On The Beach

They gave him his newly mended clothes after lunch. He expressed his thanks for all that they had done for him, packed his bag, and Moira drove him down to the station. There was an exhibition of Australian religious paintings at the National Gallery; they arranged to go and see that together before it came off; he would give her a ring. Then he was in the train for Melbourne, on his way back to his work.

He got back to the aircraft carrier at about six o'clock. As he had supposed, there was a pile of paper on his desk, including a sealed envelope with a security label gummed on the outside. He slit it open and found that it contained a draft operation order, with a personal note attached to it from the First Naval Member asking him to ring up for an appointment and come and see him about it.

He glanced the order through. It was very much as he had thought that it would be. It was within the capacity of his ship to execute, assuming that there were no mines at all laid on the west coast of the United States, which seemed to him to be a bold assumption.

He rang up Peter Holmes that evening at his home near Falmouth. "Say," he said, "I've got a draft operation order lying on my desk. There's a covering letter from the First Naval Member, wants me to go and see him. I'd like it if you could come on board tomorrow and look it over. Then I'd say you'd better come along when I go to see the admiral."

"I'll be on board tomorrow morning, early," said the liaison officer.

"Well, that's fine. I hate to pull you back off leave, but this needs action."

"That's all right, sir. I was only going to take down a tree."

He was in the aircraft carrier by half-past nine next morning, seated with Commander Towers in his little office cabin reading through the order. "It's more or less what you thought it was going to be, sir, isn't it?" he asked.

"More or less," the captain agreed. He turned to the side table. "This is all we've got on the minefields. This radio station that they want investigated. They've pinpointed that in the Seattle area. Well, we're all right for that." He raised a chart from the table. "This is the key minefield chart of the Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound. We should be safe to go right up to Bremerton Naval Yard. We're all right for Pearl Harbor, but they don't ask us to go there. The Gulf of Panama, San Diego, and San Francisco-we've got nothing on those at all."

Peter nodded. "We'll have to explain that to the admiral. As a matter of fact, I think he knows it. I know that he's quite open to a general discussion of this thing."

"Dutch Harbor," said the captain. "We've got nothing on that."

"Would we meet any ice up there?"

"I'd say we would. And fog, a lot of fog. It's not so good to go there at this time of year, with no watch on deck. We'll have to be careful up around those parts."

"I wonder why they want us to go there."

"I wouldn't know. Maybe he'll tell us."

They pored over the charts together for a time. "How would you go?" the liaison officer asked at last.

"On the surface along latitude thirty, north of New Zealand, south of Pitcairn, till we pick up longitude one-twenty. Then straight up the longitude. That brings us to the States in California, around Santa Barbara. Coming home from Dutch Harbor we'd do the same. Straight south down one-six-five past Hawaii. I guess we'd take a look in at Pearl Harbor while we're there. Then right on south till we can surface near the Friendly Islands, or maybe a bit south of that."

"How long would that mean that we should be submerged?"

The captain turned and took a paper from the desk.

"I was trying to figure that out last night. I don't suppose that we'd stay very long in any place, like the last time. I make the distance around two hundred degrees, twelve thousand miles submerged. Say six hundred hours cruising-twenty-five days. Add a couple of days for investigations and delays. Say twenty-seven days."

"Quite a long time underwater."

"Swordfish went longer. She went thirty-two days. The thing is to take it easy, and relax."

The liaison officer studied the chart of the Pacific. He laid his finger on the mass of reefs and island groups south of Hawaii. "There's not going to be much relaxing when we come to navigate through all this stuff, submerged. And that comes at the end of the trip."

"I know it." He stared at the chart. "Maybe we'll move away towards the west a trifle, and come down on Fiji from the north." He paused. "I'm more concerned about Dutch Harbor than I am of the run home," he said.

They stood studying the charts with the operation order for half an hour. Finally the Australian said, "Well, it's going to be quite a cruise." He grinned. "Something to tell our grandchildren about."

The captain glanced at him quickly, and then broke into a smile. "You're very right."