On the Beach by Nevil Shute Sep 22, 2022

 

The cover of the book owned by Saras’ father

The Kochi Reading Group's book selection for September was the apocalyptic novel On The Beach by Nevil Shute. Published in 1957, the novel presents a group of people in Melbourne waiting for a deadly radiation to reach them from the Northern Hemisphere. Two movies were made based on the book, one in 1959 directed by Stanley Kramer starring Gregory Peck as the Commander of the US submarine, Dwight Towers, and Ava Gardner as Moira Davidsson, the love interest. Again filmed in 2000 with the date of the action changed to 2006.

The book evoked strong feelings in all KRG members. KumKum called it “boring” and complained initially to Priya and Thommo about their book selection – though to be fair to her, she felt the book became interesting as she read on. There was also  vehement criticism of the book by Joe especially pertaining to the technical aspects of the command and control of nuclear weapons. When you read Joe's commentary on his reading selection, you will get a very succinct understanding of why such a situation is unlikely to happen in this present time. The rest of the group fell somewhere in between, where many felt that the scenario was quite possible and wondered about the eerie coincidence of the Russia-Ukaraine war going on right now and the similarities with the Covid Pandemic in 2020.

The book was first published as a four-part serial in the Sunday Graphic in April 1957. The term “on the beach” is a Royal Navy term meaning "“retired from service.”

The title also refers to T. S. Elliot's poem The Hollow Men, which includes the lines:

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river.

Later printings of the novel included the above lines of Eliot's poem along with the closing lines on the title page under the author's name 

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

Thomo in his introduction of the author said that while he was reading the book he happened to listen to Carl Sagan, the famous cosmologist, who said the same thing: that in the event of a nuclear catastrophe, the world would not come to an end, we would die but the world would carry on as before. Life as we know it would disappear. Priya felt that the author was trying to caution people.

Poster of the 1959 film starring Gregory Peck as Captain Dwight and Ava Gardner as Moira

Thomo and Geetha saw the 2000 movie based on the book and said that it was set in a later time than the 1961 in the book. In the 2000 movie, scientist John Osborne crashes his Ferrari to end his life, differing significantly from the book where dies of carbon monoxide poisoning, starting his car and sitting in the closed garage. Thomo felt that if he had made the movie, he would have shown Osborne crashing his car in the race, which he felt was an appropriate way to die for a race-car enthusiast.

                      Poster of the film made in 2000

Author Bio (by Thomo)

Author Nevil Shute

 

Nevil Shute (full name Nevil Shute Norway) was born on  17 January 1899 was an English novelist and aeronautical engineer who lived in England till early 1950 and then migrated to Australia. In his engineering career he used his full name, but shortened it to Nevil Shute as his pen name as an author. Apparently he did that in order to protect his engineering career at Vickers Aircraft Company, his employer at the time, who might think he was not a dedicated enginneer. It might  also have been to shield his engineering career from potentially adverse publicity in connection with his novels such as On the Beach and A Town Like Alice.

Shute attended the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich and trained as a gunner. He was unable to take up a commission in the Royal Flying Corps during WWI. He thought that was because he had a stammer.  However, he enlisted and saw action in that war. He was a pilot, too, and began his engineering career with the De Havilland Aircraft Company. 

He later left and joined Vickers where he was involved with the development of airships especially the R100 at a Vickers subsidiary where he became the Chief Engineer. 

In 1931, when the R100 project was cancelled he teamed up with A Hessel formerly with de Havilland and founded the aircraft construction company Airspeed Ltd. Airspeed Limited eventually gained recognition when its Envoy aircraft was chosen for the King's Flight. Just before WWII a military version of the Envoy was developed, called the Airspeed Oxford. 

Airspeed AS10 Oxford aircraft

The Oxford became the standard advanced multi-engined trainer for the RAF and the British Commonwealth. Over 8,500 were built.

His first published novel was Marazan, which came out in 1926. After that Shute averaged one novel every two years through the 1950s, with the exception of a six-year hiatus while he was establishing Airspeed Ltd. Sales of his books grew slowly with each novel, but he became much better known after the publication in 1957 of On the Beach, his third to last book. 

In 1948, Shute flew his own plane, the Percival Proctor to Australia and back, accompanied by the writer James Riddell, who published a book, Flight of Fancy, based on the trip, in 1950.

Percival Proctor is a British radio trainer and communications aircraft of WWII

On his return, he felt oppressed by British taxation system and he decided that he and his family would emigrate to Australia. In 1950, he settled with his wife and two daughters on farmland south-east of Melbourne

In the 1950s and 1960s he was one of the world's best-selling novelists. Between 1956 and 1958 while in Australia, he took up car racing as a hobby and raced a white Jaguar XK140. That experience seems to have found its way into On the Beach.

1956 Jaguar XK140 MC Roadster

Nevil Shute died on 12th January 1960.

Priya had this to add about the author: Nevil Shute and the Panjandrum

https://www.nevilshute.org/Engineering/JohnAnderson/topdown3.php

Shute was involved from 1940 onwards in the Navy's Department of Miscellaneous 

Weapons Development (DMWD). A full and interesting account of the work of 

DMWD is given in Gerald Pawle's book The Secret War. One of the projects with which Shute was closely involved has a rather comical side to it.

