and sat on the lawn, the bars between them and the baby, smoking cigarettes and watching her reaction to the new environment. They watched her as she grasped one of the bars in a tiny fist.

"You don’t think she’ll get up on her feet too soon, with that to hold on to?" her mother asked, worried. "I mean, she wouldn’t learn to walk without it for a long time. If they walk too soon they grow up bandy legged."

"I shouldn’t think so," Peter said. "I mean, everyone has playpens. I had one when I was a kid, and I didn’t grow up bandy legged."

"I suppose if she didn’t pull herself up on this she’d be pulling herself up on something else. A chair, or something."

When Mary took the baby away to give her her bath and make her ready for bed, Peter took the playpen indoors and set it up in the nursery. Then he laid the table for the evening meal. Then he went and stood on the verandah fingering the red boxes in his pocket, wondering how on earth he was to give his other presents to his wife.

Presently he went and got himself a whisky. He did it that evening, shortly before she went to take

the baby up before they went to bed. He said awkwardly, "There’s one thing I want to have a talk about before I go off on this cruise.

She looked up. "What’s that?"

"About this radiation sickness people get. There’s one or two things that you ought to know."

She said impatiently, "Oh, that. It’s not until September. I don’t want to talk about it."

"I’m afraid we’ll have to talk about it," he said.

"I don’t see why. You can tell me all about it nearer the time. When we know it’s coming. Mrs. Hildred says her husband heard from somebody that it isn’t coming here after all. It’s slowing down or something. It’s not going to get here."

"I don’t know who Mrs. Hildred’s husband has been talking to. But I can tell you that there’s not a word of truth in it. It’s coming here, all right. It may come in September, or it may come sooner."

She stared at him. "You mean that we’re all going to get it?"

"Yes," he said. "We’re all going to get it. We’re all going to die of it. That’s why I want to tell you just a bit about it."

"Can’t you tell me about it nearer the time? When we know it’s really going to happen?"

He shook his head. "I’d rather tell you now. You see, I might not be here when it happens. It might come quicker than we think, while I’m away. Or I might get run over by a bus—anything."

"There aren’t any buses," she said quietly. "What you mean is the submarine."

"Have it your own way," he said. "I’d be much happier while I’m away in the submarine if I knew you knew about things more than you do now."

"All right," she said reluctantly. She lit a cigarette. "Go on and tell me."

He thought for a minute. "We’ve all got to die one day," he said at last. "I don’t know that dying this way is much worse than any other. What happens is that you get ill. You start feeling sick, and then you are sick. Apparently you go on being sick—you can’t keep anything down. And then, you’ve got to go. Diarrhoea. And that gets worse and worse, too. You may recover for a little while, but it comes back again. And finally you get so weak that you just—die."

She blew a long cloud of smoke. "How long does all this take?"

"I didn’t ask about that. I think it varies with the individual. It may take two or three days. I suppose if you recover it might take two or three weeks."

There was a short silence. "It’s messy," she said at last. "I suppose if everybody gets it all at once, there’s nobody to help you. No doctors, and no hospitals?"

"I shouldn’t think so. I think this is a thing you’ve got to battle through with on your own."

"But you’ll be here, Peter?"

"I’ll be here," he comforted her. "I’m just telling you to cover the thousand to one chance."

"But if I’m all alone, who’s going to look after Jennifer?"

"Leave Jennifer out of it for the moment," he said. "We’ll come to her later." He leaned towards her. "The thing is this, dear. There’s no recovery. But you don’t have to die in a mess. You can die decently, when things begin to get too bad." He drew the smaller of the two red boxes from his pocket.

She stared at it, fascinated. "What’s that?" she whispered.

He undid the little carton and took out the vial. "This is a dummy," he said. "These aren’t real. Goldie gave it me to show you what to do. You just take one of them with a drink—any kind of drink. Whatever you like best. And then you just lie back, and that’s the end."

"You mean, you die?" The cigarette was dead between her fingers.

He nodded. "When it gets too bad—it’s the way out."

"What’s the other pill for?" she whispered.

"That’s a spare," he said. "I suppose they give it you in case you lose one of them, or funk it."

She sat in silence, her eyes fixed on the red box.

"When the time comes," he said, "they’ll tell you all about this on the wireless. Then you just go to Goldie’s and ask the girl for it, over the counter, so that you can have it in the house. She’ll give it to you. Everybody will be given it who wants it."

