On The Beach

He shook his head. "It wouldn't be possible. A cameraman couldn't live, as far as I can see. I guess nobody will ever know what the Northern Hemisphere looks like now, excepting God." He paused. "I think that's a good thing. You don't want to remember how a person looked when he was dead-you want to remember how he was when he was alive. That's the way I like to think about New York."

"It's too big," she repeated. "I can't take it in."

"It's too big for me, too," he replied. "I can't really believe in it, just can't get used to the idea. I suppose it's lack of imagination. I don't want to have any more imagination. They're all alive to me, those places in the States, just like they were. I'd like them to stay that way till next September."

She said softly, "Of course."

He stirred. "Have another cup of tea?"

"No, thanks."

He took her out on deck again; she paused on the bridge rubbing a bruised shin, breathing the sea air gratefully. "It must be the hell of a thing to be submerged in her for any length of time," she said. "How long will you be underwater for this cruise?"

"Not long," he said. "Six or seven days, maybe."

"It must be terribly unhealthy."

"Not physically," he said. "You do suffer from a lack of sunlight. We've got a couple of sunray lamps, but they're not the same as being out on deck. It's the psychological effect that's worst. Some men-good men in every other way-they just can't take it. Everybody gets kind of on edge after a while. You need a steady kind of temperament. Kind of placid, I'd say."

She nodded, thinking that it fitted in with his own character. "Are all of you like that?"

"I'd say we might be. Most of us."

"Keep an eye on John Osborne," she remarked. "I don't believe he is."

He glanced at her in surprise. He had not thought of that, and the scientist had survived the trial trip quite well. But now that she had mentioned it, he wondered. "Why-I'll do that," he said. "Thanks for the suggestion."

They went up the gangway into Sydney. In the hangar of the aircraft carrier there were still aircraft parked with folded wings; the ship seemed dead and silent. She paused for a moment. "None of these will ever fly again, will they?"

"I wouldn't think so."

"Do any aeroplanes fly now, at all?"

"I haven't heard one in the air for quite a while," he said. "I know they're short of aviation gas."

She walked quietly with him to the cabin, unusually subdued. As she got out of the boiler suit and into her own clothes her spirits revived. These morbid bloody ships, these morbid bloody realities! She was urgent to get away from them, to drink, hear music, and to dance. Before the mirror, before the pictures of his wife and children, she made her lips redder, her cheeks brighter, her eyes sparkling. Snap out if it! Get right outside these riveted steel walls, and get out quick. This was no place for her. Into the world of romance, of make-believe and double brandies! Snap out of it, and get back to the world where she belonged!

From the photograph frames Sharon looked at her with understanding and approval.

In the wardroom he came forward to meet her. "Say," he exclaimed in admiration, "you look swell!"

She smiled quickly. "I'm feeling lousy," she said. "Let's get out of it and into the fresh air. Let's go to that hotel and have a drink, and then go up and find somewhere to dance."

"Anything you say."

He left her with John Osborne while he went to change into civilian clothes. "Take me up on to the flight deck, John," she said. "I'll throw a screaming fit if I stay in these ships one minute longer."

"I'm not sure that I know the way up to the roof," he remarked. "I'm a new boy here." They found a steep ladder that led up to a gun turret, came down again, wandered along a steel corridor, asked a rating, and finally got up into the island and out on to the deck. On the wide, unencumbered flight deck the sun was warm, the sea blue, and the wind fresh. "Thank God I'm out of that," she said.

"I take it that you aren't enamoured of the navy," he observed.

"Well, are you having fun?"

He considered the matter. "Yes, I think I am. It's going to be rather interesting."

"Looking at dead people through a periscope. I can think of funnier sorts of fun."

They walked a step or two in silence. "It's all knowledge," he said at last. "One has to try and find out what has happened. It could be that it's all quite different to what we think. The radioactive elements may be getting absorbed by something. Something may have happened to the half-life that we don't know about. Even if we don't discover anything that's good, it's still discovering things. I don't think we shall discover anything that's good, or very hopeful. But even so, it's fun just finding out."

"You call finding out the bad things fun?"

"Yes, I do," he said firmly. "Some games are fun even when you lose. Even when you know you're going to lose before you start. It's fun just playing them."

"You've got a pretty queer idea of fun and games."