On The Beach

Moira took her in her arms and soothed her, and gradually the story came out. At first the girl could not believe the words she heard, but later she was not so sure. Finally they went together to the bathroom and looked at the red boxes in the cabinet. "I've heard something about all this," she said seriously. "I never knew that it had got so far…" One craziness was piled on to another.

"I couldn't do it alone," the mother whispered. "However bad she was, I couldn't do it. If Peter isn't here… if anything happens to Scorpion… will you come and help me, Moira? Please?"

"Of course I will," the girl said gently. "Of course I’ll come and help. But Peter will be here. They're coming back all right. Dwight's that kind of a man." She produced a little screwed up ball of handkerchief, and gave it to Mary. "Dry up, and let's make a cup of tea. I'll go and put the kettle on."

They had a cup of tea before the dying fire.

Eighteen days later U.S.S. Scorpion surfaced in clean air in latitude thirty-one degrees south, near Norfolk Island. At the entrance to the Tasman Sea in winter the weather was bleak and the sea rough, the low deck swept by every wave. It was only possible to allow the crew up to the bridge deck eight at a time; they crept up, white faced and trembling, to huddle in oilskins in the driving rain and spray. Dwight kept the submarine hove-to head into the wind for most of the day till everyone had had his allotted half-hour in the fresh air, but few of the men stayed on the bridge so long.

Their resistance to the cold and wet conditions on the bridge was low, but at least he had brought them all back alive, with the exception of Yeoman Swain. All were white faced and anaemic after thirty-one days' confinement within the hull, and he had three cases of intense depression rendering those men unreliable for duty. He had had one bad fright when Lieutenant Brody had developed all the symptoms of acute appendicitis; with John Osborne helping him he had read up all the procedure for the operation and prepared to do it on the wardroom table. However the symptoms had subsided and the patient was now resting comfortably in his berth; Peter Holmes had taken over all his duties and the captain now hoped that he might last out until they docked at Williamstown in five days' time. Peter Holmes was as normal as anyone on board. John Osborne was nervous and irritable though still efficient; he talked incessantly of his Ferrari.

They had disproved the Jorgensen effect. They had ventured slowly into the Gulf of Alaska using their underwater mine detector as a defense against floating icebergs till they had reached latitude fifty-eight north in the vicinity of Kodiak. The ice was thicker near the land and they had not approached it; up there the radiation level was still lethal and little different to that they had experienced in the Seattle district. There seemed to be no point in risking the vessel in those waters any longer than was necessary; they took their readings and set course a little to the east of south till they found warmer water and less chance of ice, and then southwest towards Hawaii and Pearl Harbor.

At Pearl Harbor they had learned practically nothing. They had cruised right into the harbour and up to the dock that they had sailed from before the outbreak of the war. Psychologically this was relatively easy for them, because Dwight had ascertained before the cruise commenced that none of the ship's company had had their homes in Honolulu or had any close ties with the Islands. He could have put an officer on shore in a radiation suit as he had done at Santa Maria and he debated for some days with Peter Holmes before he reached the Islands whether he should do so, but they could think of nothing to be gained by such an expedition. When Lieutenant Sunderstorm had had time on his hands at Santa Maria all that he had found to do had been to read The Saturday Evening Post, and they could think of little more useful that an officer on shore could do at Pearl Harbor. The radiation level was much as it had been at Seattle; they noted and listed the many ships in the harbour, the considerable destruction on the shore, and left.

That day, hove-to at the entrance to the Tasman Sea, they were within easy radio communication with Australia. They raised the radio mast and made a signal reporting their position and their estimated time of arrival back at Williamstown. They got a signal in reply asking for their state of health, and Dwight answered in a fairly lengthy message that he worded with some difficulty in regard to Yeoman Swain. A few routine messages came through then dealing with weather forecasts, fueling requirements, and engineering work required when they docked, and in the middle of the morning came a more important one.

It bore a dateline three days previous. It read,

From: Commanding Officer, U.S. Naval Forces, Brisbane.

To: Commander Dwight L. Towers, U.S.S. Scorpion.

Subject: Assumption of additional duties.