On The Beach

"She's been to the Minister, and he sent her to me with a note. She wants us to open the trout season early this year, or nobody will get any trout fishing. The Minister thinks it would be a good thing to do. I suppose he's looking to the next election."

"Open the trout season early? You mean, before September the first?"

"That's the suggestion."

"A very bad suggestion, if I may say so. The fish won't have finished spawning, and if they have they'll be in very poor condition. You could ruin the fishing for years, doing a thing like that. When does he want to open the season?"

"He suggests August the tenth." He paused. "It's that girl, that relation of yours, who's at the bottom of this thing. I don't believe it would ever have entered his head but for her."

"I think it's a terrible proposal. Quite irresponsible. I'm sure I don't know what the world's coming to…"

As member after member came into the room the debate continued and more joined in the discussion. Mr. Sykes found that the general opinion was in favour of the change in date. "After all," said one, "they'll go and fish in August if they can get there and the weather's fine, whether you like it or not. And you can't fine them or send them to jail because there won't be time to bring the case on. May as well give a reasonable date, and make a virtue of necessity. Of course," he added conscientiously, "it'd be for this year only."

A leading eye surgeon remarked, "I think it's a very good idea. If the fish are poor we don't have to take them; we can always put them back. Unless the season should be very early they won't take a fly; we'll have to use a spinner. But I'm in favour of it, all the same. When I go, I'd like it to be on a sunny day on the bank of the Delatite with a rod in my hand."

Somebody said, "Like the man they lost from the American submarine."

"Yes, just like that. I think that fellow had the right idea."

Mr. Sykes, having taken a cross section of the most influential opinion of the city, went back to his office with an easier mind, rang up his Minister, and that afternoon drafted an announcement to be broadcast on the radio that would constitute one of those swift changes of policy to meet the needs of the time, easy to make in a small, highly educated country and very characteristic of Australia. Dwight Towers heard it that evening in the echoing, empty wardroom of H.M.A.S. Sydney, and marvelled, not connecting it in the least with his own conversation with the scientist a few days before. Immediately he began making plans to try out Junior's rod. Transport was going to be the difficulty, but difficulties were there to be overcome by the Supreme Commander of the U.S. Naval Forces.

In what was left of Australia that year a relief of tension came soon after midwinter. By the beginning of July, when Broken Hill and Perth went out, few people in Melbourne were doing any more work than they wanted to. The electricity supply continued uninterrupted, as did the supply of the essential foodstuffs, but fuel for fires and little luxuries now had to be schemed and sought for by a people who had little else to do. As the weeks went by the population became noticeably more sober; there were still riotous parties, still drunks sleeping in the gutter, but far fewer than there had been earlier. And, like harbingers of the coming spring, one by one motorcars started to appear on the deserted roads.

It was difficult at first to say where they came from or where they got the petrol, for each case on investigation proved to be exceptional. Peter Holmes' landlord turned up in a Holden one day to remove firewood from the trees that had been felled, explaining awkwardly that he had retained a little of the precious fluid for cleaning clothes. A cousin in the Royal Australian Air Force came to visit them from Laverton Aerodrome driving an M.G., explaining that he had saved the petrol but there didn't seem to be much sense in saving it any longer; this was clearly nonsense, because Bill never saved anything. An engineer who worked at the Shell refinery at Corio said that he had managed to buy a little petrol on the black market in Fitzroy but very properly refused to name the scoundrel who had sold it. Like a sponge squeezed by the pressure of circumstances, Australia began to drip a little petrol, and as the weeks went on towards August the drip became a trickle.

Peter Holmes took a can with him to Melbourne one day and visited John Osborne. That evening he heard the engine of his Morris Minor for the first time in two years, clouds of black smoke emerging from the exhaust till he stopped the engine and took out the jets and hammered them a little smaller. Then he drove her out upon the road, with Mary, delighted, at his side and Jennifer upon her knee. "It's just like having one's first car all over again!" she exclaimed. "Peter, it's wonderful! Can you get any more, do you think?"