On The Beach

He grinned at her. "If anyone can tell me how to catch a fish out of a submarine that's submerged, or a sea gull when nobody can go on deck, I'd like to know. It could probably be done with specially designed equipment. Everything's possible. But this was at the final briefing, half an hour before we sailed."

"So you didn't bring back a sea gull?"

"No."

"Was the Prime Minister very much annoyed?"

"I wouldn't know. I wouldn't dare go see him."

"I'm not surprised." She paused and took a drink from her glass, and then more seriously she said, "Tell me. There's nobody alive up there, is there?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so. It's difficult to say for certain unless one was prepared to put a man on shore, in a protective suit. Looking back, I think that's what we should have done in some of those places. But we weren't briefed for that this time, and no equipment on board. The decontamination is a problem, when he comes back in the ship."

" 'This time,' " she quoted. "Are you going again?"

He nodded. "I think so. We've had no orders, but I've got a hunch they'll send us over to the States."

She opened her eyes. "Can you go there?"

He nodded. "It's quite a way, and it'd be a very long time underwater. Pretty hard on the crew. But yet-it could be done. Swordfish took a cruise like that, and so could we."

He told her about Swordfish and her cruise around the North Atlantic. "The trouble is, you see so very little through the periscope. We've got the captain's report on the Swordfish cruise, and, when you sum it all up, they really learned very little. Not much more than you'd know if you sat down to think it out. You can only see the waterfront, and that from a height of about twenty feet. You can see if there's been bomb damage in a city or a port, but that's about all you can see. It was the same with us. We found out very little on this cruise. Just stayed there calling on the loud hailer for a while, and when nobody came down to look at us or answer, we assumed they were all dead." He paused. "It's all you can assume."

She nodded. "Somebody was saying that they've got it in Mackay. Do you think that's true?"

"I think it is true," he said. "It's coming south very steadily, just like the scientists said it would."

"If it goes on at this rate, how long will it be before it gets here?"

"I'd say around September. Could be a bit before."

She got restlessly to her feet. "Get me another drink, Dwight." And when he brought it she said, "I want to go somewhere-do something-dance!"

"Anything you say, honey."

"We can't just sit here mooning and moaning about what's coming to us!"

"You're right," he said. "But what do you want to do, more'n you're doing now?"

"Don't be sensible," she said fretfully. "I just can't bear it."

"Okay," he said equably. "Drink up and let's go up and meet the Holmes, and then go sail that boat."

They found at the flat that Peter and Mary Holmes had arranged a beach picnic supper for the evening's entertainment. Not only was it cheaper than a party and more pleasant in the heat of summer, but in Mary's somewhat muddled view the more the men were kept out of the house the less likely they were to give the baby measles. That afternoon Moira and Dwight went down to the sailing club after a quick lunch to rig the boat and sail her in the race, while Peter and Mary followed with the baby in the bicycle trailer in the middle of the afternoon.

The race went reasonably well that time. They bumped the buoy at the start, and engaged in a luffing match on the second round which ended in a minor collision because neither party knew the rules, but in that club such incidents were not infrequent, and protests very few. They finished the race in sixth place, an improvement on the time before, and in much better order. They sailed in to the beach at the conclusion of the race, parked the vessel on a convenient sandbank, and waded on shore to drink a cup of tea and eat small cakes with Peter and Mary.

They bathed in leisurely fashion in the evening sun; in bathing costumes they unrigged the boat, put away the sails, and got her up to her resting place upon the dry sand of the beach. The sun dropped down to the horizon and they changed into their clothes, took drinks from the hamper, and walked out to the jetty's end to see the sunset while Peter and Mary got busy with the supper.

Sitting with him perched upon a rail, watching the rosy lights reflected in the calm sea, savouring the benison of the warm evening and the comfort of her drink, she asked him, "Dwight, tell me about the cruise that Swordfish made. Did you say she went to the United States?"

"That's right." He paused, and then he said, "She went everywhere she could along the eastern seaboard, but all it amounted to was just a few of the small ports and harbours, Delaware Bay, the Hudson River, and, of course, New London. They took a big chance going in to look at New York City."

She was puzzled. "Was that dangerous?"