On The Beach

The Ferrari altered that. Each time he drove it, it excited him. At first he did not drive it very well. After touching a hundred and fifty miles an hour or so upon the straight, he failed to slow enough to take his corners safely. Each corner at first was a sort of dice with death, and twice he spun and ended up on the grass verge, white and trembling with shock and deeply ashamed that he had treated his car so. Each little race or practice run upon the circuit left him with the realization of mistakes that he must never make again, with the realization of death escaped by inches.

With these major excitements in the forefront of his mind, the coming cruise in Scorpion ceased to terrify. There was no danger in that comparable with the dangers that he courted in his racing car. The naval interlude became a somewhat boring chore to be lived through, a waste of time that now was growing precious, till he could get back to Melbourne and put in three months of road racing before the end.

Like every other racing motorist, he spent a lot of time endeavouring to track down further supplies of fuel.

Sir David Hartman held his conference as had been arranged. Dwight Towers went to it as captain of Scorpion and took his liaison officer with him. He also took the radio and electrical officer, a Lieutenant Sunderstrom, to the conference because matters connected with the Seattle radio were likely to arise. C.S.I.R.O. were represented by the director with John Osborne, the Third Naval Member was there with one of his officers, and the party was completed by one of the Prime Minister's secretaries.

At the commencement the First Naval Member outlined the difficulties of the operation. "It is my desire," he said, "and it is the Prime Minister's instruction, that Scorpion should not be exposed to any extreme danger in the course of this cruise. In the first place, we want the results of the scientific observations we are sending her to make. At the low height of her radio aerial and the necessity that she remains submerged for much of the time, we cannot expect free radio communication with her. For that reason alone she must return safely or the whole value of the operation will be lost. Apart from that, she is the only long-range vessel left at our disposal for communication with South America and with South Africa. With these considerations in mind I have made fairly drastic alterations to the cruise that we discussed at our last meeting. The investigation of the Panama Canal has been struck out. San Diego and San Francisco also have been struck out. All these are on account of minefields. Commander Towers, will you tell us shortly how you stand in regard to minefields?"

Dwight gave the conference a short dissertation on the mines and on his lack of knowledge. "Seattle is open to us, and the whole of Puget Sound," he said. "Also Pearl Harbor. I'd say there wouldn't be much danger from mines up around the Gulf of Alaska on account of the ice movements. The ice constitutes a problem in those latitudes, and the Scorpion's no icebreaker. Still, in my opinion we can feel our way up there without unduly hazarding the ship. If we just can't make it all the way to latitude sixty, well, we'll have done our best. I'd say we probably can do most of what you want."

They turned to a discussion of the radio signals still coming from somewhere in the vicinity of Seattle. Sir Phillip Goodall, the director of C.S.I.R.O., produced a synopsis of the messages monitored since the war. "These signals are mostly incomprehensible," he said. "They occur at random intervals, more frequently in the winter than the summer. The frequency is 4.92 megacycles." The radio officer made a note upon the paper in front of him. "One hundred and sixty-nine transmissions have been monitored. Of these, three contained recognizable code groups, seven groups in all. Two contained words in clear, in English, one word in each. The groups were undecipherable; I have them here if anyone wants to see them. The words were waters and connect."

Sir David Hartman asked, "How many hours' transmission, in all, were monitored?"

"About a hundred and six hours."

"And in that time only two words have come through in clear? The rest is gibberish?"

"That is correct."

The admiral said, "I don't think the words can be significant. It's probably a fortuitous transmission. After all, if an infinite number of monkeys start playing with an infinite number of typewriters, one of them will write a play of Shakespeare. The real point to be investigated is this-how are these transmissions taking place at all? It seems certain that there is electrical power available there still. There may be human agency behind that power. It's not very likely, but it could be so."

Lieutenant Sunderstrom leaned towards his captain and spoke in a low tone. Dwight said aloud, "Mr. Sunderstrom knows the radio installations in that district."