On The Beach

6

Twenty-five days later, USS. Scorpion was approaching the first objective of her cruise. It was ten days since she had submerged thirty degrees south of the equator. She had made her landfall at San Nicolas Island off Los Angeles and had given the city a wide berth, troubled about unknown minefields. She had set a course outside Santa Rosa and had closed the coast to the west of Santa Barbara; from there she had followed it northwards cruising at periscope depth about two miles offshore. She had ventured cautiously into Monterey Bay and had inspected the fishing port, seeing no sign of life on shore and learning very little. Radioactivity was uniformly high, so that they judged it prudent to keep the hull submerged.

They inspected San Francisco from five miles outside the Golden Gate. All they learned was that the bridge was down. The supporting tower at the south end seemed to have been overthrown. The houses visible from the sea around Golden Gate Park had suffered much from fire and blast; it did not look as if any of them were habitable. They saw no evidence of any human life, and the radiation level made it seem improbable that life could still exist in that vicinity.

They stayed there for some hours, taking photographs through the periscope and making such a survey as was possible. They went back southwards as far as Hall Moon Bay and closed the coast to within half a mile, surfacing for a time and calling through the loud hailer. The houses here did not appear to be much damaged, but there was no sign of any life on shore. They stayed in the vicinity till dusk, and then set course towards the north, rounding Point Reyes and going on three or four miles offshore, following the coast.

Since crossing the equator it had been their habit to surface once in every watch to get the maximum antenna height, and to listen for the radio transmission from Seattle. They had heard it once, in latitude five north; it had gone on for about forty minutes, a random, meaningless transmission, and then had stopped. They had not heard it since. That night, somewhere off Fort Bragg, they surfaced in a still northwesterly wind and a rising sea, and directly they switched on the direction finder they heard it again. This time they were able to pinpoint it fairly accurately.

Dwight bent over the navigation table with Lieutenant Sunderstrom as he plotted the bearing. "Santa Maria," he said. "Looks like you were right."

They stood listening to the meaningless jumble coming out of the speaker. "It’s fortuitous," the lieutenant said at last. "That’s not someone keying, even somebody that doesn’t know about radio. That’s something that’s just happening."

"Sounds like it." He stood listening. "There’s power there," he said. "Where there’s power there’s people."

"It’s not absolutely necessary," the lieutenant said.

"Hydroelectric," Dwight said. "I know it. But hell, those turbines won’t run two years without maintenance."

"You wouldn’t think so. Some of them are mighty good machinery."

Dwight grunted, and turned back to the charts. "I’ll aim to be off Cape Flattery at dawn. We’ll go on as we’re going now and get a fix around midday, and adjust speed then. If it looks all right from there, I’ll take her in, periscope depth, so we can blow tanks if we hit anything that shouldn’t be there. Maybe we’ll be able to go right up to Santa Maria. Maybe we won’t. You ready to go on shore if we do?"

"Sure," said the lieutenant. "I’d kind of like to get out of the ship for a while."

Dwight smiled. They had been submerged now for eleven days, and though health was still good they were all suffering from nervous tension. "Let’s keep our fingers crossed," he said, "and hope we can make it."

"You know something?" said the lieutenant. "If we can’t get through the strait, maybe I could make it overland." He pulled out a chart. "If we got in to Grays Harbor I could get on shore at Hoquiam or Aberdeen. This road runs right through to Bremerton and Santa Maria."

"It’s a hundred miles."

"I could probably pick up a car, and gas."

The captain shook his head. Two hundred miles in a light radiation suit, driving a hot car with hot gas over hot country was not practical. "You’ve only got a two hours’ air supply," he said. "I know you could take extra cylinders. But it’s not practical. We’d lose you, one way or another. It’s not that important, anyway."

They submerged again, and carried on upon the course. When they surfaced four hours later the transmission had stopped.

They carried on towards the north all the next day, most of the time at periscope depth. The morale of his crew was now becoming important to the captain. The close confinement was telling on them; no broadcast entertainment had been available for a long time, and the recordings they could play over the speakers had long grown stale. To stimulate their minds and give them something to talk about he gave free access to the periscope to anyone who cared to use it, though there was little to look at. This rocky and somewhat uninteresting coast was their home country and the sight of a café with a Buick parked outside it was enough to set them talking and revive starved minds.

At midnight they surfaced according to their routine, off the mouth of the Columbia River. Lieutenant Benson was coming to relieve Lieutenant Commander Farrell. The lieutenant commander raised the periscope from the well and put his face to it, swinging it around. Then he turned quickly to the other officer. "Say, go and call the captain. Lights on shore, thirty to forty degrees on the starboard bow."

In a minute or two they were all looking through the periscope in turn and studying the chart, Peter Holmes and John Osborne with them. Dwight bent over the chart with his executive officer. "On the Washington side of the entrance," he said. "They’ll be around these places Long Beach and Ilwaco. There’s nothing in the State of Oregon."

From behind him Lieutenant Sunderstrom said, "Hydroelectric."

"I guess so. If there’s lights it would explain a lot." He turned to the scientist. "What’s the outside radiation level, Mr. Osborne?"

"Thirty in the red, sir."

The captain nodded. Much too high for life to be maintained, though not immediately lethal; there had been little change in the last five or six days. He went to the periscope himself and stood there for a long time. He did not care to take his vessel closer to the shore, at night. "Okay," he said at last. "We’ll carry on the way we’re going now. Log it, Mr. Benson."

