by Nevil Shute
He left the powerhouse and went into the office building. Here all the doors were unlocked, some of them open. The rooms on the ground floor appeared to be executive offices; here papers and signals lay strewn about the floor like dead leaves, blown by the wind. In one room a casement window was entirely missing and there was much water damage. He crossed this room and looked out of the window; the casement window frame lay on the ground below, blown from its hinges.
He went upstairs, and found the main transmitting room. There were two transmitting desks, each with a towering metal frame of grey radio equipment in front of it. One of these sets was dead and silent, the instruments all at zero.
The other set stood by the window, and here the casement had been blown from its hinges and lay across the desk. One end of the window frame projected outside the building and teetered gently in the light breeze. One of the upper corners rested on an overturned Coke bottle on the desk. The transmitting key lay underneath the frame that rested unstably above it, teetering a little in the wind.
He reached out and touched it with his gloved hand. The frame rocked on the transmitting key, and the needle of a milliammeter upon the set flipped upwards. He released the frame, and the needle fell back. There was one of U.S.S. Scorpion’s missions completed, something that they had come ten thousand miles to see, that had absorbed so much effort and attention in Australia, on the other side of the world.
He lifted the window frame from the transmitting desk and set it down carefully on the floor; the woodwork was not damaged and it could be repaired and put back in its place quite easily. Then he sat down at the desk and with gloved hand upon the key began transmitting in English and in clear.
He sent, “Santa Maria sending. U.S.S. Scorpion reporting. No life here. Closing down.” He went on repeating this message over and over again, and while he was doing so the siren blew three blasts.
As he sat there, his mind only half occupied with the mechanical repetition of the signal that he knew was almost certainly being monitored in Australia, his eyes roamed around the transmitting office. There was a carton of American cigarettes with only two packs removed that he longed for, but the captain’s orders had been very definite. There were one or two bottles of Coke. On a window sill there was a pile of copies of The Saturday Evening Post.
He finished transmitting when he judged he had been at it for twenty minutes. In the three final repetitions he added the words, “Lieutenant Sunderstrom sending. All well on board. Proceeding northwards to Alaska.” Finally he sent, “Closing down the station now, and switching off.”
He took his hand from the key and leaned back in the chair. Gee, these tubes and chokes, this milliammeter and that rotary converter down below — they’d done a mighty job. Nearly two years without any maintenance or replacement, and still functioning as well as ever! He stood up, inspected the set, and turned off three switches. Then he walked round to the back and opened a panel and looked for the name of the manufacturer on the tubes; he would have liked to send them a testimonial.
He glanced again at the carton of Lucky Strikes, but the captain was right, of course; they would be hot and it might well be death to smoke them. He left them with regret, and went downstairs. He went to the powerhouse where the converter was running, inspected the switchboard carefully, and tripped two switches. The note of the machine sank progressively in a diminuendo; he stood watching it till finally it came to rest. It had done a swell job and it would be good as ever when the bearings had been overhauled. He could not have borne to leave it running till it cracked up.
The siren blew four blasts while he was there, and his work now was over. He had still a quarter of an hour. There was everything here to be explored and nothing to be gained by doing so. In the living quarters he knew he would find bodies like the one that he had found in the latrine; he did not want to see them. In the coding room, if he broke down a door, there might be papers that would interest historians in Australia, but he could not know which they would be, and anyway the captain had forbidden him to take anything on board.
He went back and up the stairs into the transmitting office. He had a few minutes left for his own use, and he went straight to the pile of copies of The Saturday Evening Post. As he had suspected, there were three numbers issued after Scorpion had left Pearl Harbor before the outbreak of the war, that he had not seen and that no one in the ship had seen. He leafed them through avidly. They contained the three concluding instalments of the serial, The Lady and the Lumberjack. He sat down to read.
The siren blew five blasts and roused him before he was halfway through the first instalment. He must go. He hesitated for a moment, and then rolled up the three magazines and tucked them under his arm. The dinghy and his radiation suit would be hot and must be left in the locker on the outer casing of the submarine to be washed by the sea water; he could roll up these hot magazines in the deflated dinghy and perhaps they would survive, perhaps they could be decontaminated and dried out and read when they got back to the safe southern latitudes. He left the office, closing the door carefully behind him, and made his way towards the jetty.
The officers’ mess stood facing the Sound, a little way from the jetty. He had not noticed it particularly on landing, but now something about it attracted his attention and he deviated fifty yards towards it. The building had a deep verandah, facing the view. He saw now that there was a party going on there. Five men in khaki gabardine sat with two women in easy chairs around a table; in the light breeze he saw the flutter of a summer frock. On the table there were highball and old-fashioned glasses.
For a moment he was deceived, and went quickly closer. Then he stopped in horror, for the party had been going on for over a year. He broke away, and turned, and went back to the jetty, only anxious now to get back into the close confinement and the warmth of fellowship and the security of the submarine.