During preparations for D-Day, one perceived problem was how to breach the “Atlantic Wall” a concrete wall 10 feet high and 7 feet thick which had been built at the head of beaches along the coast of France by Germany. Breaches in the wall would be necessary for tanks, vehicles and troops to move inland. To breach the wall, it was estimated that a ton of explosive would need to be detonated against the wall. The problem was how to get the charge in place without risking lives on defended beaches. Shute was pondering this problem in 1943 when a colleague suggested a novel design. This comprised two large wheels some 10 feet in diameter with a drum of explosive held between them. Around the metal rims of the wheels slow burning cordite charges would be placed to drive the wheels in the manner of two large Catherine wheels. Shute christened the device "Panjandrum" and it was intended to be launched from a landing craft, reach speeds of up to sixty miles per hour, crash into the wall and explode

Prototypes were made and tried out on a beach in North Devon and Shute was in charge of the trials. The first trials were disappointing, Panjandrum travelled only a few hundred yards up the beach. The cordite charges were increased from 10 to 20 pounds but the problem was with the steering of Panjandrum. It had a nasty tendency to veer erratically out of control – soft sand might slow down one wheel relative to the other causing it to swerve. Remote steering by wires was tried and Pawle's book contains a photograph of Shute at the controls. Again, Panjandrum behaved unpredictably and it was just not possible to control it. On one occasion the Navy top brass arrived for a trial but this time it went wildly off course and made straight for the cine cameraman who was filming it! He hastily abandoned the filming and fled for his life. Panjandrum tipped over on its side and expired. In the tests the weight of the explosive charge was simulated by sand, so there was no danger of an explosion – only the fright of being pursued by a very large, out of control, Catherine wheel weighing over a ton.

Panjandrum never got beyond the experimental stage; it was abandoned after its unsuccessful trials. The D-Day invasions took place on beaches where either there was no sea wall or adjacent to harbours such as at Ouisterham.

In the 1959 film version (Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, etc) it was this 1955 Ferrari 750 Monza that featured 

Full Account and a Record of the Reading on September 22, 2022

Arundhaty

Arundhaty

Arundhaty chose to read from the part where Dwight and Moira spend time together for the first time. Here is where the reader gets the first indication of the gravity of the situation. When she started reading the book, Arundhaty felt depressed and hoped that there would be some kind of miracle to save these doomed people. For her, the beauty of the book was in the depiction of love and longing and the blossoming of an intimate friendship between Dwight and Moira. The character arc of Moira was interesting. We see Moira as a frivolous person initially, a hard drinker (brandy was her poison) ready for fun. But after meeting Dwight, her character matures, and she becomes someone who really understands Dwight. She loves him and does not want to spoil his illusion of his family back in the United States, even though he knows that they are dead by now. Dwight on the other hand, is sent on a purposeless mission but is calm and just looks at the job at hand and his call to duty . Arundhaty felt that the intention of the author was to bring home the fact that where wars, especially nuclear wars were concerned, all were at risk. A nuclear war would not spare anybody, even those who initiate the war. Ego comes into play and people do not know how to stop the mayhem once it begins. Even now artillery shelling is going on near the huge nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world with six reactors whose combined output of power is 5,700 MWe.

‘On the Beach’ is an unusual apocalyptic story where , in spite of such a catastrophic situation, there is no panic, no scramble, no stampede, no desperation. People go about their business till the very end some planing for the future, others pursuing their passion . It is a great story of human fortitude.

Saras

Saras

Saras had read On the Beach long ago while in high school; there was a whole collection of fiction in her father’s library. At the time the book did not appeal to her as much as Nevil Shute’s other books like Town like Alice, Pied Piper and a personal favourite, Chequer Board. 

While reading it again Saras was struck by two things, one was how similar some of the situations were to the Covid 19 pandemic that we went through in 2020 – the empty streets, people staying at home, and the introspection that many people went through about the life they lead. The other thing was that if such a situation were to happen in the present age, would people behave in a similar manner? The world, Saras felt, has become very selfish and people very demanding. We would surely have seen many riots and skirmishes in cities and towns with people leaving in hordes  to escape the toxic fumes that are coming south with the winds. 

While discussing the book with Devika, Devika made an observation that if all the people are in the same boat, maybe people would behave as they did in Shute’s book – with decorum and resignation. In fact, characters in Shute’s novels do not express intense emotions or self-pity. 

Saras chose to read the portion where Peter Holmes and his wife Mary plan their garden for the next ten years. When Moira Davidson sees them do it, she is amazed that they do not discern that none of them would be alive in a few short months. Commander Towers forbids her from explaining the situation to Mary saying that there was no harm in people believing as they wished. Peter Holmes is well aware of the situation and what will happen in the future and is prepared. Mary though, is the character in the novel who is in denial and does not understand that life as they know it would be extinguished soon. She is forced to face the inevitable when Peter explains to her how to administer the poison injection to their daughter before taking a suicide pill herself, in case she falls ill while he is on his tour of duty on the submarine. Mary is appalled and furious; later she reluctantly accepts the inevitable.

Geetha

 

Geetha

Geetha found the concept of the time capsule fascinating. There is a group of people in the book who are engaged in the task of preparing a time capsule for those who may live come after them, which will explain what happened to mankind.

