by Nevil Shute
“You’re not too bad,” she told him. And then she asked, “Do you know when you go off up north?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. A message came in just before we left telling me to report Monday morning in the First Naval Member’s offices, with Lieutenant Commander Holmes. I imagine we’ll get our final briefing then, and maybe get away on Monday afternoon.”
She said, “Good luck. Will you give me a ring when you come back to Williamstown?”
“Why, sure,” he said. “I’d like to do that. Maybe we could go sailing again someplace, or else do this again.”
She said, “That’d be fun. I’ll have to go now, or I’ll miss this train. Good night again, and thanks for everything.”
“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “Good night.” He stood and watched her go till she was lost in the crowd. From the back view, in that light summer dress, she was not unlike Sharon — or could it be that he was forgetting, muddling them up? No, she really was a bit like Sharon in the way she walked. Not in any other way. Perhaps that was why he liked her, that she was just a little like his wife.
He turned away, and went to catch his train to Williamstown.
He went to church next morning in Williamstown, as was his habit on a Sunday when circumstances made it possible. At ten o’clock on Monday morning he was with Peter Holmes in the Navy Department, waiting in the outer office to see the First Naval Member, Sir David Hartman. The secretary said, “He won’t be a minute, sir. I understand he’s taking you both over to the Commonwealth Government Offices.”
“He is?”
The lieutenant nodded. “He ordered a car.” A buzzer sounded and the young man went into the inner office. He reappeared in a moment. “Will you both go in now.”
They went into the inner office. The vice admiral got up to meet them. “Morning, Commander Towers. Morning, Holmes. The Prime Minister wants to have a word with you before you go, so we’ll go over to his office in a minute. Before we do that, I want to give you this.” He turned, and lifted a fairly bulky typescript from his desk. “This is the report of the commanding officer of U.S.S. Swordfish on his cruise from Rio de Janeiro up into the North Atlantic.” He handed it to Dwight. “I’m sorry that it’s been so long in coming, but the pressure on the radio to South America is very great, and there’s a good deal of it. You can take it with you and look it over at your leisure.”
The American took it, and turned it over with interest. “It’s going to be very valuable to us, sir. Is there anything in it to affect this operation?”
“I don’t think there is. He found a high level of radioactivity — atmospheric radioactivity — over the whole area, greater in the north than in the south, as you’d expect. He submerged — let’s see—” he took the typescript back and turned the pages quickly “ — he submerged in latitude two south, off Parnaíba, and stayed submerged for the whole cruise, surfacing again in latitude five south off Cape São Roque.”
“How long was he submerged, sir?”
“Thirty-two days.”
“That might be a record.”
The admiral nodded. “I think it is. I think he says so, somewhere.” He handed back the typescript. “Well, take it with you and study it. It gives an indication of conditions in the north. By the way, if you should want to get in touch with him, he’s moved his ship down into Uruguay. He’s at Montevideo now.”
Peter asked, “Are things getting hot in Rio, sir?”
“It’s getting a bit close.”
They left the office in the Navy Department, went down into the yard, and got into an electric truck. It took them silently through the empty streets of the city, up tree-lined Collins Street to the Commonwealth Offices. In a few minutes they found themselves seated with Mr. Donald Ritchie, the Prime Minister, around a table.
He said, “I wanted to see you before you sailed, Captain, to tell you a little bit about the purpose of this cruise, and to wish you luck. I’ve read your operation order, and I have very little to add to that. You are to proceed to Cairns, to Port Moresby, and to Darwin for the purpose of reporting on conditions in those places. Any signs of life would be particularly interesting, of course, whether human or animal. Vegetation, too. And sea birds, if you can gather any information about those.”
“I think that’s going to be difficult, sir,” Dwight said.
“Yes, I suppose so. Anyway, I understand you’re taking a member of the C.S.I.R.O. with you.”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Osborne.”