She reached out, dropping the dead cigarette, and took the box from him. She read the instructions printed on it in black. At last she said, "But, Peter, however ill I was, I couldn’t do that. Who would look after Jennifer?"

"We’re all going to get it," he said. "Every living thing. Dogs and cats and babies—everyone. I’m going to get it. You’re going to get it. Jennifer’s going to get it, too."

She stared at him. "Jennifer’s going to get this sort of—cholera?"

"I’m afraid so, dear," he said. "We’re all going to get it."

She dropped her eyes. "That’s beastly," she said vehemently. "I don’t mind for myself so much. But that’s... it’s simply vile."

He tried to comfort her. "It’s the end of everything for all of us," he said. "We’re going to lose most of the years of life that we’ve looked forward to, and Jennifer’s going to lose all of them. But it doesn’t have to be too painful for her. When things are hopeless, you can make it easy for her. It’s going to take a bit of courage on your part, but you’ve got that. This is what you’ll have to do if I’m not here."

He drew the other red box from his pocket and began to explain the process to her. She watched him with growing hostility. "Let me get this straight," she said, and now there was an edge in her voice. "Are you trying to tell me what I’ve got to do to kill Jennifer?"

He knew that there was trouble coming, but he had to face it. "That’s right," he said. "If it becomes necessary you’ll have to do it."

She flared suddenly into anger. "I think you’re crazy," she exclaimed. "I’d never do a thing like that, however ill she was. I’d nurse her to the end. You must be absolutely mad. The trouble is that you don’t love her. You never have loved her. She’s always been a nuisance to you. Well, she’s not a nuisance to me. It’s you that’s the nuisance. And now it’s reached the stage that you’re trying to tell me how to murder her." She got to her feet, white with rage. "If you say one more word I’ll murder you!"

He had never seen her so angry before. He got to his feet. "Have it your own way," he said wearily. "You don’t have to use these things if you don’t want to."

She said furiously, "There’s a trick here, somewhere. You’re trying to get me to murder Jennifer and kill myself. Then you’d be free to go off with some other woman."

He had not thought that it would be so bad as this. "Don’t be a bloody fool," he said sharply. "If I’m here I’ll have it myself. If I’m not here, if you’ve got to face things on your own, it’ll be because I’m dead already. Just think of that, and try and get that into your fat head. I’ll be dead."

She stared at him in angry silence.

"There’s another thing you’d better think about," he said. "Jennifer may live longer than you will." He held up the first red box. "You can chuck these in the dust bin," he said. "You can battle on as long as you can stand, until you die. But Jennifer may not be dead. She may live on for days, crying and vomiting all over herself in her cot and lying in her muck, with you dead on the floor beside her and nobody to help her. Finally, of course, she’ll die. Do you want her to die like that? If you do, I don’t." He turned away. "Just think about it, and don’t be such a bloody fool."

She stood in silence. For a moment he thought that she was going to fall, but he was too angry now himself to help her.

"This is a time when you’ve just got to show some guts and face up to things," he said.

She turned and ran out of the room, and presently he heard her sobbing in the bedroom. He did not go to her. Instead he poured himself a whisky and soda and went out on to the verandah and sat down in a deck chair, looking out over the sea. These bloody women, sheltered from realities, living in a sentimental dream world of their own! If they’d face up to things they could help a man, help him enormously. While they clung to the dream world they were just a bloody millstone round his neck.

About midnight, after his third whisky, he went into the house and to their bedroom. She was in bed and the light was out; he undressed in the dark, fearing to wake her. She lay with her back to him; he turned from her and fell asleep, helped by the whisky. At about two in the morning he awoke, and heard her sobbing in the bed beside him. He stretched out a hand to comfort her.

She turned to him, still sobbing. "Oh, Peter, I’m sorry I’ve been such a fool."

They said no more about the red boxes, but next morning he put them in the medicine cupboard in the bathroom, at the back, where they would not be obtrusive but where she could hardly fail to see them. In each box he left a little note explaining that it was a dummy, explaining what she had to do to get the real ones. He added to each note a few words of love, thinking that she might well read it after he was dead.

The pleasant summer weather lasted well on into March. In Scorpion there were no more cases of measles, and the work upon the submarine progressed quickly in the hands of dockyard fitters who had little else to do. Peter Holmes took down the second tree, cut it up and stacked the logs to dry out so that they could be burned the following year, and started to dig out the stumps to make the kitchen garden.