The idea of a time capsule is an old one, the earliest reference being in the Epic of Gilgamesh where the story begins with instructions on how to find a copper box located in the foundations of the great walls of the city of Uruk, the capital. This was almost 5000 years ago. Many countries including India have time capsules,
with the US dominating the craze. The earliest one in the US was in the 1795 by the Governor of Massachusetts, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere; it is buried in the cornerstone of the Massachusetts State House. The body gathering information and keeping track of time capsules is the International Time Capsule Society, which estimates that there are between 10,000 to 15,000 of them worldwide.

Geetha said the remarkable thing was that people were carrying on as normal, not wanting to accept the catastrophe that is about to befall them. Shobha said in the present day Google in the cloud would play the role of a time capsule. In 1977 aboard the Voyagers 1 and 2 spacecraft, a time capsule called the Golden Records was designed and launched into outer space as a greeting to whatever intelligent alien the spacecraft might meet beyond the solar system.

Shoba

Shobha

The novel On the Beach, by Nevil Shute explores the lives of a few people in Melbourne, who are awaiting certain death following a nuclear war. Shobha was interested to see how the different characters in the book faced their inevitable end. The younger generation was trying to do as much as possible, trying to tick off items on their bucket list, as it were. John Osborne was an example: he loved racing though he had never raced before. He went ahead and fulfilled his desire. 

Whereas the older generation preferred to be at home in order to meet their end in surroundings familiar to them. Moira's father was a case in point. He says that he would like to be sitting on the verandah, in his chair with a drink, when his time came. Having lived to a certain age, the thought of dying did not cause him pain or worry. He was happy to be at home with his wife while meeting his end. 

Shoba said that people of different ages had differing reactions when doomsday confronted them. The book also throws light on the fact that nuclear war is a constant threat and that the war-like decisions taken by a small group of powerful people can have disastrous effects on the whole world.

Priya said it reminded her of Mr Ken Bandy who was an elderly gentleman living in Cochin Club. During the Tsunami evacuations in 2006, he refused to leave the club preferring to stay there to meet his fate. The staff at Cochin Club also decided to stay with him.

Thomo

Thomo

The portion that Thomo chose to read was a continuation of Shoba's chosen  passage in its theme where John Osborne the scientist is able to fulfil his heart's desire to own and race a Ferrari.  As a car enthusiast himself, Thomo  empathised with Osborne. Thomo was not very happy with the 2000 version of  the movie  which did not do justice to this aspect of the book and the race car does not have much significance in the movie. Thomo said that if he knew his life were to end he would go out and do all the things he wanted to do and racing a car was one of them. Thomo would want to go out with a bang!

Priya

Priya

Priya chose the passage when seaman Ralph Swain chooses to get off the submarine in his hometown, a place close to Washington state. He will not return but meets his inevitable end in his home where his parents lay dead in their bed; and his girlfriend too has died.

The passage is an exchange between Commander Dwight Tower and the seaman Swain who apologises for jumping ship. The conversation is telling as it displays human traits in the time of an emergency. Commander Towers sticks to his line of duty, while seaman Swain chooses to handle his existential call in a more human manner. Both are right in their own way and understand that.

It reminded Priya of the Hindi film Bombay on the 26/11 attacks when the staff of Hotel Taj Mahal were given a choice to escape from the back door and save their life, or stay back and save their customers from the terrorists. Those who left were not judged.

The fishing, a recurring motif, which Swain indulges in also proves the calmness with which he and many other characters are meeting their fate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lc1cl69Ffo
In this video clip from the 1959 film he sailor Ralph Swain jumps off the submarine to go ashore and won’t be taken back

Priya felt that this was one portion in the book where there was some suspense -– who was sending the radio messages and was there any kind of life still left on the northern hemisphere?

Devika

Devika

When Devika started reading On the Beach, it got her thinking as to how one copes with situations like this ... but then realised that when the whole world is ending and all one’s near and dear ones are dying at the same time, then there is no particular person for us to mourn, or to mourn for us. Depressing , yes, but we have to look at taking one day at a time. We know from the beginning that things are not going to end well and here we have each character looking at ways and means of ending life.

In between all this there are amusing facts too ... like the wine committee storing expensive wines for an uncertain future, and the Wildlife Commission not wanting to open the fishing season even a fortnight in advance as the fish wouldn't have finished spawning and that could ruin fishing in the years to come!

For Devika, this was really funny and a few such absurd thoughts here and there helped her finish the book.

Priya asked: were all the people living in denial, or in the hope that something would save them? And was it better to live like that on Ruy de Lopez sherry and stiff brandies?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9sIPJ-yGjc

In this video clip from the 1959 film the people, including Dwight and Moira, enjoy the early trout-fishing season, while singing Waltzing Matilda, the famous Australian song.

KumKum

Kumkum

Nevil Shute's novel On The Beach is an apocalyptic story. Historian David McCullourgh, writing for the New York Times, called it “the most haunting evocation we have of a world dying of radiation.” Radiation has destroyed most of the world, when the story of the novel takes place near Melbourne, Australia. Even there it was not safe; cases of radiation sickness had already surfaced in Adelaide and Sydney.

KumKum chose to read a portion where the young mother, Mary Holmes has ignored the radiation news from other cities in Australia, for she was living in the present with her year-old daughter, Jennifer. She had planted a garden and was happy to see the narcissus bulbs and daffodils beginnning to blossom in early August. The present feeling of euphoria satisfied her, and she didn't wish to see beyond that.