The Prime Minister passed his hand across his face, an habitual gesture. “Well. I don’t expect you to take risks. In fact, I forbid it. We want you back here with your ship intact and your crew in good health. You will use your own discretion whether you expose yourself on deck, whether you expose your ship upon the surface, guided by your scientific officer. Within the limits of that instruction, we want all the information we can get. If the radiation level makes it possible, you should land and inspect the towns. But I don’t think it will.”
The First Naval Member shook his head. “I very much doubt it. I think you may find it necessary to submerge by the time you get to twenty-two south.”
The American thought rapidly. “That’s south of Townsville.”
The Prime Minister said heavily, “Yes. There are still people alive in Townsville. You are expressly forbidden to go there, unless your operation order should be modified by a signal from the Navy Department.” He raised his head, and looked at the American. “That may seem hard to you, Commander. But you can’t help them, and it’s better not to raise false hopes by showing them your ship. And after all, we know what the conditions are in Townsville. We still have telegraphic contact with them there.”
“I understand that, sir.”
“That leads me to the last point that I have to make,” the Prime Minister said. “You are expressly forbidden to take anybody on board your ship during this cruise, except with the prior permission of the Navy Department obtained by radio. I know that you will understand the obvious necessity that neither you or any member of your crew should be exposed to contact with a radioactive person. Is that quite clear?”
“Quite clear, sir.”
The Prime Minister rose to his feet. “Well, good luck to all of you. I shall look forward to talking to you again, Commander Towers, in a fortnight’s time.”
3
NINE DAYS LATER U.S.S. Scorpion surfaced at dawn. In the grey light, as the stars faded, the periscopes emerged from a calm sea off Sandy Cape near Bundaberg in Queensland, in latitude twenty-four degrees south. She stayed below the surface for a quarter of an hour while the captain checked his position by the lighthouse on the distant shore and by echo soundings, and while John Osborne checked the atmospheric and sea radiation levels, with fingers fumbling irritably upon his instruments. Then she slid up out of the depths, a long grey hull, low in the water, heading south at twenty knots. On the bridge deck a hatch clanged open and the officer of the deck emerged, followed by the captain and by many others. In the calm weather the forward and aft torpedo hatches were opened and clean air began to circulate throughout the boat. A lifeline was rigged from the bow to the bridge structure and another to the stern, and all the men off duty clambered up on deck into the fresh morning air, white faced, rejoicing to be out of it, to see the rising sun. They had been submerged for over a week.
Half an hour later they were hungry, hungrier than they had been for several days. When breakfast was sounded they tumbled below quickly; the cooks in turn came up for a spell on deck. When the watch was relieved more men came quickly up into the bright sunlight. The officers appeared upon the bridge, smoking, and the ship settled into the normal routine of surface operation, heading southwards on a blue sea down the Queensland coast. The radio mast was rigged, and they reported their position in a signal. Then they began to receive the broadcasting for entertainment, and light music filled the hull, mingling with the murmur of the turbines and the rushing noise of water alongside.
On the bridge the captain said to his liaison officer, “This report’s going to be just a little difficult to write.”
Peter nodded. “There’s the tanker, sir.”
Dwight said, “Sure, there’s the tanker.” Between Cairns and Port Moresby, in the Coral Sea, they had come upon a ship. She was a tanker, empty and in ballast, drifting with her engines stopped. She was registered in Amsterdam. They cruised around her, hailing through the loud hailer, and getting no response, looking at her through the periscope as they checked her details with Lloyds Register. All her boats were in place at the davits, but there seemed to be nobody alive on board her. She was rusty, very rusty indeed. They came to the conclusion finally that she was a derelict that had been drifting about the oceans since the war; she did not seem to have suffered any damage, other than the weather. There was nothing to be done about her, and the atmospheric radiation level was too high for them to go on deck or make any attempt to board her, even if it had been possible for them to get up her sheer sides. So, after an hour, they left her where they found her, photographing her through the periscope and noting the position. This was the only ship that they had met throughout the cruise.