John Osborne started up his Ferrari and drove it out upon the road. There was no positive prohibition upon motoring at that time. There was no petrol available to anybody because officially there was no petrol in the country; the stocks reserved for doctors and for hospitals had been used up. Yet very occasionally cars were still seen in motion on the roads. Each individual motorist had cans of petrol tucked away in his garage or in some private hiding place, provision that he had made when things were getting short, and these reserves were sometimes called upon in desperate emergency. John Osborne’s Ferrari on the road did not call for any action by the police, even when his foot slipped upon the unfamiliar accelerator on his first drive and he touched eighty-five in second gear in Bourke Street, in the middle of the city.

Unless he were to kill anybody, the police were not disposed to persecute him for a trifle such as that.

He did not kill anybody, but he frightened himself very much. There was a private road-racing circuit in South Gippsland near a little place called Tooradin, owned and run by a club of enthusiasts. Here there was a three-mile circuit of wide bitumen road, privately owned, leading nowhere, and closed to the public. The course had one long straight and a large number of sinuous turns and bends. Here races were still held, sparsely attended by the public for lack of road transport. Where the enthusiasts got their petrol from remained a closely guarded secret, or a number of secrets, because each seemed to have his own private hoard, as John Osborne hoarded his eight drums of special racing fuel in his mother’s back garden.

John Osborne took his Ferrari down to this place several times, at first for practice and later to compete in races, short races for the sake of fuel economy. The car fulfilled a useful purpose in his life. His had been the life of a scientist, a man whose time was spent in theorizing in an office or, at best, in a laboratory. Not for him had been the life of action. He was not very well accustomed to taking personal risks, to endangering his life, and his life had been the poorer for it. When he had been drafted to the submarine for scientific duties he had been pleasurably excited by the break in his routine, but in secret he had been terrified each time that they submerged. He had managed to control himself and carry out his duties without much of his nervous tension showing during their week of underwater cruising in the north, but he had been acutely nervous of the prospect of nearly a month of it in the cruise that was coming.

The Ferrari altered that. Each time he drove it, it excited him. At first he did not drive it very well. After touching a hundred and fifty miles an hour or so upon the straight, he failed to slow enough to take his corners safely. Each corner at first was a sort of dice with death, and twice he spun and ended up on the grass verge, white and trembling with shock and deeply ashamed that he had treated his car so. Each little race or practice run upon the circuit left him with the realization of mistakes that he must never make again, with the realization of death escaped by inches.

With these major excitements in the forefront of his mind, the coming cruise in Scorpion ceased to terrify. There was no danger in that comparable with the dangers that he courted in his racing car. The naval interlude became a somewhat boring chore to be lived through, a waste of time that now was growing precious, till he could get back to Melbourne and put in three months of road racing before the end.

Like every other racing motorist, he spent a lot of time endeavouring to track down further supplies of fuel.

Sir David Hartman held his conference as had been arranged. Dwight Towers went to it as captain of Scorpion and took his liaison officer with him. He also took the radio and electrical officer, a Lieutenant Sunderstrom, to the conference because matters connected with the Seattle radio were likely to arise. C.S.I.R.O. were represented by the director with John Osborne, the Third Naval Member was there with one of his officers, and the party was completed by one of the Prime Minister’s secretaries.

At the commencement the First Naval Member outlined the difficulties of the operation. "It is my desire," he said, "and it is the Prime Minister’s instruction, that Scorpion should not be exposed to any extreme danger in the course of this cruise. In the first place, we want the results of the scientific observations we are sending her to make. At the low height of her radio aerial and the necessity that she remains submerged for much of the time, we cannot expect free radio communication with her. For that reason alone she must return safely or the whole value of the operation will be lost. Apart from that, she is the only long-range vessel left at our disposal for communication with South America and with South Africa. With these considerations in mind I have made fairly drastic alterations to the cruise that we discussed at our last meeting. The investigation of the Panama Canal has been struck out. San Diego and San Francisco also have been struck out. All these are on account of minefields. Commander Towers, will you tell us shortly how you stand in regard to minefields?"

