On The Beach

She said restlessly, "I want to drink hard liquor, as you call it, before lunch. I've got a mouth like the bottom of the parrot's cage. You wouldn't want me to throw a screaming fit in front of all your officers." She glanced around. "There must be a hotel here somewhere. Buy me a drink before we go on board, and then I'll just breathe brandy at them while I'm drinking Coke."

"Okay," he said equably. "There's a hotel on the corner. We'll go in there."

They walked together to the hotel; he entered and looked around, unsure of his surroundings. He led her into the Ladies' Lounge. "I think this must be it."

"Don't you know? Haven't you ever been in here before?"

He shook his head. "Brandy?"

"Double," she said. "With ice, and just a little water. Don't you come in here?"

"I've never been in here," he told her.

"Don't you ever want to go out on a bender?" she inquired. "In the evenings, when you've got nothing to do?"

"I used to just at first," he admitted. "But then I went up to the city for it. Don't mess on your own doorstep. I gave it up after a week or two. It wasn't very satisfactory."

"What do you do in the evenings, when the ship's not at sea?" she asked.

"Read a magazine, or else maybe a book. Sometimes we go out and take in a movie." The barman came, and he ordered her brandy, with a small whisky for himself.

"It all sounds very unhealthy," she observed. "I'm going to the Ladies'. Look after my bag."

He managed to detach her from the hotel after her second double brandy and took her into the dockyard and to Sydney, hoping that she would behave herself in front of his officers. But he need have had no fears; she was demure and courteous to all the Americans. Only to Osborne did she reveal her real self.

"Hullo, John," she said. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"I'm part of the ship's company," he told her. "Scientific observation. Making a nuisance of myself generally."

"That's what Commander Towers told me," she observed. "You're really going to live with them in the submarine? For days on end?"

"So it seems."

"Do they know your habits?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"All right, I won't tell them. It's nothing to do with me." She turned away to talk to Commander Lundgren.

When he offered her a drink she chose an orangeade; she made an attractive picture in the wardroom of Sydney that morning, drinking with the Americans, standing beneath the portrait of the Queen. While she was occupied the captain drew his liaison officer to one side. "Say," he observed in a low tone, "she can't go down in Scorpion in those clothes. Can you rustle up an overall for her?"

Peter nodded. "I'll draw a boiler suit. About size one, I should think. Where's she going to change?"

The captain rubbed his chin. "Do you know any place?"

"Nothing better than your sleeping cabin, sir. She wouldn't be disturbed there."

"I'll never hear the last of it-from her."

"I'm sure you won't," said Peter.

She lunched with the Americans at the end of one of the long tables, and took coffee with them in the anteroom. Then the junior officers dispersed to go about their business, and she was left with Dwight and Peter. Peter laid a clean, laundered boiler suit upon the table. "There's the overall," he said.

Dwight cleared his throat. "It's liable to be greasy in a submarine, Miss Davidson," he said.

"Moira," she interrupted.

"Okay, Moira. I was thinking maybe you should go down in an overall. I'm afraid you might get that dress pretty dirty down in Scorpion."

She took the boiler suit and unfolded it. "It's a comprehensive change," she observed. "Where can I put it on?"

"I was thinking you might use my sleeping cabin," he suggested. "You wouldn't be disturbed there."

"I hope not, but I wouldn't be too sure," she said. "Not after what happened in the boat." He laughed. "All right, Dwight, lead me to it. I'll try everything once."

He took her to the cabin and went back to the anteroom himself to wait for her. In the little sleeping cabin she looked about her curiously. There were photographs there, four of them. All showed a dark-haired young woman with two children, a boy eight or nine years old and a girl a couple of years younger. One was a studio portrait of a mother with two children. The others were enlargements of snapshots, one at a bathing place with the family seated on a springboard, perhaps at a lake shore. Another was apparently taken on a lawn, perhaps the lawn before his home, a long car showed in the background and a portion of a white wooden house. She stood examining them with interest; they looked nice people. It was hard, but so was everything these days. No good agonizing about it.

She changed, leaving her outer clothes and her bag on the bunk, scowled at her appearance in the little mirror, and went out and down the corridor to find her host. He came forward to meet her. "Well, here I am," she said. "Looking like hell. Your submarine will have to be good, Dwight, to make up for this."