He went back to bed. Tomorrow would be an anxious, trying day; he must get his sleep. In the privacy of his little curtained cabin he unlocked the safe that held the confidential books and took out the bracelet; it glowed in the synthetic light. She would love it. He put it carefully in the breast pocket of his uniform suit. Then he went to bed again, his hand upon the fishing rod, and slept.

They surfaced again at four in the morning, just before dawn, a little to the north of Grays Harbor. No lights were visible on shore, but as there were no towns and few roads in the district that evidence was inconclusive. They went down to periscope depth and carried on. When Dwight came to the control room at six o’clock the day was bright through the periscope and the crew off duty were taking turns to look at the desolate shore. He went to breakfast and then stood smoking at the chart table, studying the minefield chart that he already knew so well, and the well-remembered entrance to the Juan de Fuca Strait.

At seven forty-five his executive officer reported that Cape Flattery was abeam. The captain stubbed out his cigarette. "Okay," he said. "Take her in, Commander. Course is zero seven five. Fifteen knots."

The hum of the motors dropped to a lower note for the first time in three weeks; within the hull the relative silence was almost oppressive. All morning they made their way southeastwards down the strait between Canada and the United States, taking continuous bearings through the periscope, keeping a running plot at the chart table and altering course many times. They saw little change on shore, except in one place on Vancouver Island near Jordan River where a huge area on the southern slopes of Mount Valentine seemed to have been burned and blasted. They judged this area to be no less than seven miles long and five miles wide; in it no vegetation seemed to grow although the surface of the ground seemed un disturbed.

"I’d say that’s an air burst," the captain said, turning from the periscope. "Perhaps a guided missile got one there."

As they approached more populous districts there were always one or two men waiting to look through the periscope as soon as the officers relinquished it. Soon after midday they were off Port Townsend and turning southwards into Puget Sound. They went on, leaving Whidbey Island on the port hand, and in the early afternoon they came to the mainland at the little town of Edmonds, fifteen miles north of the centre of Seattle. They were well past the mine defences by that time. From the sea the place seemed quite undamaged, but the radiation level was still high.

The captain stood studying it through the periscope. If the Geiger counter was correct no life could exist there for more than a few days, and yet it all looked so normal in the spring sunlight that he felt there must be people there. There did not seem to be glass broken in the windows, even, save for a pane here and there. He turned from the periscope. "Left ten, seven knots," he said. "We’ll close the shore here, and lie off the jetty, and hail for a while."

He relinquished the command to his executive, and ordered the loud hailer to be tested and made ready. Lieutenant Commander Farrell brought the vessel to the surface and took her in, and they lay to a hundred yards from the boat jetty, watching the shore.

The chief of the boat touched the executive officer on the shoulder. "Be all right for Swain to have a look, sir?" he inquired. "This is his home town." Yeoman First Class Ralph Swain was a radar operator.

"Oh, sure."

He stepped aside, and the yeoman went to the periscope. He stood there for a long while, and then raised his head. "Ken Puglia’s got his drugstore open," he said. "The door’s open and the shades are up. But he’s left his neon sign on. It’s not like Ken to leave that burning in the daytime."

The chief asked, "See anybody moving around, Ralph?"

The radar operator bent to the eyepieces again. "No. There’s a window broken in Mrs. Sullivan’s house, up at the top."

He stood looking for three or four long minutes, till the executive officer touched him on the shoulder and took the periscope. He stood back in the control room.

The chief said, "See your own house, Ralphie?"

"No. You just can’t see that from the sea. It’s up Rainier Avenue, past the Safeway." He fidgeted irritably. "I don’t see anything different," he said. "It all looks just the same."

Lieutenant Benson took the microphone and began hailing the shore. He said, "This is U. S. Submarine Scorpion calling Edmonds. U. S. Submarine Scorpion calling Edmonds. If anybody is listening, will you please come to the waterfront, to the jetty at the end of Main Street. U. S. Submarine calling Edmonds."

The yeoman left the control room and went forward. Dwight Towers came to the periscope, detached another sailor from it, and stood looking at the shore. The town sloped upwards from the waterfront giving a good view of the street and the houses. He stood back after a while. "There doesn’t seem to be much wrong on shore," he said. "You’d think with Boeing as the target all this area would have been well plastered."

Farrell said, "The defences here were mighty strong. All the guided missiles in the book."

"That’s so. But they got through to San Francisco."

"It doesn’t look as though they ever got through here." He paused. "There was that air burst, way back in the strait."

Dwight nodded. "See that neon sign that’s still alight, over the drugstore?" He paused. "We’ll go on calling here for quite a while—say, half an hour."

"Okay, sir."

The captain stood back from the periscope and the executive officer took it, and issued a couple of orders to keep the ship in position. At the microphone the lieutenant went on calling; Dwight lit a cigarette and leaned back on the chart table. Presently he stubbed out the cigarette and glanced at the clock.

From forward there was the clang of a steel hatch; he started and looked round. It was followed a moment later by another, and then footsteps on the deck above them. There were steps running down the alley, and Lieutenant Hirsch appeared in the control room. "Swain got out through the escape hatch, sir," he said. "He’s out on deck now!"

Dwight bit his lip. "Escape hatch closed?"

"Yes, sir. I checked that."

The captain turned to the chief of the boat. "Station a guard on the escape hatches forward and aft."

There was a splash in the water beside the hull as Mortimer ran off. Dwight said to Farrell, "See if you can see what he’s doing."

The executive dropped the periscope down and put it to maximum depression, sweeping around. The captain said to Hirsch, "Why didn’t somebody stop him?"