Dwight gave the conference a short dissertation on the mines and on his lack of knowledge. "Seattle is open to us, and the whole of Puget Sound," he said. "Also Pearl Harbor. I’d say there wouldn’t be much danger from mines up around the Gulf of Alaska on account of the ice movements. The ice constitutes a problem in those latitudes, and the Scorpion's no icebreaker. Still, in my opinion we can feel our way up there without unduly hazarding the ship. If we just can’t make it all the way to latitude sixty, well, we’ll have done our best. I’d say we probably can do most of what you want."

They turned to a discussion of the radio signals still coming from somewhere in the vicinity of Seattle. Sir Philip Goodall, the director of C.S.I.R.O., produced a synopsis of the messages monitored since the war. "These signals are mostly incomprehensible," he said. "They occur at random intervals, more frequently in the winter than the summer. The frequency is 4.92 megacycles." The radio officer made a note upon the paper in front of him. "One hundred and sixty-nine transmissions have been monitored. Of these, three contained recognizable code groups, seven groups in all. Two contained words in clear, in English, one word in each. The groups were undecipherable; I have them here if anyone wants to see them. The words were WATERS and CONNECT."

Sir David Hartman asked, "How many hours’ transmission, in all, were monitored?"

"About a hundred and six hours."

"And in that time only two words have come through in clear? The rest is gibberish?"

"That is correct."

The admiral said, "I don’t think the words can be significant. It’s probably a fortuitous transmission. After all, if an infinite number of monkeys start playing with an infinite number of typewriters, one of them will write a play of Shakespeare. The real point to be investigated is this—how are these transmissions taking place at all? It seems certain that there is electrical power available there still. There may be human agency behind that power. It’s not very likely, but it could be so."

Lieutenant Sunderstrom leaned towards his captain and spoke in a low tone. Dwight said aloud, "Mr. Sunderstrom knows the radio installations in that district."

The lieutenant said diffidently, "I wouldn’t say that I know all of them. I attended a short course on naval communications at Santa Maria Island about five years back. One of the frequencies that was used there was 4.92 kilocycles."

The admiral asked, "Where is Santa Maria Island?"

"That one is just near Bremerton in Puget Sound, sir. There’s several others on the Coast. This one is the main navy communications school for that area."

Commander Towers unrolled a chart, and pointed to the island with his finger. "Here it is, sir. It connects with the mainland by a bridge to this place Manchester right next to Clam Bay."

The admiral asked, "What would be the range of the station on Santa Maria Island?"

The lieutenant said, "I wouldn’t know for certain, but I guess it’s global."

"Does it look like a global station? Very high aerials?"

"Oh, yes, sir. The antennas there are quite a sight. I think it’s a part of the regular communication system covering the Pacific area, but I don’t know that for sure. I only attended the communications school."

"You never communicated with the station direct, from any ship that you were serving in?"

"No, sir. We operated on a different set of frequencies."

They discussed the techniques of radio for a time. "If it turns out to be Santa Maria," Dwight said at last, "I’d say we can investigate it without difficulty." He glanced at the chart that he had studied before, to confirm his studies. "There’s forty feet of water right close up to it," he said. "Maybe we could even lie alongside a wharf. In any case, we’ve got the rubber boat. If the radiation level is anywhere near reasonable, we can put an officer on shore for a while, in the protective suit, of course."

The lieutenant said, "I’d be glad to volunteer for that. I guess I know the way around that installation pretty well."

They left it so, and turned to a consideration of the Jorgensen effect, and the scientific observations that were needed to prove or to disprove it.

Dwight met Moira Davidson for lunch after the conference. She had picked a small restaurant in the city for their meeting and he was there before her. She came to him bearing an attaché case.

He greeted her and offered her a drink before lunch. She elected for a brandy and soda, and he ordered it. "Double?" he inquired, as the waiter stood by.

"Single," she said. He nodded to the waiter without comment. He glanced at the attaché case. "Been shopping?"

"Shopping!" she said indignantly. "Me—full of virtue!"

"I’m sorry," he replied. "You’re going someplace?"

"No," she said, enjoying his curiosity. "I’ll give you three guesses what’s in it."

"Brandy," he suggested.

"No. I carry that inside me."

He thought for a moment. "A carving knife. You’re going to cut one of those religious pictures out of the frame and take it away to hang in the bathroom."

"No. One more."

"Your knitting."

"I don’t knit. I don’t do anything restful. You ought to know that by now."

The drinks came. "Okay," he said, "you win. What’s in it?"