On deck he deflated and stowed the dinghy, wrapping up his magazines in the folds. Then he stripped quickly, put the helmet and the clothing into the locker, slammed the hatch down and secured it, and got down into the escape trunk, turning on the shower. Five minutes later he emerged into the humid stuffiness of the submarine.
John Osborne was waiting at the entrance to the trunk to run a Geiger counter over him and pass him as clean, and a minute later he was standing with a towel round his waist making his report to Dwight Towers in his cabin, the executive officer and the liaison officer beside him. “We got your signals on the radio here,” the captain said. “I don’t just know if they’ll have got them in Australia — it’s daylight all the way. It’s around eleven in the morning there. What would you say?”
“I’d say they’d have got them,” the radio officer replied. “It’s autumn there, and not too many electric storms.”
The captain dismissed him to get dressed, and turned to his executive. “We’ll stay right here tonight,” he said. “It’s seven o’clock, and dark before we reach the minefields.” With no lights he could depend upon he did not dare to risk the navigation through the minefields of the Juan de Fuca Strait during the hours of darkness. “We’re out of the tide here. Sunrise is around zero four fifteen — that’s twelve noon, Greenwich. We’ll get under way then.”
They stayed that night in the calm waters of the harbour just off Santa Maria Island, watching the shore lights through the periscope. At dawn they got under way on a reverse course, and immediately ran aground upon a mud-bank. The tide was ebbing and within a couple of hours of low water; even so there should have been a fathom of water underneath their keel according to the chart. They blew tanks to surface, and got off with ears tingling from the pressure reduction in the hull, reviling the Survey, and tried again to get away, twice, with the same result. Finally they settled down to wait irritably for the tide, and at about nine o’clock in the morning they got out into the main channel and set course northwards for the open sea.
At twenty minutes past ten Lieutenant Hirsch at the periscope said suddenly
, “Boat ahead, under way.” The executive jumped to the eyepieces, looked for a moment, and said, “Go call the captain.” When Dwight came he said, “Outboard motorboat ahead, sir. About three miles. One person in it.”
“Alive?”
“I guess so. The boat’s under way.”
Dwight took the periscope and stood looking for a long time. Then he stood back from it. “I’d say that’s Yeoman Swain,” he said quietly. “Whoever it is, he’s fishing. I’d say he’s got an outboard motorboat, and gas for it, and he’s gone fishing.”
The executive stared at him. “Well, what do you know?”
The captain stood in thought for a moment. “Go on and close the boat, and lie close up,” he said. “I’ll have a talk with him.”
There was silence in the submarine, broken only by the orders from the executive. Presently he stopped engines and reported that the boat was close aboard. Dwight took the long lead of the microphone and went to the periscope. He said, “This is the captain speaking. Good morning, Ralphie. How are you doing?”
From the speaker they all heard the response. “I’m doing fine, Cap.”
“Got any fish yet?”
In the boat the yeoman held up a salmon to the periscope. “I got one.” And then he said, “Hold on a minute, Cap — you’re getting across my line.” In the submarine Dwight grinned, and said, “He’s reeling in.”
Lieutenant Commander Farrell asked, “Shall I give her a touch ahead?”
“No — hold everything. He’s getting it clear now.”
They waited while the fisherman secured his tackle. Then he said, “Say, Cap, I guess you think me a heel, jumping ship like that.”
Dwight said, “That’s all right, fella. I know how it was. I’m not going to take you on board again, though. I’ve got the rest of the ship’s company to think about.”
“Sure, Cap, I know that. I’m hot and getting hotter every minute, I suppose.”
“How do you feel right now?”
“Okay so far. Would you ask Mr. Osborne for me how long I’ll go on that way?”
“He thinks you’ll go for a day or so, and then you’ll get sick.”
From the boat the fisherman said, “Well, it’s a mighty nice day to have for the last one. Wouldn’t it be hell if it was raining?”
Dwight laughed. “That’s the way to take it. Tell me, what are things like on shore?”
“Everybody’s dead here, Cap — but I guess you know that. I went home. Dad and Mom were dead in bed — I’d say they took something. I went around to see the girl, and she was dead. It was a mistake, going there. No dogs or cats or birds, or anything alive — I guess they’re all dead, too. Apart from that, everything is pretty much the way it always was. I’m sorry about jumping ship, Cap, but I’m glad to be home.” He paused. “I got my own car and gas for it, and I got my own boat and my own outboard motor and my own fishing gear. And it’s a fine, sunny day. I’d rather have it this way, in my own home town, than have it in September in Australia.”
“Sure, fella. I know how you feel. Is there anything you want right now, that we can put out on the deck for you? We’re on our way, and we shan’t be coming back.”
“You got any of those knockout pills on board, that you take when it gets bad? The cyanide?”
“I haven’t got those, Ralphie. I’ll put an automatic out on deck if you want it.”
The fisherman shook his head. “I got my own gun. I’ll take a look around the pharmacy when I get on shore — maybe there’s something there. But I guess the gun would be the best.”
“Is there anything else you want?”
“Thanks, Cap, but I got everything I want on shore. Without a dime to pay, either. Just tell the boys on board hullo for me.”