KumKum found it intriguing to read the reactions of the individuals who lived near the beach. Some people were afraid and apprehensive, others were almost oblivious of the fact that the end was near for them too. Commander Dwight Towers had managed to blot out the disaster that had already killed his wife and two children in Connecticut, USA. Moira Davidson was fully aware of the situation, yet she chose to play along with her accidental love, Dwight, but she did not insist on taking their close friendship to the level of sexual consummation. She was happy living with whatever joy the present afforded.

KumKum learned the phrase ‘On the beach’ is a Royal Navy term that means ‘retired.’ World War III would definitely bring an end to all human services and lives. Many bombs used in this war had radioactive cobalt in them which made them deadly over time for humans.

KumKum is not a car enthusiast, but she knows our fellow reader Thomo is. He must have been thrilling for him to encounter in the novel the names of so many fancy cars: Ferrari, Jaguar, Maserati, Gipsy-Lotus, Thunderbird, Bentley, Bugatti and smaller cars like the Morris Minor.

Initially, KumKum was not happy with the prospect of reading a novel of doom. She complained to Thomo and Priya who selected the book for the group. She changed her mind as she began to immerse herself in the story. She thought it was beautifully written, and reflects a quite probable disaster story. She marvelled at how well the author had depicted each character and the effect of the approaching disaster on them. An old wine enthusiast was more concerned if they would be able to consume 400 bottles of fine sherry Ruy de Lopez that was stored in the club cellar before the radiation finished them off.

And, what an ominous coincidence that KRG should read this book at a time when the real war between Russia and Ukraine that might spell nuclear catastrophe.

Joe

Joe, on the beach, in Fort Kochi

Joe read a passage from Ch 9 where there is a brief discussion of how this whole disaster took place.

The novel is one of unrelieved gloom from beginning to end. Page after page there is discussion on the impending arrival of the radioactivity in southern Australia. It has already engulfed the northern territories like Darwin. And more or less all of the Northern hemisphere. We wait and hope for some good news, like the Jorgensen effect which would imply a slowing down of the radioactivity spread. But every hope of finding survivors is dashed as the submarine Scorpion makes forays as far as Seattle but finds no sign of humans. In many parts of the sea the radioactivity is high enough on the surface that the submarine has to voyage entirely submerged.

The novel once or twice discusses how the conflict came about which began as a Chinese-Russian hostility to acquire territory, but very small countries like Albania were instigators – it is not clear how. In a very quick initial round of hostile exchanges they used, not atom bombs or thermonuclear weapons, but radiological weapons – exploding bombs that don’t destroy anything by a blast, but generate tonnes of radioactive Cobalt-60 dust. Cobalt-60 emits gamma rays and has a half-life of a little over 5 years. But so numerous were the cobalt bombs used on both sides, perhaps thousands of them, that in the very first round they eliminated the leadership on all sides, and no statesmen were left to negotiate an end to the war which would end by killing off everybody. More and more Cobalt-60 bombs enveloped the atmosphere in a lethal cloud of radioactivity. Most of the population was finished off within weeks in the N Hemisphere as the wind took it across continents.

Aside 1
In all the nuclear accidents that have threatened humanity to date some were very explicit like the Cuban Missile Crisis; others were nuclear alerts when the Soviets thought a nuclear launch had been done by the US and their radar picked up a threat they thought they should respond to, but did not at the last minute. There have been half a dozen cases where the US and USSR came very close to an exchange of nuclear weapons. It was never one of the tiny states like Albania, or Croatia, or Egypt that Nevil Shute talks about that triggered a nuclear alert or an actual disaster. It was the biggies with thousands of nuclear weapons who were involved, and continue to be a danger to the whole world. They are not going to use radiological weapons; they are threatening the use of thermonuclear weapons 10 to 100 times more powerful than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. The modern megaton weapons could wipe out and vaporise a major metropolis and surrounding areas in 10-km radius in a flash; of course, they would leave radioactivity behind also, but the prime destruction would be caused by the extremely high temperature and the incredible pressure generated by the blast.

Aside 2
When it is a said that ‘couple of hundred million people all decide‘, we are confronted with a complete travesty and misunderstanding of the command and control of nuclear weapons by the nations who possess them. 

You would have read about the nuclear football with codes that the US President is accompanied by everywhere he goes; and should he give the authorisation code to launch, the consequence is not that the ICBMs immediately get launched – no, in fact, when the general in charge of the US nuclear forces was questioned when Mr Trump was President, he answered, no, he does not launch the missiles on command. Instead it is their duty to offer the President alternatives to what could be a mutually assured destruction (MAD). Priya said what about the N Korean weapons. Joe replied it still won’t be 26 million N Koreans agitating for nuclear war; it will be the decision of Kim Jong-un and a coterie of his top generals and advisers.

Arundhaty said this is the case even for ordinary war – it is the leaders who decide. Joe said exactly so, and the more destructive and more lethal the weapons are the more tight is the control on their use, and the more safety measures that guard against their instant or inadvertent use. Saras thought that in 1957 when the novel was written barely 12 years after the end of WWII such controls might not have existed.