The liaison officer said, “It’s going to boil down to a report on Honest John’s radioactive readings.”
“That’s about the size of it,” the captain agreed. “We did see that dog.”
Indeed, the report was not going to be an easy one to write, for they had seen and learned very little in the course of their cruise. They had approached Cairns upon the surface but within the hull, the radiation level being too great to allow exposure on the bridge. They had threaded their way cautiously through the Barrier Reef to get to it, spending one night hove-to because Dwight judged it dangerous to navigate in darkness in such waters, where the lighthouses and leading lights were unreliable. When finally they picked up Green Island and approached the land, the town looked absolutely normal to them. It stood bathed in sunshine on the shore, with the mountain range of the Atherton tableland behind. Through the periscope they could see streets of shops shaded with palm trees, a hospital, and trim villas of one storey raised on posts above the ground; there were cars parked in the streets and one or two flags flying. They went on up the river to the docks. Here there was little to be seen except a few fishing boats at anchor up the river, completely normal; there were no ships at the wharves. The cranes were trimmed fore and aft along the wharves and properly secured. Although they were close in to shore, they could see little here, for the periscope reached barely higher than the wharf decking and the warehouses then blocked the view. All that they could see was a silent waterfront, exactly as it would have looked upon a Sunday or a holiday, though then there would have been activity among the smaller craft. A large black dog appeared and barked at them from a wharf.
They had stayed in the river off the wharves for a couple of hours, hailing through the loud hailer at its maximum volume in tones that must have sounded all over the town. Nothing happened, for the whole town was asleep.
They turned the ship around, and went out a little way till they could see the Strand Hotel and part of the shopping centre again. They stayed there for a time, still calling and still getting no response. Then they gave up, and headed out to sea again to get clear of the Barrier Reef before the darkness fell. Apart from the radioactive information gathered by John Osborne, they had learned nothing, unless it was the purely negative information that Cairns looked exactly as it always had before. The sun shone in the streets, the flame trees brightened the far hills, the deep verandahs shaded the shopwindows of the town. A pleasant little place to live in in the tropics, though nobody lived there except, apparently, one dog.
Port Moresby had been the same. From the sea they could see nothing the matter with the town, viewed through the periscope. A merchant ship registered in Liverpool lay at anchor in the roads, a Jacob’s ladder up her side. Two more ships lay on the beach, probably having dragged their anchors in some storm. They stayed there for some hours, cruising the roads and going in to the dock, calling through the loud hailer. There was no response, but there seemed to be nothing the matter with the town. They left after a time, for there was nothing there to stay for.
Two days later they reached Port Darwin and lay in the harbour beneath the town. Here they could see nothing but the wharf, the roof of Government House, and a bit of the Darwin Hotel. Fishing boats lay at anchor and they cruised around these, hailing, and examining them through the periscope. They learned nothing, save for the inference that when the end had come the people had died tidily. “It’s what animals do,” John Osborne said. “Creep away into holes to die. They’re probably all in bed.”
“That’s enough about that,” the captain said.
“It’s true,” the scientist remarked.
“Okay, it’s true. Now let’s not talk about it any more.”
The report certainly was going to be a difficult one to write.
They had left Port Darwin as they had left Cairns and Port Moresby; they had gone back through the Torres Strait and headed southwards down the Queensland coast, submerged. By that time the strain of the cruise was telling on them; they talked little among themselves till they surfaced three days after leaving Darwin. Refreshed by a spell on deck, they now had time to think about what story they could tell about their cruise when they got back to Melbourne.
They talked of it after lunch, smoking at the wardroom table. “It’s what Swordfish found, of course,” Dwight said. “She saw practically nothing either in the States or in Europe.”
Peter reached out for the well-thumbed report that lay behind him on the cupboard top. He leafed it through again, though it had been his constant reading on the cruise. “I never thought of that,” he said slowly. “I missed that angle on it, but now that you mention it, it’s true. There’s practically nothing here about conditions on shore.”