“I’ll do that, fella. We’ll be going on now. Good fishing.”
“Thanks, Cap. It’s been pretty good under you, and I’m sorry I jumped ship.”
“Okay. Now just watch the suck of the propellers as I go ahead.”
He turned to the executive. “Take the con, Commander. Go ahead, and then on course, ten knots.”
That evening Mary Holmes rang Moira at her home. It was a pouring wet evening in late autumn, the wind whistling around the house at Harkaway. “Darling,” she said, “there’s been a wireless signal from them. They’re all well.”
The girl gasped, for this was totally unexpected. “However did they get a signal through?”
“Commander Peterson just rang me up. It came through on the mystery station that they went to find out about. Lieutenant Sunderstrom was sending and he said they were all well. Isn’t it splendid?”
The relief was so intense that for a moment the girl felt faint. “It’s marvellous,” she whispered. “Tell me, can they get a message back to them?”
“I don’t think so. Sunderstrom said that he was closing down the station, and there wasn’t anyone alive there.”
“Oh. . . .” The girl was silent. “Well, I suppose we’ll just have to be patient.”
“Was there something you particularly wanted to send?”
“Not really. Just something I wanted to tell Dwight. But it’ll have to wait.”
“Darling! You don’t mean . . .”
“No, I don’t.”
“Are you feeling all right, dear?”
“I’m feeling much better than I was five minutes ago.” She paused. “How are you getting on, and how’s Jennifer?”
“She’s fine. We’re all right, except it’s raining all the time. Can’t you come over sometime? It’s an age since we met.”
The girl said, “I could come down one evening after work, and go up again next day.”
“Darling! That would be wonderful!”
She arrived at Falmouth station two nights later, and set herself to walk two miles up the hill in a misty drizzle. In the little flat Mary was waiting to welcome her with a bright fire in the lounge. She changed her shoes, helped Mary bath the baby and put her down, and then they got the supper. Later they sat together on the floor before the fire.
The girl asked, “When do you think they’ll be back?”
“Peter said that they’d be back about the fourteenth of June.” She reached out for a calendar upon the desk behind her. “Three more weeks — just over. I’ve been crossing off the days.”
“Do you think they’re up to time at this place — wherever they sent the wireless signal from?”
“I don’t know. I ought to have asked Commander Peterson that. I wonder if it would be all right to ring him up tomorrow and ask?”
“I shouldn’t think he’d mind.”
“I think I’ll do that. Peter says this is his last job for the navy, he’ll be unemployed after they come back. I was wondering if we couldn’t get away in June or July and have a holiday. It’s so piggy here in the winter — nothing but rain and gales.”
The girl lit a cigarette. “Where would you go to?”
“Somewhere where it’s warm. Queensland or somewhere. It’s such an awful bore not having the car. We’d have to take Jennifer by train, I suppose.”
Moira blew a long cloud of smoke. “I shouldn’t think Queensland would be very easy.”
“Because of the sickness? It’s so far away.”
“They’ve got it at Maryborough,” the girl said. “That’s only just north of Brisbane.”
“But there are plenty of warm places to go to without going right up there, aren’t there?”
“I should think there would be. But it’s coming down south pretty steadily.”
Mary twisted round and glanced at her. “Tell me, do you really think it’s going to come here?”
“I think I do.”
“You mean, we’re all going to die of it? Like the men say?”
“I suppose so.”
Mary twisted round and pulled a catalogue of garden flowers down from a muddle of papers on the settee. “I went to Wilson’s today and bought a hundred daffodils,” she said. “Bulbs. King Alfreds — th
ese ones.” She showed the picture. “I’m going to put them in that corner by the wall, where Peter took out the tree. It’s sheltered there. But I suppose if we’re all going to die that’s silly.”
“No sillier than me starting in to learn shorthand and typing,” the girl said drily. “I think we’re all going a bit mad, if you ask me. When do daffodils come up?”
“They should be flowering by the end of August,” Mary said. “Of course, they won’t be much this year, but they should be lovely next year and the year after. They sort of multiply, you know.”
“Well, of course it’s sensible to put them in. You’ll see them anyway, and you’ll sort of feel you’ve done something.”
Mary looked at her gratefully. “Well, that’s what I think. I mean, I couldn’t bear to — to just stop doing things and do nothing. You might as well die now and get it over.”
Moira nodded. “If what they say is right, we’re none of us going to have time to do all that we planned to do. But we can keep on doing it as long as we can.”
They sat on the hearthrug, Mary playing with the poker and the wood fire. Presently she said, “I forgot to ask you if you’d like a brandy or something. There’s a bottle in the cupboard, and I think there’s some soda.”
The girl shook her head. “Not for me. I’m quite happy.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Have you reformed, or something?”
“Or something,” said the girl. “I never tip it up at home. Only when I’m out at parties, or with men. With men particularly. Matter of fact, I’m even getting tired of that, now.”
“It’s not men, is it, dear? Not now. It’s Dwight Towers.”
“Yes,” the girl said. “It’s Dwight Towers.”