"I guess he did it too quick. He came from aft and sat down, kind of biting his nails. Nobody paid him much attention. I was in the forward torpedo flat, so I didn’t see. First they knew, he was in the escape trunk with the door shut, and the outer hatch open to the air. Nobody cared to chase out there after him.’’

Dwight nodded. "Sure. Get the trunk blown through and then go in and see the outer hatch is properly secure."

From the periscope Farrell said, "I can see him.

He’s swimming for the jetty."

Dwight stooped almost to the deck and saw the swimmer.

He stood up and spoke to Lieutenant Benson at the microphone. The lieutenant touched the volume control and said, "Yeoman Swain, hear this." The swimmer paused and trod water. "The captain’s orders are that you return immediately to the ship. If you come back at once he will take you on board again and take a chance on the contamination. You are to come back on board right now."

From the speaker above the navigation table they all heard the reply, "You go and get stuffed!"

A faint smile flickered on the captain’s face. He bent again to the periscope and watched the man swim to the shore, watched him clamber up the ladder at the jetty. Presently he stood erect. "Well, that’s it," he remarked. He turned to John Osborne by his side. "How long would you say he’ll last?"

"He’ll feel nothing for a time," said the scientist. "He’ll probably be vomiting tomorrow night. After that—well, it’s just anybody’s guess, sir. It depends upon the constitution of the individual."

"Three days? A week?"

"I should think so. I shouldn’t think it could be longer, at this radiation level."

"And we’d be safe to take him back—till when?"

"I’ve got no experience. But after a few hours everything that he evacuates would be contaminated. We couldn’t guarantee the safety of the ship’s company if he should be seriously ill on board."

Dwight raised the periscope and put his eyes to it. The man was still visible walking up the street in his wet clothes. They saw him pause at the door of the drugstore and look in; then he turned a corner and was lost to sight. The captain said, "Well, he doesn’t seem to have any intention of coming back." He turned over the periscope to his executive. "Secure that loud hailer. The course is for Santa Maria, in the middle of the channel. Ten knots."

There was dead silence in the submarine, broken only by the helm orders, the low murmur of the turbines, and the intermittent whizzing of the steering engine. Dwight Towers went heavily to his cabin, and Peter Holmes followed him. He said, "You’re not going to try to get him back, sir? I could go on shore in a radiation suit."

Dwight glanced at his liaison officer. "That’s a nice offer, Commander, but I won’t accept it. I thought of that myself. Say we put an officer on shore with a couple of men to go fetch him. First we’ve got to find him. Maybe we’d be stuck off here four or five hours, and then not know if we’d be risking everybody in the ship by taking him back in with us. Maybe he’ll have eaten contaminated food, or drunk contaminated water..." He paused. "There’s another thing. On this mission we shall be submerged and living on tinned air for twenty-seven days, maybe twenty-eight. Some of us will be in pretty bad shape by then. You tell me on the last day if you’d like it to be four or five hours longer because we wasted that much time on Yeoman Swain."

Peter said, "Very good, sir. I just thought I’d like to make the offer."

"Sure. I appreciate that. We’ll be coming back past here tonight or else maybe soon after dawn tomorrow. We’ll stop a little while and hail him then."

The captain went back to the control room and stood by the executive officer, taking alternate glances through the periscope with him. They went close to the entrance to the Lake Washington Canal, scanning the shore, rounded Fort Lawton, and stood in to the naval dock and the commercial docks in Elliott Bay, in the heart of the city.

The city was undamaged. A minesweeper lay at the Naval Receiving Station, and five or six freighters lay in the commercial docks. Most of the window glass was still in place in the high buildings at the centre of the city. They did not go very close in, fearing underwater obstructions, but so far as they could see conditions through the periscope, there seemed to be nothing wrong with the city at all, except that there were no people there. Many electric lights and neon signs were burning still.

At the periscope Lieutenant Commander Farrell said to his captain, "It was a good defensive proposition, sir—better than San Francisco. The land in the Olympic Peninsula reaches way out to the west, over a hundred miles."

"I know it," said the captain. "They had a lot of guided missiles out there, like a screen."

There was nothing there to stay for, and they went out of the bay and turned southwest for Santa Maria Island; already they could see the great antenna towers. Dwight called Lieutenant Sunderstrom to his cabin. "You all set to go?"

"Everything’s all ready," said the radio officer. "I just got to jump into the suit."

"Okay. Your job’s half done before you start, because we know now that there’s still electric power. And we’re pretty darned near certain there’s no life, although we don’t know that for sure. It’s sixty-four thousand dollars to a sausage you’ll find a reason for the radio that’s just an accident of some sort. If it was just to find out what kind of an accident makes those signals, I wouldn’t risk the ship and I wouldn’t risk you. Got that?"

"I got that, sir."

"Well now, hear this. You’ve got air for two hours in the cylinders. I want you back decontaminated and in the hull in an hour and a half. You won’t have a watch. I’ll keep the time for you from here. I’ll sound the siren every quarter of an hour. One blast when you’ve been gone a quarter of an hour, two blasts half an hour, and so on. When you hear four blasts you start winding up whatever you may be doing. At five blasts you drop everything, whatever it may be, and come right back. Before six blasts you must be back and decontaminating in the escape trunk. Is that all clear?"

"Quite clear, sir."