“They couldn’t look on shore, any more than we could,” the captain said. “Nobody will ever really know what a hot place looks like. And that goes for the whole of the Northern Hemisphere.”
Peter said, “That’s probably as well.”
“I think that’s right,” said the commander. “There’s some things that a person shouldn’t want to go and see.”
John Osborne said, “I was thinking about that last night. Did it ever strike you that nobody will ever — ever — see Cairns again? Or Moresby, or Darwin?”
They stared at him while they turned over the new idea. “Nobody could see more than we’ve seen,” the captain said.
“Who else can go there, except us? And we shan’t go again. Not in the time.”
“That’s so,” Dwight said thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t think they’d send us back there again. I never thought of it that way, but I’d say you’re right. We’re the last living people that will ever see those places.” He paused. “And we saw practically nothing. Well, I think that’s right.”
Peter stirred uneasily. “That’s historical,” he said. “It ought to go on record somewhere, oughtn’t it? Is anybody writing any kind of history about these times?”
John Osborne said, “I haven’t heard of one. I’ll find out about that. After all, there doesn’t seem to be much point in writing stuff that nobody will read.”
“There should be something written, all the same,” said the American. “Even if it’s only going to be read in the next few months.” He paused. “I’d like to read a history of this last war,” he said. “I was in it for a little while, but I don’t know a thing about it. Hasn’t anybody written anything?”
“Not as a history,” John Osborne said. “Not that I know of, anyway. The information that we’ve got is all available, of course, but not as a coherent story. I think there’d be too many gaps — the things we just don’t know.”
“I’d settle for the things we do know,” the captain remarked.
“What sort of things, sir?”
“Well, as a start, ho
w many bombs were dropped? Nuclear bombs, I mean.”
“The seismic records show about four thousand seven hundred. Some of the records were pretty weak, so there were probably more than that.”
“How many of those were big ones — fusion bombs, hydrogen bombs, or whatever you call them?”
“I couldn’t tell you. Probably most of them. All the bombs dropped in the Russian-Chinese war were hydrogen bombs, I think — most of them with a cobalt element.”
“Why did they do that? Use cobalt, I mean?” Peter asked.
The scientist shrugged his shoulders. “Radiological warfare. I can’t tell you any more than that.”
“I think I can,” said the American. “I attended a commanding officers’ course at Yerba Buena, San Francisco, the month before the war. They told us what they thought might happen between Russia and China. Whether they told us what did happen six weeks later — well, your guess is as good as mine.”
John Osborne asked quietly, “What did they tell you?”
The captain considered for a minute. Then he said, “It was all tied up with the warm water ports. Russia hasn’t got a port that doesn’t freeze up in the winter except Odessa, and that’s on the Black Sea. To get out of Odessa on to the high seas the traffic has to pass two narrow straits both commanded by NATO in time of war — the Bosporus and Gibraltar. Murmansk and Vladivostok can be kept open by icebreakers in the winter, but they’re a mighty long way from any place in Russia that makes things to export.” He paused. “This guy from Intelligence said that what Russia really wanted was Shanghai.”
The scientist asked, “Is that handy for their Siberian industries?”
The captain nodded. “That’s exactly it. During the Second War they moved a great many industries way back along the Trans-Siberian railway east of the Urals, back as far as Lake Baikal. They built new towns and everything. Well, it’s a long, long way from those places to a port like Odessa. It’s only about half the distance to Shanghai.”
He paused. “There was another thing he told us,” he said thoughtfully. “China had three times the population of Russia, all desperately overcrowded in their country. Russia, next door to the north of them, had millions and millions of square miles of land she didn’t use at all because she didn’t have the people to populate it. This guy said that as the Chinese industries increased over the last twenty years, Russia got to be afraid of an attack by China. She’d have been a great deal happier if there had been two hundred million fewer Chinese, and she wanted Shanghai. And that adds up to radiological warfare. . . .”