She lifted the lid of the case. It contained a reporter’s notebook, a pencil, and a manual of shorthand.

He stared at these three items. "Say," he exclaimed, "you aren’t studying that stuff?"

"What’s wrong with that? You said I ought to, once." He remembered vaguely what he had once said in an idle moment. "You taking a course or something?"

"Every morning," she said. "I’ve got to be in Russell Street at half-past nine. Half-past nine— for me. I have to get up before seven!"

He grinned. "Say, that’s bad. What are you doing it for?"

"Something to do. I got fed up with harrowing the dung."

"How long have you been doing this?"

"Three days. I’m getting awfully good at it. I can make a squiggle now with anyone."

"Do you know what it means when you’ve made it?"

"Not yet," she admitted. She took a drink of brandy. "That’s rather advanced work."

"Are you taking typing, too?"

She nodded. "And bookkeeping. All the lot."

He glanced at her in wonder. "You’ll be quite a secretary by the time you’re through."

"Next year," she said. "I’ll be able to get a good job next year."

"Are many other people doing it?" he asked. "You go to a school, or something?"

She nodded. "There are more there than I’d thought there’d be. I think it’s about half the usual number. There were hardly any pupils just after the war and they sacked most of the teachers. Now the numbers are going up and they’ve had to take them on again."

"More people are doing it now?"

"Mostly teen-agers," she told him. "I feel like a grandmother amongst them. I think their people got tired of having them at home and made them go to work." She paused. "It’s the same at the university," she said. "There are many more enrollments now than there were a few months ago."

"I’d never have thought it would work out that way," he remarked.

"It’s dull just living at home," she said. "They meet all their friends at the Shop."

He offered her another drink but she refused it, and they went in to lunch. "Have you heard about John Osborne and his car?" she asked.

He laughed. "I sure have. He showed it to me. I’d say he’s showing it to everybody that will come and look at it. It’s a mighty nice car.

"He’s absolutely mad," she said. "He’ll kill himself on it."

He sipped his cold consommé. "So what? So long as he doesn’t kill himself before we start off on this cruise. He’s having lots of fun."

"When are you starting off on the cruise?" she asked.

"I suppose we’ll be starting about a week from now."

"Is it going to be very dangerous?" she asked quietly.

There was a momentary pause. "Why, no," he said. "What made you think that?"

"I spoke to Mary Holmes over the telephone yesterday. She seemed a bit worried over something Peter told her."

"About this cruise?"

"Not directly," she replied. "At least, I don’t think so. More like making his will or something."

"That’s always a good thing to do," he observed. "Everybody ought to make a will, every married man, that is."

The grilled steaks came. "Tell me, is it dangerous?" she asked again.

He shook his head. "It’s quite a long cruise. We shall be away nearly two months, and nearly half of that submerged. But it’s not more dangerous than any other operation would be up in northern waters." He paused. "It’s always tricky to go nosing around in waters where there may have been a nuclear explosion," he said. "Especially submerged. You never really know what you may run into. Big changes in the sea bed. You may tangle with a sunken ship you didn’t know was there. You’ve got to go in carefully and watch your step. But no, I wouldn’t say it’s dangerous."

"Come back safely, Dwight," she said softly.

He grinned. "Sure we’ll come back safely. We’ve been ordered to. The admiral wants his submarine back."

She sat back and laughed. "You’re impossible! As soon as I get sentimental you just—you just prick it like a toy balloon."

"I guess I’m not the sentimental type," he said. "That’s what Sharon says."

"Does she?"

"Sure. She gets quite cross with me."

"I can’t say that I’m surprised," she observed. "I’m very sorry for her."

They finished lunch, left the restaurant, and walked to the National Gallery to see the current exhibition of religious pictures. They were all oil paintings, mostly in a modernistic style. They walked around the gallery set aside for the forty paintings in the exhibition, the girl interested, the naval officer frankly uncomprehending. Neither of them had much to say about the green Crucifixions or the pink Nativities; the five or six paintings dealing with religious aspects of the war stirred them to controversy. They paused before the prizewinner, the sorrowing Christ on a background of the destruction of a great city. "I think that one’s got something," she said. "For once I believe that I’d agree with the judges."

He said, "I hate it like hell."

"What don’t you like about it?"

He stared at it. "Everything. To me it’s just phony. No pilot in his senses would be flying as low as that with thermo-nuclear bombs going off all around. He’d get burned up."

