On The Beach

Peter said, "That's probably as well."

"I think that's right," said the commander. "There's some things that a person shouldn't want to go and see."

John Osborne said, "I was thinking about that last night. Did it ever strike you that nobody will ever- ever-see Cairns again? Or Moresby, or Darwin?"

They stared at him while they turned over the new idea. "Nobody could see more than we've seen," the captain said.

"Who else can go there, except us? And we shan't go again. Not in the time."

"That's so," Dwight said thoughtfully. "I wouldn't think they'd send us back there again. I never thought of it that way, but I'd say you're right. We're the last living people that will ever see those places." He paused. "And we saw practically nothing. Well, I think that's right."

Peter stirred uneasily. "That's historical," he said. "It ought to go on record somewhere, oughtn't it? Is anybody writing any kind of history about these times?"

John Osborne said, "I haven't heard of one. I'll find out about that. After all, there doesn't seem to be much point in writing stuff that nobody will read."

"There should be something written, all the same," said the American. "Even if it's only going to be read in the next few months." He paused. "I'd like to read a history of this last war," he said. "I was in it for a little while, but I don't know a thing about it. Hasn't anybody written anything?"

"Not as a history," John Osborne said. "Not that I know of, anyway. The information that we've got is all available, of course, but not as a coherent story. I think there'd be too many gaps-the things we just don't know."

"I'd settle for the things we do know," the captain remarked.

"What sort of things, sir?"

"Well, as a start, how many bombs were dropped? Nuclear bombs, I mean."

"The seismic records show about four thousand seven hundred. Some of the records were pretty weak, so there were probably more than that."

"How many of those were big ones-fusion bombs, hydrogen bombs, or whatever you call them?"

"I couldn't tell you. Probably most of them. All the bombs dropped in the Russian-Chinese war were hydrogen bombs, I think-most of them with a cobalt element."

"Why did they do that? Use cobalt, I mean?" Peter asked.

The scientist shrugged his shoulders. "Radiological warfare. I can't tell you any more than that."

"I think I can," said the American. "I attended a commanding officers' course at Yerba Buena, San Francisco, the month before the war. They told us what they thought might happen between Russia and China. Whether they told us what did happen six weeks later-well, your guess is as good as mine."

John Osborne asked quietly, "What did they tell you?"

The captain considered for a minute. Then he said, "It was all tied up with the warm water ports. Russia hasn't got a port that doesn't freeze up in the winter except Odessa, and that's on the Black Sea. To get out of Odessa on to the high seas the traffic has to pass two narrow straits both commanded by NATO in time of war-the Bosporus and Gibraltar. Murmansk and Vladivostok can be kept open by icebreakers in the winter, but they're a mighty long way from any place in Russia that makes things to export." He paused. "This guy from Intelligence said that what Russia really wanted was Shanghai."

The scientist asked, "Is that handy for their Siberian industries?"

The captain nodded. "That's exactly it. During the Second War they moved a great many industries way back along the Trans-Siberian railway east of the Urals, back as far as Lake Baikal. They built new towns and everything. Well, it's a long, long way from those places to a port like Odessa. It's only about half the distance to Shanghai."

He paused. "There was another thing he told us," he said thoughtfully. "China had three times the population of Russia, all desperately overcrowded in their country. Russia, next door to the north of them, had millions and millions of square miles of land she didn't use at all because she didn't have the people to populate it. This guy said that as the Chinese industries increased over the last twenty years, Russia got to be afraid of an attack by China. She'd have been a great deal happier if there had been two hundred million fewer Chinese, and she wanted Shanghai. And that adds up to radiological warfare…"

Peter said, "But using cobalt, she couldn't follow up and take Shanghai."

"That's true. But she could make North China uninhabitable for quite a number of years by spacing the bombs right. If they put them down in the right places the fall-out would cover China to the sea. Any left over would go around the world eastwards across the Pacific; if a little got to the United States I don't suppose the Russians would have wept salt tears. If they planned it right, there would be very little left when it got around the world again to Europe and to western Russia. Certainly she couldn't follow up and take Shanghai for quite a number of years, but she'd get it in the end."