"Okay. I don’t want this mission completed particularly now. I want you back on board safe. For two bits I wouldn’t send you at all, because we know now most all of what you’ll find, but I told the admiral we’d put somebody on shore to investigate. I don’t want you to go taking undue risks. I’d rather have you back on board, even if we don’t find out the whole story of what makes these signals. The only thing would justify you taking any risk would be if you find any signs of life on shore."

"I get that, sir."

"No souvenirs from shore. The only thing to come back in the hull is you, stark naked."

"Okay, sir."

The captain went back into the control room, and the radio officer went forward. The submarine nosed her way forward with the hull just awash, feeling her way to Santa Maria at a slow speed in the bright sunlight of the spring afternoon, ready to stop engines immediately and blow tanks if she hit any obstruction. They went very cautiously, and it was about five o’clock in the afternoon when she finally lay to off the jetty of the island, in six fathoms of water.

Dwight went forward, and found Lieutenant Sunderstrom sitting in the radiation suit complete but for the helmet and the pack of oxygen bottles, smoking a cigarette. "Okay, fella," he said. "Off you go."

The young man stubbed out his cigarette and stood while a couple of men adjusted the helmet and the harness of the pack. He tested the air, glanced at the pressure gauge, elevated one thumb, and climbed into the escape trunk, closing the door behind him.

Out on deck he stretched and breathed deeply, relishing the sunlight and the escape from the hull. Then he raised a hatch of the superstructure and pulled out the dinghy pack, stripped off the plastic sealing strips, unfolded the dinghy, and pressed the lever of the air bottle that inflated it. He tied the painter and lowered the rubber boat into the water, took the paddle and led the boat aft to the steps beside the conning tower. He clambered down into it, and pushed off from the submarine.

The boat was awkward to manoeuvre with the single paddle, and it took him ten minutes to reach the jetty. He made it fast and clambered up the ladder; as he began to walk towards the shore he heard one blast from the siren of the submarine. He turned and waved, and walked on.

He came to a group of grey painted buildings, stores of some kind. There was a weatherproof electric switch upon an outside wall; he went to it and turned it, and a lamp above his head lit up. He turned it off again, and went on.

He came to a latrine. He paused, then crossed the road, and looked in. A body in khaki gabardine lay half in and half out of one of the compartments, much decomposed.

It was no more than he had expected to see, but the sight was sobering. He left it, and went on up the road. The communications school lay over on the right, in buildings by itself. This was the part of the installation that he knew, but that was not what he had come to see. The coding office lay to the left, and near the coding office the main transmitting office would almost certainly be located.

He entered the brick building that was the coding office, and stood in the hallway trying the doors. Every door was locked except for two that led into the toilets. He did not go in there.

He went out and looked around. A transformer station with a complex of wires and insulators attracted his attention, and he followed the wiring to another two-storey, wooden office building. As he approached he heard the hum of an electrical machine running, and at the same moment the siren of the submarine sounded two blasts.

When they had died away he heard the hum again, and followed it to a powerhouse. The converter that was running was not very large; he judged it to be about fifty kilowatts. On the switchboard the needles of the instruments stood steady, but one indicating temperature stood in a red sector of the dial. The machine itself was running with a faint grating noise beneath the quiet hum. He thought it would not last very much longer.

He left the powerhouse and went into the office building. Here all the doors were unlocked, some of them open. The rooms on the ground floor appeared to be executive offices; here papers and signals lay strewn about the floor like dead leaves, blown by the wind. In one room a casement window was entirely missing and there was much water damage. He crossed this room and looked out of the window; the casement window frame lay on the ground below, blown from its hinges.

He went upstairs, and found the main transmitting room. There were two transmitting desks, each with a towering metal frame of grey radio equipment in front of it. One of these sets was dead and silent, the instruments all at zero.

The other set stood by the window, and here the casement had been blown from its hinges and lay across the desk. One end of the window frame projected outside the building and teetered gently in the light breeze. One of the upper corners rested on an overturned Coke bottle on the desk. The transmitting key lay underneath the frame that rested unstably above it, teetering a little in the wind.

He reached out and touched it with his gloved hand. The frame rocked on the transmitting key, and the needle of a milliammeter upon the set flipped upwards. He released the frame, and the needle fell back. There was one of U.S.S. Scorpion's missions completed, something that they had come ten thousand miles to see, that had absorbed so much effort and attention in Australia, on the other side of the world.

He lifted the window frame from the transmitting desk and set it down carefully on the floor; the woodwork was not damaged and it could be repaired and put back in its place quite easily. Then he sat down at the desk and with gloved hand upon the key began transmitting in English and in clear.

He sent, "Santa Maria sending. U.S.S. Scorpion reporting. No life here. Closing down." He went on repeating this message over and over again, and while he was doing so the siren blew three blasts.

As he sat there, his mind only half occupied with the mechanical repetition of the signal that he knew was almost certainly being monitored in Australia, his eyes roamed around the transmitting office. There was a carton of American cigarettes with only two packs removed that he longed for, but the captain’s orders had been very definite. There were one or two bottles of Coke. On a window sill there was a pile of copies of The Saturday Evening Post.

He finished transmitting when he judged he had been at it for twenty minutes. In the three final repetitions he added the words, "Lieutenant Sunderstrom sending. All well on board. Proceeding northwards to Alaska." Finally he sent, "Closing down the station now, and switching off."

He took his hand from the key and leaned back in the chair. Gee, these tubes and chokes, this milliammeter and that rotary converter down below—they’d done a mighty job. Nearly two years without any maintenance or replacement, and still functioning as well as ever! He stood up, inspected the set, and turned off three switches. Then he walked round to the back and opened a panel and looked for the name of the manufacturer on the tubes; he would have liked to send them a testimonial.