She said, "It’s got good composition and good colouring."

"Oh, sure," he replied. "But the subject’s phony."

"In what way?"

"If that’s meant to be the R.C.A. building, he’s put Brooklyn Bridge on the New Jersey side, and the Empire State in the middle of Central Park."

She glanced at the catalogue. "It doesn’t say that it’s New York."

"Wherever it’s meant to be, it’s phony," he replied. "It couldn’t have looked like that." He paused. "Too dramatic."

He turned away, and looked around him with distaste. "I don’t like any part of it," he said.

"Don’t you see anything of the religious angle here?" she asked. It was funny to her, because he went to church a lot and she had thought this exhibition would appeal to him.

He took her arm. "I’m not a religious man," he said. "That’s my fault, not the artists’. They see things differently than me."

They turned from the exhibition. "Are you interested in paintings?" she asked. "Or are they just a bore?"

"They’re not a bore," he said. "I like them when they’re full of color and don’t try to teach you anything. There’s a painter called Renoir, isn’t there?"

She nodded. "They’ve got some Renoirs here. Would you like to see them?"

They went and found the French art, and he stood for some time before a painting of a river and a tree-shaded street beside it, with white houses and shops, very French and very colourful. "That’s the kind of picture I like," he said. "I’ve got a lot of time for that."

They strolled around the galleries for a time, chatting and looking at the pictures. Then she had to go; her mother was unwell and she had promised to be home in time to get the tea. He took her to the station on the tram.

In the rush of people at the entrance she turned to him. "Thanks for the lunch," she said, "and for the afternoon. I hope the other pictures made up for the religious ones."

He laughed. "They certainly did. I’d like to go back there again and see more of them. But as for religion, that’s just not my line."

"You go to church regularly," she said.

"Oh well, that’s different," he replied.

She could not argue it with him, nor would she have attempted to in that crowd. She said, "Will we be able to meet again before you go?"

"I’ll be busy in the daytime, most days," he said. "We might take in a movie one evening, but we’d have to make it soon. We’ll be sailing as soon as the work gets completed, and it’s going well right now."

They arranged to meet for dinner on the following Tuesday, and she waved good-bye to him and vanished in the crowd. There was nothing of urgency to take him back to the dockyard, and there was still an hour left before the shops shut. He went out into the streets again and walked along the pavements looking at the shopwindows. Presently he came to a sports store, hesitated for a moment, and went in.

In the fishing department he said to the assistants "I want a spinning outfit, a rod and a reel and a nylon line."

"Certainly, sir," said the assistant. "For yourself?"

The American shook his head. "This is a present for a boy ten years old," he said. "His first rod. I’d like something good quality, but pretty small and light. You got anything in Fiberglas?"

The assistant shook his head. "I’m afraid we’re right out of those at the moment." He reached down a rod from the rack. "This is a very good little rod in steel."

"How would that stand up in sea water, for rusting? He lives by the sea, and you know what kids are."

"They stand up all right," the assistant said. "We sell a lot of these for sea fishing." He reached for reels while Dwight examined the rod and tested it in his hand. "We have these plastic reels for sea fishing, or I can give you a multiplying reel in stainless steel. They’re the better job, of course, but they come out a good deal more expensive."

Dwight examined them. "I think I’ll take the multiplier."

He chose the line, and the assistant wrapped the three articles together in a parcel. "Makes a nice present for a boy," he observed.

"Sure," said Dwight. "He’ll have a lot of fun with that." He paid and took the parcel, and went through into that portion of the store that sold children’s bicycles and scooters. He said to the girl, "Have you got a Pogo stick?"

"A Pogo stick? I don’t think so. I’ll ask the manager." The manager came to him. "I’m afraid we’re right out of Pogo sticks. There hasn’t been a great deal of demand for them recently, and we sold the last only a few days ago."

"Will you be getting any more in?"

"I put through an order for a dozen. I don’t know when they’ll arrive. Things are getting just a bit disorganized, you know. It was for a present, I suppose?"

The commander nodded. "I wanted it for a little girl of six.

"We have these scooters. They make a nice present for a little girl that age."

He shook his head. "She’s got a scooter."

"We have these children’s bicycles, too."

Too bulky and too awkward, but he did not say so. "No, it’s a Pogo stick I really want. I think I’ll shop around, and maybe come back if I can’t get one."