Joe demurred, saying that from the very first use of nuclear weapons by the US against Japan, the rigour started by first having to decide whether they should explode a test bomb over an uninhabited area and invite Japanese scientists to witness it so that Japan could be warned to surrender, or else … Even before that there was concerted opposition by US scientists who vouched that the entire Manhattan Project to create the atom bomb was to pre-empt Nazi Germany and by now it was clear Germany did not have any such weapon, and by August 1945 Nazi Germany had already been defeated. Truman’s justification was that Japan would never surrender and it would require a military invasion of Japan with tremendous loss of American lives to defeat Japan.

The Readings

Arundhaty Ch 1 – Moira Davidson and Dwight Towers, the submarine captain, have a talk about the possible points to which the Scorpion would journey, and the possibility of finding any survivors 

“You were up late last night?” he asked. She nodded. “And the night before.” “I’d say you might try going to bed early, once in a while.” “What’s the use?” she demanded. “What’s the use of anything now?” He did not try to answer that, and presently she asked, “Why is Peter joining you in Scorpion, Dwight?” “He’s our new liaison officer,” he told her. “Did you have one before him?” He shook his head. “We never had one before.” “Why have they given you one now?” “I wouldn’t know,” he replied. “Maybe we’ll be going for a cruise in Australian waters. I’ve had no orders, but that’s what people tell me. The captain seems to be about the last person they tell in this navy.” “Where do they say you’re going to, Dwight?” He hesitated for a moment. Security was now a thing of the past though it took a conscious effort to remember it; with no enemy in all the world there was little but the force of habit in it. “People are saying we’re to make a little cruise up to Port Moresby,” he told her. “It may be just a rumour, but that’s all I know.” “But Port Moresby’s out, isn’t it?” “I believe it is. They haven’t had any radio from there for quite a while.” “But you can’t go on shore there if it’s out, can you?” “Somebody has to go and see, sometime,” he said. “We wouldn’t go outside the hull unless the radiation level’s near to normal. If it’s high I wouldn’t even surface. But someone has to go and see, sometime.” He paused and there was silence in the starlight, in the garden. “There’s a lot of places someone ought to go and see,” he said at last. “There’s radio transmission still coming through from someplace near Seattle. It doesn’t make any sense, just now and then a kind of jumble of dots and dashes. Sometimes a fortnight goes by, and then it comes again. It could be somebody’s alive up there, doesn’t know how to handle the set. There’s a lot of funny things up in the Northern Hemisphere that someone ought to go and see.” “Could anybody be alive up there?” “I wouldn’t think so. It’s not quite impossible. He’d have to be living in an hermetically sealed room with all air filtered as it comes in and all food and water stored in with him some way. I wouldn’t think it practical.” She nodded. “Is it true that Cairns is out, Dwight?” “I think it is—Cairns and Darwin. Maybe we’ll have to go and see those, too. Maybe that’s why Peter has been drafted into Scorpion. He knows those waters.” “Somebody was telling Daddy that they’ve got radiation sickness in Townsville now. Do you think that’s right?” “I don’t really know—I hadn’t heard it. But I’d say it might be right. It’s south of Cairns.” “It’s going to go on spreading down here, southwards, till it gets to us?” “That’s what they say.” “There never was a bomb dropped in the Southern Hemisphere,” she said angrily. “Why must it come to us? Can’t anything be done to stop it?” He shook his head. “Not a thing. It’s the winds. It’s mighty difficult to dodge what’s carried on the wind. You just can’t do it. You’ve got to take what’s coming to you, and make the best of it.” “I don’t understand it,” she said stubbornly. “People were saying once that no wind blows across the equator, so we’d be all right. And now it seems we aren’t all right at all. . . .” “We’d never have been all right,” he said quietly. “Even if they’d been correct about the heavy particles—the radioactive dust—which they weren’t, we’d still have got the lightest particles carried by diffusion. We’ve got them now. The background level of the radiation here, today, is eight or nine times what it was before the war.” 

Zakia Ch 2 – Moira is taken down to the submarine and she continues talking to Dwight Towers about anyone possibly surviving; but she can’t stand being in the submarine any longer. 