He glanced again at the carton of Lucky Strikes, but the captain was right, of course; they would be hot and it might well be death to smoke them. He left them with regret, and went downstairs. He went to the powerhouse where the converter was running, inspected the switchboard carefully, and tripped two switches. The note of the machine sank progressively in a diminuendo; he stood watching it till finally it came to rest. It had done a swell job and it would be good as ever when the bearings had been overhauled. He could not have borne to leave it running till it cracked up.

The siren blew four blasts while he was there, and his work now was over. He had still a quarter of an hour. There was everything here to be explored and nothing to be gained by doing so. In the living quarters he knew he would find bodies like the one that he had found in the latrine; he did not want to see them. In the coding room, if he broke down a door, there might be papers that would interest historians in Australia, but he could not know which they would be, and anyway the captain had forbidden him to take anything on board.

He went back and up the stairs into the transmitting office. He had a few minutes left for his own use, and he went straight to the pile of copies of The Saturday Evening Post. As he had suspected, there were three numbers issued after Scorpion had left Pearl Harbor before the outbreak of the war, that he had not seen and that no one in the ship had seen. He leafed them through avidly. They contained the three concluding instalments of the serial, The Lady and the Lumberjack. He sat down to read.

The siren blew five blasts and roused him before he was halfway through the first instalment. He must go. He hesitated for a moment, and then rolled up the three magazines and tucked them under his arm. The dinghy and his radiation suit would be hot and must be left in the locker on the outer casing of the submarine to be washed by the sea water; he could roll up these hot magazines in the deflated dinghy and perhaps they would survive, perhaps they could be decontaminated and dried out and read when they got back to the safe southern latitudes. He left the office, closing the door carefully behind him, and made his way towards the jetty.

The officers’ mess stood facing the Sound, a little way from the jetty. He had not noticed it particularly on landing, but now something about it attracted his attention and he deviated fifty yards towards it. The building had a deep verandah, facing the view. He saw now that there was a party going on there. Five men in khaki gabardine sat with two women in easy chairs around a table; in the light breeze he saw the flutter of a summer frock. On the table there were highball and old-fashioned glasses.

For a moment he was deceived, and went quickly closer. Then he stopped in horror, for the party had been going on for over a year. He broke away, and turned, and went back to the jetty, only anxious now to get back into the close confinement and the warmth of fellowship and the security of the submarine.

On deck he deflated and stowed the dinghy, wrapping up his magazines in the folds. Then he stripped quickly, put the helmet and the clothing into the locker, slammed the hatch down and secured it, and got down into the escape trunk, turning on the shower. Five minutes later he emerged into the humid stuffiness of the submarine.

John Osborne was waiting at the entrance to the trunk to run a Geiger counter over him and pass him as clean, and a minute later he was standing with a towel round his waist making his report to Dwight Towers in his cabin, the executive officer and the liaison officer beside him. "We got your signals on the radio here," the captain said. "I don’t just know if they’ll have got them in Australia—it’s daylight all the way. It’s around eleven in the morning there. What would you say?"

"I’d say they’d have got them," the radio officer replied. "It’s autumn there, and not too many electric storms."

The captain dismissed him to get dressed, and turned to his executive. "We’ll stay right here tonight," he said. "It’s seven o’clock, and dark before we reach the mine-fields." With no lights he could depend upon he did not dare to risk the navigation through the minefields of the Juan de Fuca Strait during the hours of darkness. "We’re out of the tide here. Sunrise is around zero four fifteen—that’s twelve noon, Greenwich. We’ll get under way then."

They stayed that night in the calm waters of the harbour just off Santa Maria Island, watching the shore lights through the periscope. At dawn they got under way on a reverse course, and immediately ran aground upon a mud-bank. The tide was ebbing and within a couple of hours of low water; even so there should have been a fathom of water underneath their keel according to the chart. They blew tanks to surface, and got off with ears tingling from the pressure reduction in the hull, reviling the Survey, and tried again to get away, twice, with the same result. Finally they settled down to wait irritably for the tide, and at about nine o’clock in the morning they got out into the main channel and set course northwards for the open sea.

At twenty minutes past ten Lieutenant Hirsch at the periscope said suddenly, "Boat ahead, under way." The executive jumped to the eyepieces, looked for a moment, and said, "Go call the captain." When Dwight came he said, "Outboard motorboat ahead, sir. About three miles. One person in it."

"Alive?"

"I guess so. The boat’s under way."

Dwight took the periscope and stood looking for a long time. Then he stood back from it. "I’d say that’s Yeoman Swain," he said quietly. "Whoever it is, he’s fishing. I’d say he’s got an outboard motorboat, and gas for it, and he’s gone fishing."

The executive stared at him. "Well, what do you know?" The captain stood in thought for a moment. "Go on and close the boat, and lie close up," he said. "I’ll have a talk with him."

There was silence in the submarine, broken only by the orders from the executive. Presently he stopped engines and reported that the boat was close aboard. Dwight took the long lead of the microphone and went to the periscope. He said, "This is the captain speaking. Good morning, Ralphie. How are you doing?"

From the speaker they all heard the response. "I’m doing fine, Cap."

"Got any fish yet?"

In the boat the yeoman held up a salmon to the periscope. "I got one." And then he said, "Hold on a minute, Cap—you’re getting across my line." In the submarine Dwight grinned, and said, "He’s reeling in."