"You might try McEwen’s," said the man helpfully. "They might have one left."

He went out and tried McEwen’s, but they, too, were out of Pogo sticks. He tried another shop with similar results; Pogo sticks, it seemed, were off the market. The more frustration he encountered, the more it seemed to him that a Pogo stick was what he really wanted, and that nothing else would do. He wandered into Collins Street looking for another toy shop, but here he was out of the toy shop district and in a region of more expensive merchandise.

In the last of the shopping hour he paused before a jeweller’s window. It was a shop of good quality; he stood for a time looking in at the windows. Emeralds and diamonds would be best. Emeralds went magnificently with her dark hair.

He went into the shop. "I was thinking of a bracelet," he said to the young man in the black morning coat. "Emeralds and diamonds, perhaps. Emeralds, anyway. The lady’s dark, and she likes to wear green. You got anything like that?"

The man went to the safe, and came back with three bracelets which he laid on a black velvet pad. "We have these, sir," he said. "What sort of price had you in mind?"

"I wouldn’t know," said the commander. "I want a nice bracelet."

The assistant picked one up. "We have this, which is forty guineas or this one which is sixty-five guineas. They are very attractive, I think."

"What’s that one, there?"

The man picked it up. "That is much more expensive, sir. It’s a very beautiful piece." He examined the tiny tag.

"That one is two hundred and twenty-five guineas."

It glowed on the black velvet. Dwight picked it up and examined it. The man had spoken the truth when he had said it was a lovely piece. She had nothing like it in her jewel box. He knew that she would love it.

"Would that be English or Australian work?" he asked. The man shook his head. "This came originally from Cartier’s, in Paris. It came to us from the estate of a lady in Toorak. It’s in quite new condition, as you see. Usually we find that the clasp needs attention, but this didn’t even need that. It is in quite perfect order."

He could picture her delight in it. "I’ll take that," he said. "I’ll have to pay you with a cheque. I’ll call in and pick it up tomorrow or the next day."

He wrote the cheque and took his receipt. Turning away, he stopped, and turned back to the man. "One thing," he said. "You wouldn’t happen to know where I could buy a Pogo stick, a present for a little girl? Seems they’re kind of scarce around here just at present."

"I’m afraid I can’t, sir," said the man. "I think the only thing to do would be to try all the toy shops in turn."

The shops were closing and there was no time that night to do any more. He took his parcel back with him to Williamstown, and when he reached the carrier he went down into the submarine and laid it along the back of his berth, where it was inconspicuous. Two days later, when he got his bracelet, he took that down into the submarine also and locked it away in the steel cupboard that housed the confidential books.

That day a Mrs. Hector Fraser took a broken silver cream jug to the jeweller’s to have the handle silver-soldered. Walking down the street that afternoon she encountered Moira Davidson, whom she had known from a child. She stopped and asked after her mother. Then she said, "My dear, you know Commander Towers, the American, don’t you?"

The girl said, "Yes. I know him quite well. He spent a week-end out with us the other day."

"Do you think he’s crazy? Perhaps all Americans are crazy. I don’t know."

The girl smiled. "No crazier than all the rest of us, these days. What’s he been up to?"

"He’s been trying to buy a Pogo stick in Simmonds’."

Moira was suddenly alert. "A Pogo stick?"

"My dear, in Simmonds’ of all places. As if they’d sell Pogo sticks there! It seems he went in and bought the most beautiful bracelet and paid some fabulous price for it. That wouldn’t be for you by any chance?"

"I haven’t heard about it. It sounds very unlike him."

"Au well, you never know with these men. Perhaps he’ll spring it on you one day as a surprise."

"But what about the Pogo stick?"

"Well, then when he’d bought the bracelet he asked Mr. Thompson, the fair-haired one, the nice young man—he asked him if he knew where he could buy a Pogo stick. He said he wanted it for a present for a little girl."

"What’s wrong with that?" Miss Davidson asked quietly. "It would make a very good present for a little girl of the right age."

"I suppose it would. But it seems such a funny thing for the captain of a submarine to want to buy. In Simmonds’ of all places."

The girl said, "He’s probably courting a rich widow with a little girl. The bracelet for the mother and the Pogo stick for the daughter. What’s wrong with that?"

"Nothing," said Mrs. Fraser, "only we all thought that he was courting you."