She stared down the narrow alleyway outside the curtain forming the cabin wall, the running maze of pipes and electric cables. “Can you visualize it, Dwight?” “Visualize what?” “All those cities, all those fields and farms, with nobody, and nothing left alive. Just nothing there. I simply can’t take it in.” “I can’t, either,” he said. “I don’t know that I want to try. I’d rather think of them the way they were.” “I never saw them, of course,” she observed. “I’ve never been outside Australia, and now I’ll never go. Not that I want to, now. I only know all those places from the movies and the books—that’s as they were. I don’t suppose there’ll ever be a movie made of them as they are now.” He shook his head. “It wouldn’t be possible. A camera-man couldn’t live, as far as I can see. I guess nobody will ever know what the Northern Hemisphere looks like now, excepting God.” He paused. “I think that’s a good thing. You don’t want to remember how a person looked when he was dead— you want to remember how he was when he was alive. That’s the way I like to think about New York.” “It’s too big,” she repeated. “I can’t take it in.” “It’s too big for me, too,” he replied. “I can’t really believe in it, just can’t get used to the idea. I suppose it’s lack of imagination. I don’t want to have any more imagination. They’re all alive to me, those places in the States, just like they were. I’d like them to stay that way till next September.” She said softly, “Of course.” He stirred. “Have another cup of tea?” “No, thanks.” He took her out on deck again; she paused on the bridge rubbing a bruised shin, breathing the sea air gratefully. “It must be the hell of a thing to be submerged in her for any length of time,” she said. “How long will you be underwater for this cruise?” “Not long,” he said. “Six or seven days, maybe.” “It must be terribly unhealthy.” “Not physically,” he said. “You do suffer from a lack of sunlight. We’ve got a couple of sunray lamps, but they’re not the same as being out on deck. It’s the psychological effect that’s worst. Some men—good men in every other way— they just can’t take it. Everybody gets kind of on edge after a while. You need a steady kind of temperament. Kind of placid, I’d say.” She nodded, thinking that it fitted in with his own character. “Are all of you like that?” “I’d say we might be. Most of us.” “Keep an eye on John Osborne,” she remarked. “I don’t believe he is.” He glanced at her in surprise. He had not thought of that, and the scientist had survived the trial trip quite well. But now that she had mentioned it, he wondered. “Why—I’ll do that,” he said. “Thanks for the suggestion.” They went up the gangway into Sydney. In the hangar of the aircraft carrier there were still aircraft parked with folded wings; the ship seemed dead and silent. She paused for a moment. “None of these will ever fly again, will they?” “I wouldn’t think so.” “Do any aeroplanes fly now, at all?” “I haven’t heard one in the air for quite a while,” he said. “I know they’re short of aviation gas.” She walked quietly with him to the cabin, unusually subdued. As she got out of the boiler suit and into her own clothes her spirits revived. These morbid bloody ships, these morbid bloody realities! She was urgent to get away from them, to drink, hear music, and to dance. Before the mirror, before the pictures of his wife and children, she made her lips redder, her cheeks brighter, her eyes sparkling. Snap out of it! Get right outside these riveted steel walls, and get out quick. This was no place for her. Into the world of romance, of makebelief and double brandies! Snap out of it, and get back to the world where she belonged! From the photograph frames Sharon looked at her with understanding and approval. 

 Saras Ch 4 – Moira and Dwight can’t get over the futility of Peter and Mary Holmes planting a vegetable garden 

They went on happily planning their garden for the next ten years, and the morning passed very quickly. When Moira and Dwight came back from church they were still at it. They were called into consultation on the layout of the kitchen garden. Presently Peter and Mary went into the house, the former to get drinks and the latter to get the lunch. The girl glanced at the American. “Someone’s crazy,” she said quietly. “Is it me or them?” “Why do you say that?” “They won’t be here in six months’ time. I won’t be here. You won’t be here. They won’t want any vegetables next year.” Dwight stood in silence for a moment, looking out at the blue sea, the long curve of the shore. “So what?” he said at last. “Maybe they don’t believe it. Maybe they think that they can take it all with them and have it where they’re going to, someplace. I wouldn’t know.” He paused. “The thing is, they just kind of like to plan a garden. Don’t you go and spoil it for them, telling them they’re crazy.” “I wouldn’t do that.” She stood in silence for a minute. “None of us really believe it’s ever going to happen—not to us,” she said at last. “Everybody’s crazy on that point, one way or another.” “You’re very right,” he said emphatically.

 Geetha Ch 4 – A discussion about an attempt to preserve the history and language for posterity when someone may want to know what happened and who were the people who became extinct.

 “Isn’t Alice Springs just about on the tropic?” “It might be. I wouldn’t know. That’s in the middle of a land mass, too, of course.” The girl asked, “Does it go quicker down a coast than in the middle?” Dwight shook his head. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t think they’ve got any evidence on that, one way or the other.” Peter laughed. “They’ll know by the time it gets here. Then they can etch it on the glass.” The girl wrinkled her brows. “Etch it on the glass?” “Hadn’t you heard about that one?” She shook her head. “John Osborne told me about it, yesterday,” he said. “It seems that somebody in C.S.I.R.O. is getting busy with a history, about what’s happened to us. They do it on glass bricks. They etch it on the glass and then they fuse another brick down on the top of it in some way, so that the writing’s in the middle.” Dwight turned upon his elbow, interested. “I hadn’t heard of that. What are they going to do with them?” “Put them up on top of Mount Kosciusko,” Peter said. “It’s the highest peak in Australia. If ever the world gets inhabited again they must go there sometime. And it’s not so high as to be inaccessible.” “Well, what do you know? They’re really doing that, are they?” “So John says. They’ve got a sort of concrete cellar made up there. Like in the Pyramids.” The girl asked, “But how long is this history?” “I don’t know. I don’t think it can be very long. They’re doing it with pages out of books, though, too. Sealing them in between sheets of thick glass.” “But these people who come after,” the girl said. “They won’t know how to read our stuff. They may be . . . animals.” “I believe they’ve gone to a lot of trouble about that. First steps in reading. Picture of a cat, and then C-A-T and all that sort of thing. John said that was about all that they’d got finished so far.” He paused. “I suppose it’s something to do,” he said thoughtfully. “Keeps the wise men out of mischief.” “A picture of a cat won’t do them much good,” Moira remarked. “There won’t be any cats. They won’t know what a cat is.” “A picture of a fish might be better,” said Dwight. “F-I-S-H. Or—say—a picture of a sea gull.” “You’re getting into awful spelling difficulties.” The girl turned to Peter curiously. “What sort of books are they preserving? All about how to make the cobalt bomb?” “God forbid.” They laughed. “I don’t know what they’re doing. I should think a copy of the Encyclopaedia Britannica would make a good kickoff, but there’s an awful lot of it. I really don’t know what they’re doing. John Osborne might know—or he could find out.” “Just idle curiosity,” she said. “It won’t affect you or me.” She stared at him in mock consternation. “Don’t tell me they’re preserving any of the newspapers. I just couldn’t bear it.” “I shouldn’t think so,” he replied. “They’re not as crazy as that.” Dwight sat up on the sand. “All this beautiful warm water going to waste,” he remarked. “I think we ought to use it.” Moira stood up. “Make the most of it,” she agreed. “There’s not much of it left.” Peter yawned. “You two go and use the water. I’ll use the sun.” They left him lying on the beach and went into the sea together. 