Lieutenant Commander Farrell asked, "Shall I give her a touch ahead?"

"No—hold everything. He’s getting it clear now."

They waited while the fisherman secured his tackle. Then he said, "Say, Cap, I guess you think me a heel, jumping ship like that."

Dwight said, "That’s all right, fella. I know how it was. I’m not going to take you on board again, though. I’ve got the rest of the ship’s company to think about."

"Sure, Cap, I know that. I’m hot and getting hotter every minute, I suppose."

"How do you feel right now?"

"Okay so far. Would you ask Mr. Osborne for me how long I’ll go on that way?"

"He thinks you’ll go for a day or so, and then you’ll get sick."

From the boat the fisherman said, "Well, it’s a mighty nice day to have for the last one. Wouldn’t it be hell if it was raining?"

Dwight laughed. "That’s the way to take it. Tell me, what are things like on shore?"

"Everybody’s dead here, Cap—but I guess you know that. I went home. Dad and Mom were dead in bed—I’d say they took something. I went around to see the girl, and she was dead. It was a mistake, going there. No dogs or cats or birds, or anything alive—I guess they’re all dead, too. Apart from that, everything is pretty much the way it always was. I’m sorry about jumping ship, Cap, but I’m glad to be home." He paused. "I got my own car and gas for it, and I got my own boat and my own outboard motor and my own fishing gear. And it’s a fine, sunny day. I’d rather have it this way, in my own home town, than have it in September in Australia."

"Sure, fella. I know how you feel. Is there anything you want right now, that we can put out on the deck for you? We’re on our way, and we shan’t be coming back."

"You got any of those knockout pills on board, that you take when it gets bad? The cyanide?"

"I haven’t got those, Ralphie. I’ll put an automatic out on deck if you want it."

The fisherman shook his head. "I got my own gun. I’ll take a look around the pharmacy when I get on shore—maybe there’s something there. But I guess the gun would be the best."

"Is there anything else you want?"

"Thanks, Cap, but I got everything I want on shore. Without a dime to pay, either. Just tell the boys on board hey for me."

"I’ll do that, fella. We’ll be going on now. Good fishing."

"Thanks, Cap. It’s been pretty good under you, and I’m sorry I jumped ship."

"Okay. Now just watch the suck of the propellers as I go ahead."

He turned to the executive. "Take the con, Commander. Go ahead, and then on course, ten knots."

That evening Mary Holmes rang Moira at her home. It was a pouring wet evening in late autumn, the wind whistling around the house at Harkaway. "Darling," she said, "there’s been a wireless signal from them. They’re all well."

The girl gasped, for this was totally unexpected. "However did they get a signal through?"

"Commander Peterson just rang me up. It came through on the mystery station that they went to find out about. Lieutenant Sunderstrom was sending and he said they were all well. Isn’t it splendid?"

The relief was so intense that for a moment the girl felt faint. "It’s marvellous," she whispered. "Tell me, can they get a message back to them?"

"I don’t think so. Sunderstrom said that he was closing down the station, and there wasn’t anyone alive there."

"Oh..." The girl was silent. "Well, I suppose we’ll just have to be patient."

"Was there something you particularly wanted to send?"

"Not really. Just something I wanted to tell Dwight. But it’ll have to wait."

"Darling! You don’t mean..."

"No, I don’t."

"Are you feeling all right, dear?"

"I’m feeling much better than I was five minutes ago." She paused. "How are you getting on, and how’s Jennifer?"

"She’s fine. We’re all right, except it’s raining all the time. Can’t you come over sometime? It’s an age since we met."

The girl said, "I could come down one evening after work, and go up again next day."

"Darling! That would be wonderful!"

She arrived at Falmouth station two nights later, and set herself to walk two miles up the hill in a misty drizzle. In the little flat Mary was waiting to welcome her with a bright fire in the lounge. She changed her shoes, helped Mary bathe the baby and put her down, and then they got the supper. Later they sat together on the floor before the fire.

The girl asked, "When do you think they’ll be back?"

"Peter said that they’d be back about the fourteenth of June." She reached out for a calendar upon the desk behind her. "Three more weeks—just over. I’ve been crossing off the days."

"Do you think they’re up to time at this place—wherever they sent the wireless signal from?"

"I don’t know. I ought to have asked Commander Peterson that. I wonder if it would be all right to ring him up tomorrow and ask?"

"I shouldn’t think he’d mind."

"I think I’ll do that. Peter says this is his last job for the navy, he’ll be unemployed after they come back. I was wondering if we couldn’t get away in June or July and have a holiday. It’s so piggy here in the winter—nothing but rain and gales."

The girl lit a cigarette. "Where would you go to?"

"Somewhere where it’s warm. Queensland or somewhere. It’s such an awful bore not having the car. We’d have to take Jennifer by train, I suppose."

Moira blew a long cloud of smoke. "I shouldn’t think Queensland would be very easy."

"Because of the sickness? It’s so far away."

"They’ve got it at Maryborough," the girl said. "That’s only just north of Brisbane."

"But there are plenty of warm places to go to without going right up there, aren’t there?"

"I should think there would be. But it’s coming down south pretty steadily."

Mary twisted round and glanced at her. "Tell me, do you really think it’s going to come here?"

"I think I do."

"You mean, we’re all going to die of it? Like the men say?"

"I suppose."

Mary twisted round and pulled a catalogue of garden flowers down from a muddle of papers on the settee. "I went to Wilson’s today and bought a hundred daffodils," she said. "Bulbs. King Alfreds—these ones." She showed the picture. "I’m going to put them in that corner by the wall, where Peter took out the tree. It’s sheltered there. But I suppose if we’re all going to die that’s silly."