"That’s just where you’ve been wrong," the girl said equably. "It’s me that’s been courting him." She turned away. "I must get along. It’s been so nice seeing you. I’ll tell Mummy."

She walked on down the street, but the matter of the Pogo stick stayed in her mind. She went so far that afternoon as to inquire into the condition of the Pogo stick market, and found it to be depressed. If Dwight wanted a Pogo stick, he was evidently going to have some difficulty in getting one.

Everyone was going a bit mad these days, of course—Peter and Mary Holmes with their garden, her father with his farm programme, John Osborne with his racing motorcar, Sir Douglas Froude with the club port, and now Dwight Towers with his Pogo stick. Herself also, possibly, with Dwight Towers. All with an eccentricity that verged on madness, born of the times they lived in.

She wanted to help him, wanted to help him very much indeed, and yet she knew she must approach this very cautiously. When she got home that evening she went to the lumber room and pulled out her old Pogo stick and rubbed the dirt off it with a duster. The wooden handle might be sandpapered and revarnished by a skilled craftsman and possibly it might appear as new, though wet had made dark stains in the wood. Rust had eaten deeply into the metal parts, however, and at one point the metal step was rusted through. No amount of paint could ever make that part of it look new, and her own childhood was still close enough to raise in her distaste at the thought of a secondhand toy. That wasn’t the answer.

She met him on Tuesday evening for the movie, as they had arranged. Over dinner she asked him how the submarine was getting on. "Not too badly," he told her. "They’re giving us a second electrolytic oxygen regeneration outfit to work in parallel with the one we’ve got. I’d say that work might be finished by tomorrow night, and then we’ll run a test on Thursday. We might get away from here by the end of the week."

"Is that very important?"

He smiled. "We shall have to run submerged for quite a while. I wouldn’t like to run out of air, and have to surface in the radioactive area or suffocate."

"Is this a sort of spare set, then?"

He nodded. "We were lucky to get it. They had it over in the naval stores, in Fremantle."

He was absent-minded that evening. He was pleasant and courteous to her, but she felt all the time that he was thinking of other things. She tried several times during dinner to secure his interest, but failed. It was the same in the movie theatre; he went through all the motions of enjoying it and giving her a good time, but there was no life in the performance. She told herself that she could hardly expect it to be otherwise, with a cruise like that ahead of him.

After the show they walked down the empty streets towards the station. As they neared it she stopped at the dark entrance to an arcade, where they could talk quietly. "Stop here a minute, Dwight," she said. "I want to ask you something."

"Sure," he said kindly. "Go ahead."

"You’re worried over something, aren’t you?"

"Not really. I’m afraid I’ve been bad company tonight."

"Is it about the submarine?"

"Why no, honey. I told you, there’s nothing dangerous in that. It’s just another job."

"It’s not about a Pogo stick, is it?"

He stared at her in amazement in the semidarkness. "Say, how did you get to hear about that?"

She laughed gently. "I have my spies. What did you get for Junior?"

"A fishing rod." There was a pause, and then he said, "I suppose you think I’m nuts."

She shook her head. "I don’t. Did you get a Pogo stick?"

"No. Seems like they’re completely out of stock."

"I know." They stood in silence for a moment. "I had a look at mine," she said. "You can have that if it’s any good to you. But it’s awfully old, and the metal parts are rusted through. It works still, but I don’t think it could ever be made into a very nice present."

He nodded. "I noticed that. I think we’ll have to let it go, honey. If I get time before we sail, I’ll come up here and shop around for something else."

She said, "I’m quite sure it must be possible to get a Pogo stick. They must have been made somewhere here in Melbourne. In Australia, anyway. The trouble is to get one in the time."

"Leave it," he said. "It was just a crazy idea I had. It’s not important."

"It is important," she said. "It’s important to me." She raised her head. "I can get one for you by the time you come back," she said. "I’ll do that, even if I have to get it made. I know that isn’t quite what you want. But would that do?"

"That’s mighty kind of you," he said huskily. "I could tell her you were bringing it along with you."

"I could do that," she said. "But anyway, I’ll have it with me when we meet again."

"You might have to bring it a long way," he said.

"Don’t worry, Dwight. I’ll have it with me when we meet."

In the dark alcove he took her in his arms and kissed her. "That’s for the promise," he said softly, "and for everything else. Sharon wouldn’t mind me doing this. It’s from us both."