Shoba Ch 4 – The finality of the end does not faze a cattleman who does not plan to leave on the odd chance he’ll get another month’s lease of life Tasmania.

 “Nice outlook,” said the grazier. “Will you have another whisky now?” “Thank you, I believe I will.” He stood up and poured himself a drink. “You know,” he said, “now that I’ve got used to the idea, I think I’d rather have it this way. We’ve all got to die one day, some sooner and some later. The trouble always has been that you’re never ready, because you don’t know when it’s coming. Well, now we do know, and there’s nothing to be done about it. I kind of like that. I kind of like the thought that I’ll be fit and well up till the end of August and then—home. I’d rather have it that way than go on as a sick man from when I’m seventy to when I’m ninety.” “You’re a regular naval officer,” the grazier said. “You’re probably more accustomed to this sort of thing than I would be.” “Will you evacuate?” the captain asked. “Go someplace else when it gets near? Tasmania?” “Me? Leave this place?” the grazier said. “No, I shan’t go. When it comes, I’ll have it here, on this verandah, in this chair, with a drink in my hand. Or else in my own bed. I wouldn’t leave this place.”

Thomo Ch 5 – Racing the Ferrari fulfils his life’s ambition for Osborne John 

Osborne started up his Ferrari and drove it out upon the road. There was no positive prohibition upon motoring at that time. There was no petrol available to anybody because officially there was no petrol in the country; the stocks reserved for doctors and for hospitals had been used up. Yet very occasionally cars were still seen in motion on the roads. Each individual motorist had cans of petrol tucked away in his garage or in some private hiding place, provision that he had made when things were getting short, and these reserves were sometimes called upon in desperate emergency. John Osborne’s Ferrari on the road did not call for any action by the police, even when his foot slipped upon the unfamiliar accelerator on his first drive and he touched eighty-five in second gear in Bourke Street, in the middle of the city. Unless he were to kill anybody, the police were not disposed to prosecute him for a trifle such as that. He did not kill anybody, but he frightened himself very much. There was a private road racing-circuit in South Gippsland near a little place called Tooradin, owned and run by a club of enthusiasts. Here there was a three mile circuit of wide bitumen road, privately owned, leading nowhere, and closed to the public. The course had one long straight and a large number of sinuous turns and bends. Here races were still held, sparsely attended by the public for lack of road transport. Where the enthusiasts got their petrol from remained a closely guarded secret, or a number of secrets, because each seemed to have his own private hoard, as John Osborne hoarded his eight drums of special racing fuel in his mother’s back garden.John Osborne took his Ferrari down to this place several times, at first for practice and later to compete in races, short races for the sake of fuel economy. The car fulfilled a useful purpose in his life. His had been the life of a scientist, a man whose time was spent in theorising in an office or, at best, in a laboratory. Not for him had been the life of action. He was not very well accustomed to taking personal risks, to endangering his life, and his life had been the poorer for it. When he had been drafted to the submarine for scientific duties he had been pleasurably excited by the break in his routine, but in secret he had been terrified each time that they submerged. He had managed to control himself and carry out his duties without much of his nervous tension showing during their week of underwater cruising in the north, but he had been acutely nervous of the prospect of nearly a month of it in the cruise that was coming. 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 realisation of mistakes that he must never make again, with the realisation 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. 

Priya Ch 6 – Ralphie, the sailor who jumped ship when he got close to his home port won’t be taken aboard again, because he’s radioactive; he is reconciled to his fate. 

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.” 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.” 

Devika Ch 7 – a conversation about four hundred bottle of a classic Spanish sherry going waste. Offering it at the same price as the local sherry is a boon, and also opening the trout-fishing season early so people may enjoy one last fling.