"No sillier than me starting in to learn shorthand and typing," the girl said drily. "I think we’re all going a bit mad, if you ask me. When do daffodils come up?"

"They should be flowering by the end of August," Mary said. "Of course, they won’t be much this year, but they should be lovely next year and the year after. They sort of multiply, you know."

"Well, of course it’s sensible to put them in. You’ll see them anyway, and you’ll sort of feel you’ve done something."

Mary looked at her gratefully. "Well, that’s what I think. I mean, I couldn’t bear to—to just stop doing things and do nothing. You might as well die now and get it over."

Moira nodded. "If what they say is right, we’re none of us going to have time to do all that we planned to do. But we can keep on doing it as long as we can."

They sat on the hearthrug, Mary playing with the poker and the wood fire. Presently she said, "I forgot to ask you if you’d like a brandy or something. There’s a bottle in the cupboard, and I think there’s some soda."

The girl shook her head. "Not for me. I’m quite happy."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Have you reformed, or something?"

"Or something," said the girl. "I never tip it up at home. Only when I’m out at parties, or with men. With men particularly. Matter of fact, I’m even getting tired of that, now."

"It’s not men, is it, dear? Not now. It’s Dwight Towers."

"Yes," the girl said. "It’s Dwight Towers."

"Don’t you ever want to get married? I mean, even if we are all dying next September."

The girl stared into the fire. "I wanted to get married," she said quietly. "I wanted to have everything you’ve got. But I shan’t have it now."

"Couldn’t you marry Dwight?"

The girl shook her head. "I don’t think so."

"I’m sure he likes you."

"Yes," she said. "He likes me all right."

"Has he ever kissed you?"

"Yes," she said again. "He kissed me once."

"I’m sure he’d marry you."

The girl shook her head again. "He wouldn’t ever do that. You see, he’s married already. He’s got a wife and two children in America."

Mary stared at her. "Darling, he can’t have. They must be dead."

"He doesn’t think so," she said wearily. "He thinks he’s going home to meet them, next September. In his own home town, at Mystic." She paused. "We’re all going a bit mad in our own way," she said. "That’s his way."

"You mean, he really thinks his wife is still alive?"

"I don’t know if he thinks that or not. No, I don’t think he does. He thinks he’s going to be dead next September, but he thinks he’s going home to them, to Sharon and Dwight Junior and Helen. He’s been buying presents for them."

Mary sat trying to understand. "But if he thinks like that, why did he kiss you?"

"Because I said I’d help him with the presents."

Mary got to her feet. "I’m going to have a drink," she said firmly. "I think you’d better have one, too." And when that was adjusted and they were sitting with glasses in their hands, she asked curiously, "It must be funny, being jealous of someone that’s dead?"

The girl took a drink from her glass and sat staring at the fire. "I’m not jealous of her," she said at last. "I don’t think so. Her name is Sharon, like in the Bible. I want to meet her. She must be a very wonderful person, I think. You see, he’s such a practical man."

"Don’t you want to marry him?"

The girl sat for a long time in silence. "I don’t know," she said at last. "I don’t know if I do or not. If it wasn’t for all this... I’d play every dirty trick in the book to get him away from her. I don’t think I’ll ever be happy with anyone else. But then, there’s not much time left now to be happy with anyone.

"There’s three or four months, anyway," said Mary. "I saw a motto once, one of those things you hang on the wall to inspire you. It said, ‘Don’t worry—it may never happen.’"

"I think this is going to happen all right," Moira remarked. She picked up the poker and began playing with it. "If it was for a lifetime it’d be different," she said. "It’d be worth doing her dirt if it meant having Dwight for good, and children, and a home, and a full life. I’d go through anything if I could see a chance of that. But to do her dirt just for three months’ pleasure and nothing at the end of it—well, that’s another thing. I may be a loose woman, but I don’t know that I’m all that loose." She looked up, smiling. "Anyway, I don’t believe that I could do it in the time. I think he’d take a lot of prising away from her."

"Oh dear," said Mary. "Things are difficult, aren’t they?"

"Couldn’t be worse," Moira agreed. "I think I’ll probably die an old maid."

"It doesn’t make sense. But nothing does seem to make sense, these days. Peter..." She stopped.

"What about Peter?" the girl asked curiously.

"I don’t know. It was just horrible, and crazy." She shifted restlessly.

"What was? Tell me."

"Did you ever murder anybody?"

"Me? Not yet. I’ve often wanted to. Country telephone girls, mostly."

"This was serious. It’s a frightful sin to murder anybody, isn’t it? I mean, you’d go to Hell."

"I don’t know. I suppose you would. Who do you want to murder?"

The mother said dully, "Peter told me I might have to murder Jennifer." A tear formed and trickled down her cheek.

The girl leaned forward impulsively and touched her hand. "Darling, that can’t be right! You must have got it wrong."

She shook her head. "It’s not wrong," she sobbed. "It’s right enough. He told me I might have to do it, and he showed me how." She burst into a torrent of tears.

Moira took her in her arms and soothed her, and gradually the story came out. At first the girl could not believe the words she heard, but later she was not so sure. Finally they went together to the bathroom and looked at the red boxes in the cabinet. "I’ve heard something about all this," she said seriously. "I never knew that it had got so far..." One craziness was piled on to another."

"I couldn’t do it alone," the mother whispered. "However bad she was, I couldn’t do it. If Peter isn’t here ... if anything happens to Scorpion... will you come and help me, Moira? Please?"

"Of course I will," the girl said gently. "Of course I’ll come and help. But Peter will be here. They’re coming back all right. Dwight’s that kind of a man." She produced a little screwed up ball of handkerchief, and gave it to Mary. "Dry up, and let’s make a cup of tea. I’ll go and put the kettle on."

They had a cup of tea before the dying fire.

Eighteen days later U.S.S. Scorpion surfaced in clean air in latitude thirty-one degrees south, near Norfolk Island. At the entrance to the Tasman Sea in winter the weather was bleak and the sea rough, the low deck swept by every wave. It was only possible to allow the crew up to the bridge deck eight at a time; they crept up, white faced and trembling, to huddle in oilskins in the driving rain and spray. Dwight kept the submarine hove-to head into the wind for most of the day till everyone had had his allotted half-hour in the fresh air, but few of the men stayed on the bridge so long.

Their resistance to the cold and wet conditions on the bridge was low, but at least he had brought them all back alive, with the exception of Yeoman Swain. All were white faced and anaemic after thirty-one days’ confinement within the hull, and he had three cases of intense depression rendering those men unreliable for duty. He had had one bad fright when Lieutenant Brody had developed all the symptoms of acute appendicitis; with John Osborne helping him he had read up all the procedure for the operation and prepared to do it on the wardroom table. However the symptoms had subsided and the patient was now resting comfortably in his berth; Peter Holmes had taken over all his duties and the captain now hoped that he might last out until they docked at Williamstown in five days’ time. Peter Holmes was as normal as anyone on board. John Osborne was nervous and irritable though still efficient; he talked incessantly of his Ferrari.

They had disproved the Jorgensen effect. They had ventured slowly into the Gulf of Alaska using their underwater mine detector as a defence against floating icebergs till they had reached latitude fifty-eight north in the vicinity of Kodiak. The ice was thicker near the land and they had not approached it; up there the radiation level was still lethal and little different to that they had experienced in the Seattle district. There seemed to be no point in risking the vessel in those waters any longer than was necessary; they took their readings and set course a little to the east of south till they found warmer water and less

chance of ice, and then southwest towards Hawaii and Pearl Harbor.

At Pearl Harbor they had learned practically nothing. They had cruised right into the harbour and up to the dock that they had sailed from before the outbreak of the war. Psychologically this was relatively easy for them, because Dwight had ascertained before the cruise commenced that none of the ship’s company had had their homes in Honolulu or had any close ties with the Islands.

He could have put an officer on shore in a radiation suit as he had done at Santa Maria and he debated for some days with Peter Holmes before he reached the Islands whether he should do so, but they could think of nothing to be gained by such an expedition. When Lieutenant Sunderstrom had had time on his hands at Santa Maria all that he had found to do had been to read The Saturday Evening Post, and they could think of little more useful that an officer on shore could do at Pearl Harbor. The radiation level was much as it had been at Seattle, they noted and listed the many ships in the harbour, the considerable destruction on the shore, and left.

That day, hove-to at the entrance to the Tasman Sea, they were within easy radio communication with Australia. They raised the radio mast and made a signal reporting their position and their estimated time of arrival back at Williamstown. They got a signal in reply asking for their state of health, and Dwight answered in a fairly lengthy message that he worded with some difficulty in regard to Yeoman Swain. A few routine messages came through then dealing with weather forecasts, fueling requirements, and engineering work required when they docked, and in the middle of the morning came a more important one.

It bore a dateline three days previous. It read,

From: Commanding Officer, U.S. Naval Forces, Brisbane.

To: Commander Dwight L. Towers, U.S.S. Scorpion.

Subject: Assumption of additional duties.

1. On the retirement of the present Commanding Officer, U.S. Naval Forces, at this date you will immediately and henceforth assume the duty of Commanding Officer, U.S. Naval Forces, in all areas. You will use your discretion as to the disposition of these forces, and you will terminate or continue their employment under Australian command as you think fit.

2. Guess this makes you an admiral if you want to be one. Good-bye and good luck. Jerry Shaw.

3. Copy to First Naval Member, Royal Australian Navy.

Dwight read this in his cabin with an expressionless face. Then, since a copy had already gone to the Australians, he sent for his liaison officer. When Peter came he handed him the signal without a word.

The lieutenant commander read it. "Congratulations, sir," he said quietly.

"I suppose so..." said the captain. And then he said, "I suppose this means that Brisbane’s out now."

Brisbane was two hundred and fifty miles in latitude to the north of their position then. Peter nodded, his mind on the radiation figures. "It was pretty bad still yesterday afternoon."

"I thought he might have left his ship and come down south," the captain said.

"They couldn’t move at all?"

"No fuel oil," Dwight said. "They had to stop all services in the ships. The tanks were bone dry."

"I should have thought that he’d have come to Melbourne. After all, the Supreme Commander of the U.S. Navy...

Dwight smiled, a little wryly. "That doesn’t mean a thing, not now. No, the real point is that he was captain of his ship and the ship couldn’t move. He wouldn’t want to run out on his ship’s company."

There was no more to be said, and he dismissed his liaison officer. He drafted a short signal in acknowledgment and gave it to the signals officer for transmission via Melbourne, with a copy for the First Naval Member. Presently the yeoman came to him and laid a signal on his desk.

Your 12/05663.

Regret no communications are now possible with Brisbane.

The captain nodded. "Okay," he said. "Let it go."