 A fortnight later, in the Pastoral Club, Mr. Alan Sykes walked into the little smoking room for a drink at twenty minutes past twelve. Lunch was not served till one o’clock so he was the first in the room; he helped himself to a gin and stood alone, considering his problem. Mr. Sykes was the director of the State Fisheries and Game Department, a man who liked to run his businesses upon sound lines regardless of political expediency. The perplexities of the time had now invaded his routine, and he was a troubled man. Sir Douglas Froude came into the room. Mr. Sykes, watching him, thought that he was walking very badly and that his red face was redder than ever. He said, “Good morning, Douglas. I’m in the book.” “Oh, thank you, thank you,” said the old man. “I’ll take a Spanish sherry with you.” He poured it with a trembling hand. “You know,” he said, “I think the Wine Committee must be absolutely crazy. We’ve got over four hundred bottles of magnificent dry sherry, Ruy de Lopez, 1947, and they seem to be prepared to let it stay there in the cellars. They said the members wouldn’t drink it because of the price. I told them, I said—give it away, if you can’t sell it. But don’t just leave it there. So now it’s the same price as the Australian.” He paused. “Let me pour you a glass, Alan. It’s in the most beautiful condition.” “I’ll have one later. Tell me, didn’t I hear you say once that Bill Davidson was a relation of yours?” The old man nodded shakily. “Relation, or connection. Connection, I think. His mother married my . . . married my— No, I forget. I don’t seem to remember things like I used to.” “Do you know his daughter Moira?” “A nice girl, but she drinks too much. Still, she does it on brandy they tell me, so that makes a difference.” “She’s been making some trouble for me.” “Eh?” “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. 

KumKum Ch 8 – Peter and Mary Holmes worry about their baby who is restless and meanwhile keep busy with the garden.

In Mary Holmes’ garden the first narcissus bloomed on the first day of August, the day the radio announced, with studied objectivity, cases of radiation sickness in Adelaide and Sydney. The news did not trouble her particularly; all news was bad, like wage demands, strikes, or war, and the wise person paid no attention to it. What was important was that it was a bright, sunny day; her first narcissus were in bloom, and the daffodils behind them were already showing flower buds. “They’re going to be a picture,” she said happily to Peter. “There are so many of them. Do you think some of the bulbs can have sent up two shoots?” “I shouldn’t think so,” he replied. “I don’t think they do that. They split in two and make another bulb or something.” She nodded. “We’ll have to dig them up in the autumn, after they die down, and separate them. Then we’ll get a lot more and put them along here. They’re going to look marvellous in a year or two.” She paused in thought. “We’ll be able to pick some then, and have them in the house.” One thing troubled her upon that perfect day, that Jennifer was cutting her first tooth, and was hot and fractious. Mary had a book called Baby’s First Year which told her that this was normal, and nothing to worry about, but she was troubled all the same. “I mean,” she said, “they don’t know everything, the people who write these books. And all babies aren’t the same, anyway. She oughtn’t to keep crying like this, ought she? Do you think we ought to get in Dr. Halloran?” “I shouldn’t think so,” Peter said. “She’s chewing her rusk all right.” “She’s so hot, the poor little lamb.” She picked up the baby from her cot and started patting it on the back across her shoulder; the baby had intended that, and stopped yelling. Peter felt that he could almost hear the silence. “I think she’s probably all right,” he said. “Just wants a bit of company.” He felt he couldn’t stand much more of it, after a restless night with the child crying all the time and Mary getting in and out of bed to soothe it. “Look, dear,” he said, “I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve got to go up to the Navy Department. I’ve got a date in the Third Naval Member’s office at eleven forty-five.” “What about the doctor, though? Don’t you think he ought to see her?” “I wouldn’t worry him. The book says she may be upset for a couple of days. Well, she’s been going on for thirty-six hours now.” By God, she has, he thought. “It might be something different—not teeth at all. Cancer, or something. After all, she can’t tell us where the pain is. . . .” “Leave it till I get back,” he said. “I should be back here around four o’clock, or five at the latest. Let’s see how she is then.” “All right,” she said reluctantly. 

Joe Ch 9 – On how the silliness all happened 

Presently she said, “Peter, why did all this happen to us? Was it because Russia and China started fighting each other?” He nodded. “That’s about the size of it,” he said. “But there was more to it than that. America and England and Russia started bombing for destruction first. The whole thing started with Albania.” “But we didn’t have anything to do with it at all, did we—here in Australia?” “We gave England moral support,” he told her. “I don’t think we had time to give her any other kind. The whole thing was over in a month.” “Couldn’t anyone have stopped it?” “I don’t know. . . . Some kinds of silliness you just can’t stop,” he said. “I mean, if a couple of hundred million people all decide that their national honour requires them to drop cobalt bombs upon their neighbour, well, there’s not much that you or I can do about it. The only possible hope would have been to educate them out of their silliness.” “But how could you have done that, Peter? I mean, they’d all left school.” “Newspapers,” he said. “You could have done something with newspapers. We didn’t do it. No nation did, because we were all too silly. We liked our newspapers with pictures of beach girls and headlines about cases of indecent assault, and no government was wise enough to stop us having them that way. But something might have been done with newspapers, if we’d been wise enough.” She did not fully comprehend his reasoning. “I’m glad we haven’t got newspapers now,” she said. “It’s been much nicer without them.” A spasm shook her, and he helped her to the bathroom. While she was in there he came back to the sitting room and stood looking at his baby. It was in a bad way, and there was nothing he could do to help it; he doubted now if it would live through the night. Mary was in a bad way, too, though not quite so bad as that. The only one of them who was healthy was himself, and that he must not show. The thought of living on after Mary appalled him. He could not stay in the flat; in the few days that would be left to him he would have nowhere to go, nothing to do. The thought crossed his mind that if Scorpion were still in Williamstown he might go with Dwight Towers and have it at sea, the sea that had been his life’s work. But why do that? He didn’t want the extra time that some strange quirk of his metabolism had given to him. He wanted to stay with his family